Pink Prickly Pear

Conversations

So yesterday, on Mission: Bikini, I felt a little wistful as I walked into the dressing rooms.  There was a mom with a little girl about mini-pear's age.  They had come out to look at their outfits in the 3-way mirror and there was much giggling and chatter and I suddenly missed her so much.

And then, their conversation turned sour.

Girl:  I like this shirt so much better than the first one!
Mom:  It is pretty, but the brown one makes you look skinnier.
Girl:  But pink is so much prettier than brown.
Mom:  Trust me.  Get the brown one.

It took everything in me not to call out, "I wouldn't trust your mom any further than I could throw her!"  This girl couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 years old.  Even if she was a bigger girl which, incidentally, she was not, why give her a complex about it?  Why not just enjoy her health, her happiness, this fun afternoon spent trying on new clothes and chatting about the upcoming school year and the picnic this weekend?  Why spoil it, Mom?

Ugh.

*****

On a lighter note, when I picked up mini-pear from camp I was asked for my I.D. by the assistant.  While I was handing it over, a dad came in behind me to pick up his daughter.  He was looking over the sign-out sheet and then reached for a pen...

Assistant [indicating at me, but speaking to him]:  Oh, that's okay.  You don't need to sign her out as well!

It was clear she thought he was with me.  I turned to look him over and immediately saw the reason for her assumption...

Me: Oh, we're not together.  I don't know that tattooed man.

Camp!

Mini-pear is at camp all week;)  The family all pitched in to clean the house this weekend so I could relax without feeling compelled to vacuum or scrub toilets.  Much appreciated.

I've been in a most lowly funk for some time now.  A week to just check out is in order.  So today I listened to some podcasts and fiddled about in the studio before meeting Mr. Pear for a cheap lunch.  Post lunch, I decided to spend some time on Mission: Bikini.  I feel ludicrously overdressed at the beach in a one piece, but in the changing rooms of various shops that sell bikinis I can't help but feel ludicrously under-dressed.  In the grand scheme of things, it's not a problem.  Or so I like to tell myself.

hunan tofu please

It's starting to feel like I'm not going to get a decent Chinese meal until I actually go to China - or drive up to LA's Chinatown or go on vacation somewhere.  Vancouver is supposed to have some bangin' Chinese.

We've found a great place for Thai and are spoiled for choice when it comes to Indian (if we're willing to drive a ways), but I've yet to find a good Chinese.  Please do not tell me about the effin' P.F. Chang's in La Jolla.  I want Chinese Chinese food, preferably in a little, slightly dilapidated family owned joint.  These slick noisy places the size of airplane hangars don't count.

I've tried asking around, but I get these quizzical looks as if I'm asking where I might acquire some exotic bush meat.

Friday in photographs #13

balls.

This morning, while Mr. Pear read his newly acquired Harry Potter, and mini-pear watched The Chronicles of Narnia (again), I paid a little visit to my LYS.  It shares a parking lot with Mr. Pear's office and it's spilling over with the some of the softest, yummiest fiber on the planet. 

I needed some odds and ends to add into the mitred square blanket.  Shopping for odds and ends of yarn is so nice.  There is no calculating of yardage and I can seriously entertain the thought of purchasing tiny balls of wildly expensive hand dyed fiber.  Actually, I was pretty restrained.  Clockwise, starting in the upper left-hand corner, we have Filatura Di Crosa's Multicolor mohair/acrylic blend, Debbie Bliss Pure Silk (that lovely pale celadon green), another ball of the Filatura Di Crosa (in green this time), a little bit of bright blue Bam Boo from Classic Elite, Tahki's Cotton Classic in purple, Berrocco's Bonsai in that subdued blue with the little shiny flecks (more bamboo!  but with a little bit of nylon) and smack in the middle is the very pretty Ty-Dy in 100% cotton.  I guess we are never washing this blankie, but it will be very pretty indeed;)

Friday in photographs #12

Disaster edition. 
We got home a little after 7 to see one of our neighbors running past our house and around the corner.  Not a casual jog.  I thought maybe their dog had got out or something, but as I walked in through the garage I could hear a commotion coming in through my back window.  Just over the fence, huge billows of smoke.  I sent Mr. Pear round to check things out.  The smoke was coming faster and faster and then I could see the flames flaring up.  I ran around closing all the windows before leaving the house with mini-pear.  The smoke was black and smelled like burning plastic.  By the time we got out, the air inside our house was pretty acrid and foul.

The pictures on the outside are the view from our patio.  We were close enough to get big black ashes blowing onto our property.  Our lots are none too wide here.

It has a name...

cluster headache .

Fed up with the pain, I googled my symptoms last night.  You know, the eye-stabbing-pain headaches that are so painful as to cause insomnia, last for several days, and do not respond to repeated doses of ibuprofen.

And here's what we have...

Persons who have experienced both cluster headaches and other painful conditions (childbirth, migraines) report that the pain of cluster headaches is far worse, significantly more severe than a migraine. The pain has been described as akin to being stabbed repeatedly in the eye with an ice pick or hot poker.  It has been described in medical journals as one of the most severe pain syndromes suffered by human beings.

Sounds about right to me;(  I do have both childbirth and migraines with which to compare it to.

Sensitivity to light is more typical of a migraine, as is vomiting, but both can be present in some sufferers of cluster headache, although rare.  

Awesome.  I vomit with both kinds of debilitating headaches.

G.I. Joe says, "Knowing is half the battle," but I've damn near lost the war with this information:

Over the counter pain medications (such as aspirin, paracetamol, and ibuprofen) typically have no effect on the pain from a cluster headache. Unlike other headaches such as migraines and tension headaches, cluster headaches do not respond to biofeedback...

Anecdotal evidence indicates that cluster headaches can be so excruciating that even morphine does little to ease the pain. However, some newer medications like fentanyl (and Percocet) have shown promise in early studies and use.

Great.  I've had morphine via IV and it did not agree with me at all.  And Percocet is not my friend either. 

This next one might get Mr. Pear's full support. 

Some people report that sexual intercourse and specifically orgasm may terminate an attack possibly by acutely modulating hypothalamic function.

Personally, I can't imagine getting it on in the middle of one of episodes.

 

 

Blankies...

I've wanted to make a blanket of mitered squares for ages.  I started this a few months ago.  It's some mohair I bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival probably about four years ago now interspersed with some hand dyed and hand spun stuff from Springwater Fiber Workshop.

I have a ton more squares to go, but as I arranged and rearranged these first few, I just wasn't quite feeling it anymore.  Yesterday, I tried them another way...
I'm not sure if I love it, but it has sort of a dragon scale-y feeling that I think I like a whole lot more than how I'd been arranging it before.  Plus I can now intersperse some squares like these...

and I like the idea of that very much.

I can't decide;(

the weekend...

was spent at home.  Not many other places we are welcome with the pox.  Actually, this suited me fine.  I deflated the aerobed and set up my studio space again.  I painted my worktable white (the top used to be our coffee table, so it was red for the longest time) and hung my design wall.  It feels good to have a space set up and even better to actually spend time in it;)

Apparently, the dog likes it.  I say if it keeps her from napping (and drooling) on my bed, she's welcome to kip on the floor.

I'm not sure if it's cabin fever I have today or what.  I just can't quite finish anything on my To Do list.  Something in the fridge smells.  Or maybe just the fridge smells as there isn't really anything in that is mouldy or smell causing.  A smelly fridge is not par for the course with the Pear household, so it causes mild distress.  Mild. 

I keep thinking about all the things on my To Do list and then thinking how many of them would not exist if I simply had less stuff.  Last week I boxed up what felt like a lot of clothes.  If I don't need to dig into the box within six months, I'm going to donate it without opening it up again.  I felt better for a bit after that, a little lighter.  But then, over the weekend, after picking through t-shirts, abandoning shirt after shirt before deciding what to wear I wondered why I'd chosen to keep the ones I deemed unwearable this Saturday? 

There are some things I just keep procrastinating over and over again.  Our car still isn't registered in CA.  I have all these papers that need filing and I bought new folders and a new file box to assist, but I just can't quite get into the job.  I look at the piles of paper and wonder why I need to keep them.  I need to find someone to update our adoption homestudy.  And it seems I sort of can't be bothered to cook this summer.

Nothing to report.

It appears to be a mild case of chickenpox.  The kid's got self-control like I never did for things like scratching itches and such.  The other night, she climbed into bed with me and Mr. Pear slept in the spare room.  I was sure she'd be up all night itching.  She tossed and turned a little but by midnight she was fast asleep and stayed so until the morning.  Last night she fell asleep mid-story and didn't get up until almost 8.

Not leaving the house hasn't been a problem.  I was actually craving some at-home time prior to Wednesday.  Yesterday we painted and then hosted some friends who are eager to acquire the pox.  The sprinklers came on mid-playdate, so the kids all stripped down and ran about in them for a while.  Mini-pear misses the pool and the ocean.  I can't remember if the sprinklers come on this afternoon as well (they're on a timer set by the landlord).  If not, think I'll set up a misting spray for her if it gets warm.

We had a barbecue last night.  This morning we made muffins for breakfast and she set up a DIY indoor miniature golf course.  For some reason, she's wearing an old tie of her dad's and a boiled wool jacket.  Against bare skin!  This would make me itch even if I didn't have the pox.  Today we have David Attenborough documentaries to view before dropping them at the library this evening. 

Lots and lots of time for reading, lots of oatmeal baths, and lots of time for me to putter about and work on filing piles and organizing various papers and such (completely boring, but necessary, what with homeschooling and adoption in addition to the typical household-management-y papers).