bitter is the new black

ok, i stole that title from a book i read (that actually wasn't good). when i got in tonight, i started thinking about what to post since i was not yet sleepy and wanted to stay up anyway. chopin had been totally sweet: coming in with me when i got home, getting excited about sleeping in my bedroom, cooing at me because she missed me, etc. i thought the blog was going to be all about how great chopin, or all dogs, is/are because they are so into spending every second with you. chopin even gets in the car with me when i move it so dad will have an easier time getting in and then waits in the car while we load him, just to be a part of the action and hang with everyone. then i urney (the journey of urination) and she sits outside the door, upset that we are apart for 1 minute. the only bad part of this is when i don't take her somewhere i go she gets irrationally upset and whines as i leave, which has never happened in the past. but then, in the olden days we were not joined like super glue. so yeah, i was going to write that post. instead, chopin got happy while i was changing into pjs and popped up off the floor into a sitting position, looking at me and smiling. so, like any rational adult, i lean down and smother her face and back with kisses - at which point i hear her growl. i pull away and there is nasty face looking like she is about to bite. i get into bed with her still growling, and tell her NO! when she has finally calmed down enough to still be mad but not have the nasty face more than 80% of the time, i tell her it is a privilege to sleep in my room and not her birthright. she then moves to lay down in another part of the bedroom and retires her nasty face for the night. i growl at her to let her know i am not happy about the shenanigans that just occurred, esp. since i was filled with love for her earlier. we just finished a face off; however, i forget who won. i vote me.

resuscitation to the rescue

today, i learned how to save lives. if some one's heart stops beating, watch out world: i am cpr certified. the hardest part was creating a seal with your mouth on the dummy. we had little things similar to dental damns to use due to germs and if you did the breathing right, your dummy's chest inflated. because it was so tricky, i started to get excited when anyone in my group inflated the chest properly. like a infectious disease, excitement slowly spread to my two group members and then anyone else who could hear me. i began to use the phrase "life-giving breath" like "niiiiiiiiiice, that was totally a life-giving breath!" people laughed but i bet they totally start using it. then, when we got the baby dolls to practice on the focus was off the breath and onto "saving a baby's life" or "giving this baby a future." it turns out i am all about the sarcastic use of serious statements for nursing school. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30.

old dog, new tricks

my sweet dog is getting old. biting aside, there is a lot to love about older chopin. instead of getting up and nestling against you all the time, she now remains on the floor and just howls until you come love her. it is amazing how many times a day she does this. in her 80s it turns out my doggie just wants love. i, too, am totally shocked, but, at the same time, not because it is my dog and all i do is kiss her and snuggle. she also has begun to love car trips. they are her new favorite (except for treats) and she freaks out when i tell her we are going. i guess because it is like a walk but she doesn't really have to move. genius. everything remotely edible in the car has already been destroyed, a small price to pay for chopin in the passengers seat. even wrappers she has already torn to shreds, she continues to lick and tear since i do not clean the car. i guess sometimes it gets boring though and she gets hungry and curious. due to the sheer volume she sleeps, i always imagine she just takes a quick nap when i'm out in the store (when not destroying). today, sleepiness be damned, she was inquisitive. which is why when i reached to change my cd, i discovered my brand new car stereo was covered in dog slobber. upon closer inspection i also saw licks that had already dried, so who knows how long this has been going on. interestingly enough, the majority of the licks were around the cd changer and a few actually were on the cusp....which i think means CHOPIN PUT HER TONGUE INTO MY CD PLAYER. maybe it even sucked it in automatically when she did it! it never occurred to me to ever attempt such a thing, which is why i'm so impressed my ancient dog not only tried it but continued to experiment while i was not in the car. i'm really proud we are related.

a little bit of heaven

roxie and i have had a long strange journey together. sometimes we love each other, sometimes we don't. her noises make no sense to me, and i'm pretty sure she has no idea what my noises mean either. despite all this turmoil (does she love me or hate me?) i continue to pick her up everyday to snuggle. dad, for the time being, has gotten over roxie but i still think she should be played with a lot. since i'm moving soon, i've upped my holdings of roxie to approximately 3 a day. i like to think of it as building up a surplus for the coming drought. since i'm not a big fan of touching, i never really understand the certain nuances that can occur or how things can change. really, i just don't understand touching. i think its like if i only thought the color blue came in one shade. touching is just one shade for me. but this afternoon i was transformed into a giant puddle of love by roxie. her legs are really little so i guess i always just assumed her whole body was against me but today i actually felt her chill out and really nestle in. it was SO GREAT. this little furry creature just melted into me, she completely relaxed and all of a sudden it was a much deeper, sweeter snuggle with her huge belly pressed against me. now i am entirely addicted. it was all i could talk about during dinner and i have decided that i want a minimum of 12 guinea pigs all over my body relaxing at the same time. this will clearly never happen and it kind of freaks me out but it could also turn out to be that much better. i have internally settled this dilemma by compromise: if the opportunity of 12 guinea pigs is offered to me i will take it, but, if not, i will not actively seek it out. i'm turning into such a rational grown up. yay roxie.

we find mobility exciting

today we got a new wheelchair that is super cool. it has features we had not even imagined - like arms that come off so it can fit under a table or padded backs for his legs when they are resting. amazing! my excitement level was off the charts, but eventually it wore off on the rest of the family. dad wheeled himself outside and he made it all over the house all by himself. we then called everyone we know to share the news. watch out world, independent george is on his way.

it is kind of like narnia

this is the way to my favorite place. not only are trains lucky, generally, but these railroad tracks, in particular, also seem magical each time i walk down them. i am scared to give any more information away due to overpopulation concerns.

acceptance is key

today was a day of destruction for the possessions of one n.e.b. i will begin at the beginning. chopin and i go to the pharmacy but i forget i have cough drops in the car. i come back and they are all eaten. during lunch i get up to help dad and come back to chopin licking my plates clean while half way up on the couch. after lunch, i clean roxie's cage, placing her inside the wire with her little hutch and food dish. foolishly watching roxie so she does not become a small snack, i neglect to move to the food dish when i am done cleaning and am placing her back into the cage. chopin eats every morsel of guinea pig food. we appear to spend the rest of the day together in relative peace. much sleeping is had by my adorable dog. at approximately 7:10pm i enter my bedroom. my plastic tower of drawers, otherwise known as my extremely tall nightstand, is on the floor. the lamp shade has come off the lamp due to the impact of falling 4 and 1/2 feet. two candles have been shattered. everything is out of the drawers, covered in glass. a box of vitamins has been eaten. my make-up has been chewed on. (i know: make-up, but i'm serious). any clothes on the floor, which is really all my clothes, have to be shaken and washed to avoid glass shards. the vacuum clogs due to the heavy use for torn paper, broken glass, and dog hair. it was quite a destructive dog day indeed. oddly enough, as annoyed as i was with her i recognized it was all my fault. she is a dog. i should have emptied the car, not had food anywhere within her reach, and closed my bedroom door. the verdict is still out on whether this hairy monster is worth it but i'm going to chalk today up to my poor choices. my middle name now becomes vigilance. the end.

tongue cleaner

everywhere i go i leave a toothbrush. really, it is any toiletries. for some reason i always forget to check the bathroom the morning before i leave, things always get hectic with packing and goodbyes and the next thing i know, someone is calling me to ask whether i want my toothbrush and other forgotten items sent home. my mom has noticed this trend and called me out on it. i'm not sure i even noticed it until she pointed it out. regardless, because she is the world's most thoughtful and considerate human being, the other day she bought numerous toothbrushes and left them in the upstairs bathroom. since i was excited they were new and looked very modern, i took one on my current trip and have been utilizing its capabilities. one of which is a tongue cleaner on the back of the toothbrush head. so now the insides of my cheeks are exfoliated while i brush my teeth (two for the price of one) in addition to me having a handy little tool to scrape my tongue each night. totally hot. but what they don't tell you is that it tickles. my toothbrush tremendously tickled my tantalizing tongue this thursday. now try saying that 10 times fast.

these days are the worstest

i wasn't going to write because we are all so sad and our hearts are breaking and broken. but then i got mad because no one can take away good thoughts and feelings and, if there is one thing i think life is about, it is healing. so we're healing and growing and mourning together. there is beauty in that, not an easy beauty but a hard beauty - one that leaves us breathless and gasping because we have already been destroyed and need anything to hang on to, especially each other. so i'm trying to share it up and talk about my day.

sunday i went on an adventure to circuit city to purchase a new stereo. i was apprehensive about this endeavor for two reasons: 1. i just bought a new stereo two years ago and it's broken which seems wasteful 2. i didn't want to purchase another cheap thing only to have it break because i am not made of money. i picked out something i felt was reasonably priced but almost fainted when i got to the counter, heard the actual price with everything included, and then accused the cashier of "hidden charges." he alleged this was not true. sometimes a girl has to be a little feisty. hidden charges or not, my new pretty stereo was installed and i have been rocking out for the past few days since i have not only a cd player but can also hook up my ipod. wowza. yay for music in the car again!

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

~Mohandas K. Gandhi

it's all in the family

think george and nancy were the only ones to tackle guitar hero with a seriousness rivaled only by professional musicians?

think again, my friends.

(don't let my cousin's smile fool you)

we play nicely with (some) blood relatives

our cousin and her family came early the other night so chopin josephine had not yet been taken to the kennel where we decided she was better off with numerous little people about our house for the next few days. after three hours of pleading, i decided that i could get the dog from down the hill and, if i carefully held her, the kids could at least pet her because she really is so cute and soft. wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, chopin came inside, sniffed the children while they stood quietly, then laid down sweetly and let everyone calmly pet her. i was shocked. after about 5 minutes she let out a quiet growl, without a nasty face, and was then escorted back outside after being lovely in every way.

since chopin was not at the house today, our attention turned to roxie. after being bribed with numerous carrots, apples, and alfalfa, roxie came out of her cage and played with everyone the majority of the day. and i can't imagine it is easy being petted by 6 hands all day long. my cousin's youngest baby is 2 and she and roxie had a lot of fun contemplating each other while the rest of us watched happy feet. roxie also very sweetly nibbled off travis's hang nail, which he decided really had been bothering him. what loving pets are in the bell house these days!

uno, dos, tres

first day







second day











third day







flowers for you

backlog

i have been sickity and doing a lot of this:


so i've not been posting but i have tons of lovely posts so i'm just going to post a ridiculous amount today. hooray.

you don't know what you've got til it's gone

the appearance of my stomach is something i tried to get over at age 10. i missed having a smooth, normal stomach but i loved my scars too. and since then, i've tried not to think about it much. i take pictures before each surgery just for documentation purposes; however, the post-10-year-old holes have only added to my stomach's landscape. unfortunately, it turns out that i was really attached to my belly button. it always hurts to poke inside it and sometimes i get really obsessive about cleaning it thoroughly but, on the whole, i guess i really love-love-loved it. today i came to terms with the fact that, for better or worse, its composition has permanently changed. my belly button is now more squinty and the skin under it is a weird new valley of tension. clearly, it is a small price to pay for healthy nancy but since i'm a shallow, selfish sort of person (bummer, i know) i really miss the way it used to be. i feel like even if it did have surgeries through it before it still appeared the same. and i'd had that belly button for 25 years and always kind of liked it. outies be damned, i'm an innie all the way. farewell old belly button, you were well loved. hello new belly button!

expressive silence

this post is in honor of my 3 hour drive today without a cd player:






who can i call?





this sucks.






i'm sleepy.

because i'm a loser and forgot

my tummy is ok. and i am so so thankful. amen.

firestarter

let the world know: nancy is growing up. sure it may be long over due, sure it may be about time, and sure i've been 25 for months on end but these things cannot be rushed. today, my maturity was illustrated to me through a series of events that transpired shortly before dinner. refusing to eat what the rest of the family was eating, i prepared my own meal of chicken fingers. feeling a bit groggy due to my pain medication, i mistakenly grabbed a oven mitt that had another, less protective oven mitt attached to it. just to be clear, it was two oven mitts tenuously attached. as i put the chicken fingers back in the oven one of the mitts fell and caught on fire. i immediately screamed, "MOM, FIRE! FIRE!" now, college nancy would have watched the fire and continued to scream, waiting for something magically to happen to take care of things. like when the toilet flooded and my roommate and i climbed onto the sink, watching it flood, saying "FLOOD! FLOOD!" to the empty apartment. but today, today was different. today, after screaming, i reached into the oven, grabbed the burning mitt, put it in the sink and ran water over it. all before my mom even got there. i was like a real adult dealing maturely with a crisis. i may have started that fire, but dammit i put it out too in a calm and orderly fashion. progress indeed.

my fickle heart

having just proclaimed my renewed love for roxie, i have some rather disturbing news. most days i can accept the fact she has a brain the size of a pea and try to make certain allowances. when she licks my face i think its sweet, and when she gives me a gentle nibble i understand her tiny mind can't differentiate between a piece of alfalfa and a human being. tonight she was being especially needy, making squeaking, pick-me-up noises whenever someone walked into the room. my frigid heart softened to the temperature of refrigerated cookie dough and i picked her up each time. those noises really get to me, perhaps because i am routinely so noisy that i gravitate towards others of similar diaphragm (or is it diaphragmatic?) strength. she discovered a new trick tonight, perching on my shoulder like a bird while i worked on the computer. it was 75% cute and 25% weird. i let it go. the next thing i know roxie has chomped down on the top of my ear like it was her next carrot. now, oddly enough, i can handle my 11 year old dog biting me harder and more often but what i cannot handle is a little rodent, masquerading as a friendly snuggle creature, biting my ear like it was her birthright. chopin at least knows she's been bad. roxie, however, does not even have the decency to understand she has caused me pain, much less act accordingly and win me back.
thus, i have decided she is evil.

rocking out: it's what we do

focus is what it takes to get to the top. focus is what it takes to be the best in your field. and, gosh darn it, focus is what it takes to be the next guitar hero. the bells don't just play around. they take an ordinary game and transform it into a career. all of our characters have extra outfits. new guitars are bought religiously. songs are practiced in practice mode before debuting. we're focused. and now we're stunning. george and nancy's band, STARDUST, may imply sweet dreams and sparkling fairies but we're actually the hottest new group in town and we mean business. i misunderstood this undertaking initially. here i am on the first night, delighted to have this new game, singing along. but do you see george's face - he knew what it would take from the get-go. in the virtual world, dad and i are wildly successful and our musical talent both amazes and baffles the mind (and ears). and you know what? it feels pretty good. let's rock.