Category Archives: The Dummening

Monday Work Out

It’s been a while since I shared an embarrassing story so I have a real doozy for you. I’m also excited to show off my new logo and my drawing skills. I spent several months trying to draw some cool swoopy hair and two Ms to stand for MetaMegan with a Wonder Woman feel to it. My old logo was a drawing I found* on the internet 10 years ago, and I thought it was time to get my own logo before I became a famous blogger and/or author.

So I drew and drew and the drawings were, well… terrible is a strong word. I could just get it to the point where I knew what I wanted but I wasn’t close. I finally sought out a professional! My good friend Cassy made the new awesome logo. (See above – it’s just the head, not the part that I befouled with my pre-school level scribbles.) See Cassy for all your marketing needs.

So – what is this picture about? I needed a drawing to illustrate what happened to me during Body Pump at the gym recently. It was kind of hard to explain otherwise. I’ve told the story a couple times and people just shake their heads. Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 4.16.26 PM

So I thought my story needed pictures. Or to be less embarrassing, but too late for that! I was gathering all the equipment needed for Body Pump – a step and risers, a mat, weights, etc and I was being careful to bend at the knees because my back had been bothering me. As I carefully bent at the knee to put the risers on the floor, I’m not sure how this happened, but my knee went through one of the risers and remained there as I tried to stand up. Apparently the insides of the risers are made of shards of glass because I got a huge cut on my shin. I thought I was going to barf from the pain, and fortunately, at that moment, I realized I had left my water bottle in the hallway. I casually hobbled out and tried to walk it off, suppressing tears, shame, and obscenities.

It didn’t look that bad, so I went back into class as though nothing had happened.

Everything seemed OK until the tricep dips. I had my legs crossed and when I uncrossed them, I noticed that I had blood all over the back of my leg. (From the wound on the front of my leg.) Again, I casually left the room, this time to dress my wound. (People never leave the room during Body Pump. It’s not done.) I usually cheat at tricep dips so people probably thought I was just really trying to get out of them this time by leaving for five minutes and coming back as if nothing was wrong.

And that’s the story. I did the rest of the workout, put my stuff away and left. I wanted to share the story with someone, but I am not friendly with anyone in the class, and it was kind of a complicated story. How does something like that happen? Has it ever happened to anyone but me? It’s been about 10 days now. I’m not healed yet, but I think eventually I will be.

*found = stole from

Netherland

That word was on my mind a few weeks ago when I was composing a blog title about my latest injury. We spent the weekend in a cabin, and the boys and I were Dave’s support crew for the Bailey Hundo, a 100 mile mountain bike race. After the race, Dave ate, and hydrated, and we all headed back to the cabin for quiet time, and then we hit the playground. For reason’s unknown to me at this time (dummening relapse, perhaps?) I raced Luke around a building, in heels, while carrying Jack on my hip. Long story short I lost my balance and tore my glute. So Mr. 100-mile-bike-racer-fathers-day-celebrator was treated to a great deal of whining (I need ice! Water! I need to hydrate! I thought we were going out to dinner?! I need a butt massage! Wait, no I don’t! The PAIN, my God, THE PAIN!) instead of plan A. Plan A was all about Dave.

And why Netherland? Well, because prior to my injury, I was reading a stack of magazines from the cabin and in Family Circle, I read a list of summer reads. One person recommended Netherland, because President Obama had just read it. How does he have time to read? And why Netherland? With his job, he should be reading Bossypants. Netherland was too angsty and full of ennui. I just had to look up both those words, and I was right about what they meant! On the Boulder Book Store page it says, “Fascinating…. A wonderful book.” —President Obama, interviewed by Jon Meacham in Newsweek (May 25, 2009 issue) Just how old was that Family Circle Magazine anyway? And those are some pretty boring adjectives, no offense President Obama.

When I got my new iphone, my favorite thing about it was my new system of electronic lists. Instead of reading a book recommendation in a magazine, and trying to remember the book, or folding the corner of the page down, or writing it in my planner, or ordering it immediately from the library, only to have 10 books arrive the same day, I add it to my iphone book list. Simple. Simple, but I can still screw it up. I may have already blogged about this, and the importance of spelling the title correctly. I still can’t believe I would have read a review of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence and then chosen to read it. I think I also need to start adding in the name of the person who recommended it. Then I can thank or shun them later as appropriate. And, I’d like to avoid the sinking feeling I get when I start wondering if I am reading a book recommended by Yoko Ono on O magazine.

Care to be thanked or shunned? Leave a summer book recommendation in the comments

>The Dummening: In the Form of Clumsiness

>You’d think I would be really calm, and not at all jittery to the point of dropping things and breaking things now that I really can’t make coffee. Yeah, I recently broke the coffee carafe. It wasn’t that big of a deal because we could just use the french press until I search every store in the tri-state area for a replacement carafe. That worked until I broke the french press. There was also an incident where someone knocked a glass into another glass in the cabinet, causing massive breakage, but I am not claiming that. I swear that was Dave.

Regardless, now that I am unhappily giving up caffeine, it’s odd that this sort of thing keeps happening. What sort of thing you ask? The sort of thing where I say, “Oh great! There is the perfect amount of salad left over to make a really big salad for my lunch tomorrow!” And then I followed that up with, “I’ll just take a picture of this with my camera.”

A few nights later I was making a fritatta for dinner.

In case it isn’t clear, that is a picture of four eggs* on the floor. Luke took a look and said, “Crack an egg on your head, let the juice run down.”

On the bright side, the frittata did turn out to be delicious. There weren’t any leftovers. (I took the picture before everyone had seconds.) Happy Friday the 13th, everyone; I hope you enjoyed your week of dummening! (And since the week was about The Dummening, I am sure no one will care that it was only 5 days long!)

* I did not use the eggs that fell on the floor.

>Work Dummening

>I blame all my work dummening this week on the fact that I absolutely had to solve a problem before I went to sleep on Tuesday night. Did I say Tuesday night? Because I guess I meant Wednesday morning at 2:30 am. That pretty much threw off the rest of my week.

Then today, I needed to create a database link, but I didn’t know the password and the person who knows the password was at physical therapy, so instead of connect to user identified by password, I used connect to user identified by values ‘ ‘. And that apparently can trigger a bug that causes ORA-0600 errors. (ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [kzdlk_zt2 err] to be specific.)

Oh, the hilarious and wacky adventures that I get into at work. I bet you are all wishing I talked about it more often. The reason I am evening talking about work at all, is that I was one dummening story short for the work week, and I am saving a good one for tomorrow. But really, if I start getting hits from people searching on kzdlk_zt2 err I am totally turning this into a DBA blog and I am going to get rich off the add revenue.

Until tomorrow…

(Oh – to you DBA suckers, you need to get rid of the quotes and use the real password. See metalink note 456320.1)

>Smarty Pants Revisited

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I already mentioned how I did some dumb things while making my smarty pants outfit. I mentioned ruining the shirt and the end table. But did I mention that at one point I sewed the front and back of the pants together? I did do that. But it still turned out to be a cute outfit. Dave thought I was going to sew the smarties on individually, like sequins. That may have been cool, but I never could have done it while watching our new TV obsession, The Wire.

>Diaper Drama Day 2

>Do I talk enough about diapers to officially be considered a mommy blogger? Bring on the ad revenue! I’m talking to you Pampers! Come on Pampers, don’t you want a frazzled, disorganized, Megan Fox look a like to be your new spokes mom-dle?

OK, back to the dummening. I was with other Ladies Who Lunch (at Target) and we were in the diaper section. My Ladies Who Lunch (at Target) friends are two co-workers with toddlers about Jack’s age. They were discussing Size 4 diapers vs. size 5 diapers. I said, “What? Jack is still in 3s! Why move to 4s? You get at least 12 fewer diapers for the same price!”

They had a lot of answers to my incredulous question:
Because 3s are too small!
They leak!
Have you looked at the size recommendation?!!

It is a little odd that we haven’t moved up a size yet, because normally I am the first person to move up a size, weight guidelines be damned. My policy is this: 2 consecutive blow outs and you move up a size. Someone recently questioned the 2 in a row policy. Why deal with that twice? Are you insane? Yes, but 1 blowout could be an isolated incident resulting from bad diapering. And Jack really hadn’t had any leaks or blowouts.

I insisted that 3s were fine for my small bottomed and possibly thirsty little boy and I bought another box.

They did seem a little small, but so what? 96 diapers for the same price as 84! So what if he looks like he is wearing a diaper thong.

Before my next trip to the store, Dave happened to mention Jack’s weight.

Dave: Jack weighs 25.2 pounds, in case you need that info the next time you buy diapers.
Megan: 25.2?
Dave: Yes, 25.2

I looked at the size recommendation on the 3s (16-28 pounds) and I bought another box. Just one more! Dave said, “3s again? He’s at the top of the weight range!” I said, “22.5! No he isn’t! Dave said, no, I said 25.2, and you repeated it.” Oops.

Almost immediately, Jack had 2 consecutive blow outs. Ugh. 94 diapers to go. Dave had a good solution though. Just take all those diapers to the daycare and buy bigger ones!

>Diaper Drama Day 1

>I am going to kick off The Week of Dummening with a little story about diapers. The last time I mentioned the topic is was in reference to the fact that we were days overdue for bringing a new stash of diapers to the daycare. It is funny, because there are a lot of families with kids at Luke’s school and younger kids at Jack’s daycare, and we see the parents up to 4 times day, crossing paths at various drop offs and pick ups. But we can rarely coordinate something that would make things easier on anyone. Just twice I’ve plopped one of Jack’s friends into the bike trailer with Jack after dropping off Luke at school to save another parent a trip to daycare. But that accounts for 2 times of the 1000 times we have discussed some sort of coordination with other parents. And of course, I’ve never successfully pawned off my kids on anyone.

One cold day, I decided to drive Luke to school because we weren’t organized enough to catch the bus, and we certainly weren’t organized enough to drop off Jack first. So after standing around until the bell rang, in the cold, I was carrying Jack, both of us in puffy coats, back to the car, to go to daycare when one of the other moms said, “Want me to take Jack?” I said, “Oh, that would be so great! But DARN IT! If I forget diapers again… And I left them at home, so I need to go get them. Drat!” I may not have actually said drat.

And once I managed to buckle Jack in the car for the second time that day, there was no way I was going to go through it again before dropping him off for the morning. I knew Dave was working from home so I called him and asked him to meet me at the end of the driveway with diapers so I wouldn’t have to get out of the car. He said he would just get on his bike in a couple hours and ride the diapers over to daycare. Great! Problem solved. Too bad I didn’t take the other mom up on the free stroller ride to daycare. Oh well. I said hi to her again when I saw her a few minutes later. And Dave dutifully took time out of his day to pedal the diapers over to school because we just couldn’t forget one more time.

Eight or so hours passed and Dave texted to discuss was picking up whom.
Dave: Target plans? Took all the diapers to daycare.
Megan: No problem. There’s a box in the trunk.
Dave: Doh!
Megan: ?

10 minutes or so passed and a light bulb comically lit up over my head. I had diapers in the trunk of the car that whole time!

>Interesting Solutions

>Remember all that snow? Me neither. It was 77 yesterday. Today, Jack was playing outside and he dumped a play lawn mower full of water onto the patio. Then he jumped in the water. Then he fell in it.

Then, as I valiantly attempted to continue reading the paper, in order to be a great mother, by knowing what is going on in the world, Jack wandered off saying, “Oh no! Water. Oh no! Water.” Then that sweet sound trailed off into silence. Soon I realized that a quiet toddler is a dangerous toddler. It turns out that Jack’s method for absorbing excess water in your pants is to roll in the sandbox.

I should have seen that one coming, for sure.

And that is a good segue into my programming announcement for next week. Are you ready for 5 days of dummening? Starting Monday, it will be all dummeing all the time, all the way through into Friday. I can think of 4 ideas right off the top of my head, so I am either going to have to think harder to come up with a fifth one, or else just keep my fingers crossed that I do something dumb in the next week. Chances are good.

>There’s A Blog Post About Irony In Here Somewhere

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Last night I was working on Halloween costumes to the best of my ability with a house full of kids with cabin fever who would neither put on nor take off costumes at my command. I gave up and started working on my own costume. But no one would let me sit and sew, or if they did, they wanted to eat parts of my costume, so I gave up on the pants and started working on the top.

Without getting into all the gory details, let’s just say that while I was ironing a design that included “e=mc2” onto the front of my shirt, I ended up with the reverse of e=mc2 on the back of the shirt. But you can barely see where the design bled through, because I also took a bunch of paint off the end table where I was ironing and that is now also on the back of the shirt.

I suppose a cardigan could rescue my costume. But I just don’t know if I can pull off “Smarty Pants” anymore.

>Reverse Reverse Dummening

>This post was supposed to be about how I’ve gotten so much smarter since I quit nursing. When I started to write it last week, it went like this:
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Day 12 – I think the brain cells are starting to regenerate.
Thought process number 1: Hmm, what dessert should I make for the barbecue? A cake? Cupcakes? Cookies? What kind of cookies? If I said to Dave, “What kind of cookies should I make?” He would say, “Chocolate with peanut butter filling.” But what’s the point of that when I can’t eat… OMG! I quit nursing! I can eat peanut butter again! This story would make a lot more sense to a lot more people if I wasn’t the only mom on the face of the earth that had been told not to eat peanut butter while nursing. So, yeah, it’s been 18 months. (And you know what? Totally worth it, because Jack already has allergies, and I prefer not to have to deal with a peanut butter allergy if I can help it.) Anyway!!! It only took a week of not nursing for me to re-grow enough brain cells to remember that I can eat peanut butter. As for the dessert, I settled on cupcakes. And my cupcakes turned out like this:

Instead of like this.

So I think things are getting a little better every day.
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But that was last week. Last week, I hadn’t been to the grocery store 3 times in a 24 hour period. My most recent trip was to pick up my wallet and cell phone. The manager said, “Had you already canceled all your cards?” “Ummm. No, I didn’t know my wallet was missing until you called me. From my phone.”

It looks like it may take the dummening a little longer to recede than I had originally thought. Or else, it reversed briefly, only to strike again. On the bright side, the transition into full on dementia should be pretty smooth.