My aunt turned 50 on Friday, so we had a big surprise party for her tonight. We had about sixty of her closest friends crammed together in my grandma’s basement waiting for her arrival. [It's a nice finished basement though, so it's not like we made them hang out with cobwebs and dust or anything]. We normally go out to dinner for people’s birthdays. So my aunt chose the restaurant she wanted. The plan was she was going to go over and pick up my grandma and my mom and they would drive out to the restaurant together.

When my aunt and her fiancé got to grandma’s house grandma said, “You better go down and talk to Cathy [my mom]. She’s having trouble with her hair and she’s in a mood. She says she might not even go.”

So Candy came down the stairs hollering, “Cathy, what the hell’s wrong with your hair?” But instead of finding my mom struggling with her hair she was surprised by party guests. She was totally surprised. And if you know my family you know that was no small feat. It’s nearly impossible to keep a secret in my family.

One of the party guests brought her daughter who is about the same age as Skyler and Spencer. Skyler and the little girl hit it off immediately. They played with Bratz dolls the whole night. Remember those days when we were young and we’d play with any kid that was the same gender and near the same age? Today I run in tons of 30-somethings, but I rarely play Barbies with them.

Later in the night they decided to play tag and Spencer joined the game. All out of breath Spencer ran up to me and said, “There’s a girl trying to kiss me.”

I said, “Oh yeah.”

And he replied, “Yeah, but I told her I’m too charming to kiss.”

We were waiting for the pizza delivery guy because it’s Friday and Friday is pizza night. It was Skyler’s night to give the pizza guy the check, but she was downstairs trying to convince Dad to paint with her. So I grabbed the check and went to the door.

But then I noticed the guy didn’t have pizza in his hands. Instead he had a bottle of Joy dish soap and Spic and Span floor cleaning stuff. He said they were starting a new business in town and they wanted to go around to the neighborhoods and show off their product. Then he handed me the Spic and Span and Joy. I’m all like, “Ok?!?” But I just ran out of floor cleaner and my kitchen floor needs a little mop work, so I took it.

Then he said, “Hold on a second. I need to get something.” And he ran out to his van. A van that looked so old I’m pretty sure the rust had rust on it. Plus I think I saw that van on an episode of That 70s Show. As he walked back to the house with a big box in his hands I calculated the time it would take me to reach the phone to dial 911 and how many extra steps I would need to get to the steak knives in case I needed them for protection.

But as we came through the door I realized the box was a Kirby vacuum cleaner. Here we go again.

We had a Kirby salesman come to our house a few years back. But at least that guy made an appointment. These people today just barged their way in to my house. I was pretty ticked off, but I remained calm. After all I got some Joy and some Spic and Span and I was about to get somebody to vacuum my living room for free. I had plans to go out to dinner with my mom, but she wouldn’t be over for at least a half hour. So I made myself comfy on the couch and watched this guy vacuum. Too bad he wasn’t hunky.

The guy who originally came to my door was the supervisor and he brought some kid [by kid I mean he was in his twenties, cause now that I'm in my thirties I can call a 20-something year old a kid] with him to actually do the demonstration. And by brought him I mean he left him there and then drove off in the 1972 rusted out van. Um, ok. 2.3 seconds to the phone. Seven steps to the knives.

As this young kid was putting the vacuum together he asked me if I’d ever heard of Kirby. I said, “Yeah, we had a salesman show it to us a few years back. But were getting ready to replace this carpet with hardwood floors so we don’t really have a need for one. Plus they’re a bit out of my price range.”

But like a good little salesman, he just ignored me and began to vacuum my living room while I sat on the couch and watched him. I wish I would of had some bon bons or something. And maybe a couple of his helpers to fan with me giant straw fans.

He went on and on about how there are dust mites in the carpet and when we sleep at night dust mites get in our mouth. All I heard was blah, blah, blah because I watch enough Dateline to know all about what lingers in my dust. Plus I’m fully aware these vacuums cost almost more than my minivan and there was no way in hell I was going to buy one.

Just after he cleaned my ceiling fan my mom showed up. My slave The Kirby guy started to say something, but I had to cut him off. As much as I enjoyed watching him clean my house [I wish he would have brought some Pledge and maybe some Windex for the windows], his time was up. I said, “I hate to cut you short…” cause in situations like this it’s ok to tell a little white lie, “but I have dinner plans so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

He was really nice about it. He used the phone to call his supervisor to come back and get him. Obviously the person on the other end of the phone was none to pleased that this dude was calling him when he’d only been at my house for about 30 minutes. Clearly not long enough to make a sale. But this sales guy kept his cool. I started to feel a little bad for him and thought seriously about slipping a $5 bill in his pocket so he could at least buy a sandwich. But I got over that.

While we waited for his ride I let him vacuum Justis’ mattress. Might as well get some more cleaning out of him while we were hanging out.

After a few minutes, one of his buddies showed up [not the guy who brought him in the first place]. The new guy said, “Do you have a question?” I said, “No actually I’m kicking him out because I have plans.” Although I said it nice and with a smile on my face, what I really meant was, “help him pack this shit up and get the hell out of my house.”

They quickly got their stuff together. My sales guy gave me his business card.

And then it got really strange.

My sales guy was a nice kid. Just trying to do his job and put food on his plate. But one of the guys that came with him was, umm….how do I say this nicely…weird. He saw our cats and then went on and on about how he’s a cat person and his cat once scratch the face of his neighbor’s dog and now the dog never comes around anymore. I tried to be nice, but I was having this conversation on an empty stomach and I get cranky when I’m hungry.

Then Weirdo saw a Dungeons and Dragons novel laying on the floor. It’s not a handbook for the game or anything. It’s just a fantasy novel based on Dungeons and Dragons. “Are you a Dungeons and Dragons fan,” he asked. I said, “My boys read them.” To me that meant, “No, I don’t know jack shit about D&D.” Apparently to him that meant it was an invitation for him to tell me all about his freaky obsession with D&D.

He proceeded to tell me about how he has the second edition of some handbook and a first edition of another. I’m pretty sure my face said “Who gives a shit?” but this guy isn’t fluent in face. He went on about how he has some dark handbook which apparently is really hard to get. And with it he made his character a something vampire and it was “like impossible to kill.” And also in the book there is some dagger or something but it can only be used by the pure of heart.

Again, all I heard was “blah, blah, blah.” I hope I don’t offend any D&D fans, but I couldn’t care less about D&D. I was talking to him like I talk to my kids when they are telling me about Pokemon cards or some PS2 game their playing; a lot of head nodding and “oh, that’s cool” with little enthusiasm.

My sales man kept trying to interrupt Weirdo. He was, after all, still holding out for a possible sale here. I think he was a little worried that Weirdo was killing his chances. Finally he pushed him out the door and they piled in to their rusted out van. Just before they left my salesman hollered, “when am I going to get you to buy a Kirby?” I said, “I have your card. Thanks.” Because that seemed more polite then, “it will be a cold day in hell before I buy a $2000 vacuum.”

I’m feeling much better today. This is why I blog. Because there are so many great people out there to offer ideas when you need them. Thanks for the great advice. Both yesterday and today I made a list of everything that needed to be done. I even wrote down ‘eat breakfast’ because I often forget and end up eating breakfast around 11:30am. I get a little giddy when I get to cross something of the list. I throw my self a little yeah-I-ate-breakfast or hooray-I-called-so-and-so party every time I scratch something off.

Yesterday I finally had a follow-up appointment with my ENT. This was after I had to reschedule [for weather] once and he rescheduled twice. I was beginning to think he didn’t care that I might have brain fluid dripping out my nose.

But it turns out it’s not brain fluid [at least he's pretty sure it's not brain fluid]. He took a little gander up my nose. Nothing says fun like having a man stick a long rubber tube up your nose so he can a look at parts of your nose that I don’t believe were meant to be seen by the human eye.

When he was done examining the my nose up to my eyeballs, we discussed my allergy tests. The ones that say I’m allergic to absolutely nothing. He said he really, really wanted to blame my sinus issues on allergies, but he can’t. So that was comforting. *cough sarcasm cough*

Then he made me have a CT scan. Oh how I love CT scans. They are rank high on the “good times” list, just below broken toes and root canal.

My last CT scan was in 2003. Back then I had to lay down and have the big machine circle my head. But this time they got a new machine and I got to sit up in a chair. I prefer the laying down. At least then you’re already on your back so you don’t have to worry about sliding out of your chair and smacking your head on the foot rest when you pass out. I tend to get claustrophobic so as the machine was spinning around my head I could feel my anxiety increasing. I believe I starting sweating and then shaking and then I went black. Ok, so I didn’t actually pass out because the whole test was only about 45 seconds, but I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

My CT scan revealed that, although my sinus cavities in my cheeks are very open [since I had surgery in 2003], they have a very thick lining of mucus [yummy]. And the sinus cavity in my forehead is around 2/3 full of icky matter. I know. You’re jealous.

This explains why I’ve been getting a lot of headaches recently. And this yummy mucus matter is what’s draining out of my nose. Doesn’t that just make you wish you were me? No?

My ENT doesn’t really want to go in there and clean it all out…yet. Instead he put me on [a very expensive because I have the worst insurance ever -- yeah, I'm talking to you UHC...you heard me] antibiotic for a month. And I get to enjoy five days with my good friend Prednisone. There goes my idea of getting more sleep.

And I go back in a month for another CT scan. I can hardly wait. In fact I’m getting a little light headed just thinking about it. But at least it’s not an MRI. [Look at me always looking at the positive.]

I just wrote this whole post about how busy I am. I went in to the nitty-gritty about how school is really pissing me off. I told you all about how I totally forgot to go to the parent information meeting for kindergarten roundup last Thursday. I went in to way too much detail about how I forgot to send the picture form with Keaton yesterday and therefore I will not be getting any soccer pictures this year. And I bitched and moaned about how far behind I am in my blog reader and my email.

But then I deleted it because you so don’t care. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t informative. It was just me whining about how crazy my life is right now. I think you all can relate to that.

So instead I’m just going to beg for advice. How do you deal with stress? I apparently deal with it by forgetting appointments and crying in to the keyboard of my laptop. I’m sure there’s got to be a better way to deal. So please share.