October 24, 2025 by suzanne day by day

Friday Randomosity: Distraction by Shopping and Cat Edition

I love you and appreciate you. Thank you for being here.

Here are some random thoughts cluttering up my brain this morning.

One of the things I most frequently say to Carla is, “Tools only help if you use them.” Well, lately I have been having a hell of a time following my own advice. I’ve been consistently waking up at about 5:30 these days, which is working for a lot of reasons (and is really working for the cat). But for some reason, this shift has caused me to repeatedly forget to take my morning medication. My medication has always been on my nightstand, and my husband is often still asleep when I creep out of the room, and I don’t want to risk waking him up by rattling a bunch of pills. Obviously, just because I have always kept my medicine on my nightstand doesn’t mean I need to continue doing so! I could move them into the bathroom, or into my office, or the kitchen. Or! I could use the pill organizer I already own – and have neglected since my summer visit to my parents’ house – and have my morning medications all ready to go in the same tiny compartment. The tool is RIGHT THERE. Why is it so difficult for me to PUT IT TO USE?

Speaking of getting up early: I have a plan for getting up earlier. My plan is to continue waking up at the same time I do now even once the clocks change. The cat refuses to adhere to human constructs like Daylight Savings, so I know he will help me by continuing to come into my room to apply his purr-and-bite wake-up system directly to my person. This way, I will soon be waking up at 4:30, and then, MAYBE, I will be able to exercise and shower before I start my day.

By the way, every time my actual alarm goes off at 5:21 and I hit snooze so I can play Wordle and Connections on my phone and cuddle my purring kitten, I think of Sarah and how she referred to this behavior as “bed rot.” The term is amusing enough (I visualize myself slowly rotting like an old zucchini) that it does not spur me out of bed immediately at 5:21, although it is visceral enough that I no longer stay in bed after my snooze alarm sounds at 5:30. Thank you, Sarah, for the motivating morning visual.

My eyes have been doing this thing where they suddenly sting and start streaming tears and I can’t see properly for a long time. The phenomenon has happened maybe ten times in the past couple of years (and definitely started pre-kitten, so there is no need to blame Lenny, not that you would), but it started happening more frequently in August and September. It seems to strike out of nowhere, sometimes in the morning, sometimes later in the day. I haven’t identified any specific trigger. I do all the things: take out my contacts, remove any makeup I’m wearing, flush my eyes with water. A few times, I’ve had to lie on my back with a damp washcloth on my eyes. I reported this issue to the eye doctor who suggested eye drops for dry eyes, so I use those as a preventive measure. But it occurred to me recently that maybe I’m allergic to my mascara? I love drugstore mascaras, like Maybelline The Falsies and L’Oreal Voluminous False Fiber Lashes. In fact, I purchased a tube of Maybelline Lash Sensational Firework mascara in early September. It seemed that I mostly had these weird reactions when I was wearing mascara; maybe I was allergic to it? So I took myself to Google and read a bunch of articles about the best mascara for sensitive eyes and ended up buying this one. Yes, it is $28 (even on amazon), which is FAR more than I typically prefer to spend on my mascara. But oh how I love it! It makes my lashes nice and long. It doesn’t seem to clump. My eyes haven’t had a single reaction in the weeks I’ve been using it. And, best of all, it comes off my lashes without having to use paint thinner. I suppose it’s still early days, and my eyes could decide to revolt against this mascara… or perhaps there is something totally unrelated to mascara that is causing the stinging/tearing issue. But right now, I am in LOVE with this mascara.

Speaking of things I love lately, I am really into this guacasalsa from Trader Joe’s. It’s possible I’ve mentioned this before, but I forgot about it for awhile. It’s really good – slightly tangy, slightly creamy, neither guacamole nor (very mild) salsa. I love it on chicken tacos but it is good on nachos, too.

*Can you spot the cat in this photo? He is obsessed with the fridge and freezer and will scamper into the kitchen any time we open them.*

Back to discussing makeup. I have never been a person who wears foundation. I don’t like it. But it seems like maybe foundation – or other products with similar benefits to foundation – has improved since I last wore it, which was at my senior prom in 1999. What I want is something that goes on and feels like a moisturizer but has some sort of blurring/smoothing effect as to even out my skin and hide my undereye circles. What I don’t want is something that makes me skin a different color than my neck, or something that looks cakey or flaky, or something that emphasizes my wrinkles by cracking around my mouth or eyes. Does this magical product exist? Bonus points if it works with sensitive skin (my skin is prone to break outs if cosmetics even glance my way). I think I am looking for a tinted serum, but… that’s as far as I’ve gotten. What do you use?

Older kids are amazing part 324: Carla did all the Halloween decorating this year! I am so pleased with how it turned out. All I had to do was bring the box of Halloween decorations upstairs and she took care of the rest. Are things arranged the exact way I would have arranged them? Nope. Do I care? Not one bit. (Update: Lenny / Leo has decided the decorations don’t scare him.)

*Cat and pumpkin have achieved an uneasy peace… for now.*

Colorful leaves are not the only view I enjoy about fall. Right now, I am loving the Halloween decorations I see as I drive. While I know it’s not for everyone, Halloween is such a delightful time of year for me. I’m not even really into it the way a lot of people are, but it’s a season of pure joy (and chills) that has no expectations besides sharing a bit of candy. I love everything – the super scary scenes, the animatronic ghosts and ghouls, the yards that have a million zombies, the roving orange spotlights on people’s houses, the arrangements of pumpkin and squash, the giant skeletons, the inflatable spiders. My only question is where do people KEEP their Halloween decorations during the off season? All of my decorations (except for one stand-up ghost) fit into a single plastic bin and I love that. Some yards showcase so many skeletons and zombies, I wonder if the owners have a separate storage space just for their decorations.

*These guys are going through some things.*

It’s been super rainy this week, as befits the latter half of October. I do hope we get some warm, dry weather for Halloween. For the first time ever, Carla will be trick-or-treating at a friend’s house instead of at our house. Wait. No, for the second time ever. (We went to a friend’s house when Carla was in… pre-K? I can’t quite remember.) Even though I think Carla and her friends are kind of at that borderline age for trick-or-treating (which is not to say I oppose anyone of any age trick-or-treating) so I hope this year is spectacular for them. My kiddo has gone around and around about her costume. Originally she wanted to be one of the characters from KPop Demon Hunters, which is a phenomenon I still find baffling, but whatever, you do you, teens. Then she was waffling between Wednesday or Enid from Wednesday. She went with the latter, which seems to be a good choice; I’ve heard that KPop Demon Hunters is such a popular costume that people are having trouble finding it. And I am NOT a Make Your Own Costume person. I mean, I would support Carla in making her own costume, but I don’t sew and I’m not creative about sourcing inexpensive ways to put a costume together. Which is to say that we bought a costume online. Carla was eager to dye her hair, and I was not, so the costume element I am most excited about is a pack of colorful hair extensions. When I bought them, they were $6.99 – I price I gladly paid to prevent Carla from using hair chalk, which I loathe. Now I just have to figure out how to install (?) them in her hair so they look good!

*The kitten is FURIOUS that *I* am outside and *he* is inside.*

What are you doing for winter outerwear these days? It was in the mid 40s (8.3 C) and raining when I went for a walk yesterday. I had to wear a heavier jacket than usual and I discovered that it is NOT waterproof. Don’t get me wrong – I adore my jacket, it’s cute, it’s comfortable, it’s lightweight, it’s super warm. And it’s not like it claims to be waterproof. It’s “water repellant.” But apparently it repels water only for so long, and then the rain soaks through into your arms. The cooler temperatures reminded me, though, that Carla needs a new winter coat this year. She’d been wearing a hand-me-down from a friend for the past two years, but now her wrists extend far beyond the sleeves so it’s time to get something new. Ugh. She also needs new snow pants and snow boots. In the past, I got her winter outerwear from Lands End – the snowpants were waterproof and had reinforced knees and I always bought them in a larger size so they would last two years. But she no longer fits in kid sizes. Wait a second – Lands End actually has sizes up to 15-16 years. AND they have a slim line. Maybe I have answered my own question! Boots though. Those are always trickier. I have SUCH a hard time buying expensive footwear when I know it’s only going to last a year. I wish I had Elisabeth’s thrifting eye, but I don’t; thrifting makes me feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable, and it’s not like I even know of any good local thrift shops. Which snow boots do you wear and/or buy for your kids?

Let’s talk about something that’s unrelated to spending money! Carla has a parent / teacher conference coming up and, as usual, I am anxious about it. Her school doesn’t do conferences with individual teachers, although I assume I could set some up if I wanted to. Instead, we meet with a teacher who sees her for something like homeroom. Fortunately, this homeroom teacher is also Carla’s instructor for a core class, so at least I can get some in-depth understanding of how she’s doing in one key subject. I never feel prepared or satisfied for conferences. The teachers usually have a prepared list of things they go through, and then answer questions. But we only have thirty minutes together, and a homeroom teacher can only address so many things about a class she doesn’t teach. Carla is having a tough year on several different fronts, so I really want to understand how I can support her at home, but I don’t know the right questions to ask or how to find a balance between support system and helicopter mom. The whole thing stresses me out. Parenting is IMPOSSIBLE. It is so hard to see your child struggle and not be able to step in and fix everything. Ah, okay, now I understand why I just want to write about frivolous shopping needs. Much less stressful.

It’s Friday and I still have yet to make a single phone call on my list. The anxiety of making the phone call is a big part of the battle, but the other half is the knowledge that one phone call rarely resolves anything. As Birchie said when I first moaned about not wanting to make any of these calls, “Up to the point where I make the call, it’s just one item on my to-do list. Once I make the call the task expands to 10 items.” PREACH. And yet I do need to make these stupid calls. One of them should be fairly simple: scheduling our flu and Covid shots. Carla’s pediatrician will provide shots to parents, too, which is fabulous. I am going to make this call today. I am. Ugh. I should probably also schedule our furnace check-up. That should be a pretty easy one. The others can wait until next week / never. Are there any phone calls you are delaying?

Have you “inherited” any weirdly specific things from your parents? The other night, I was writing down the word “believe” for Carla (for some reason I could not remember how to spell it without looking at it; my brain is SO fuzzy these days), and then I caught sight of it the next morning and thought for a moment that my mom had written it. Somehow, she and I have very similar handwriting. How? Is handwriting a genetic trait?

I didn’t say my handwriting was *legible.*

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. What random things are rattling around in your mind today?

August 9, 2022 by suzanne day by day

Emergency Room (Everyone Is Fine)

I got a call from the nurse at Carla’s camp. I feel like school/camp nurses should be contractually obligated to begin ALL phone calls to a parent with “Your child is FINE, but this is the nurse and I am calling because…” I mean, unless the child is not fine, but we are fortunately not going down that path today.

Apparently, Carla’s eye was bothering her. The nurse went through the steps she’d taken to relieve the pain: flushed the eye, applied a compress, looked at it. I didn’t have any other advice for her (am not a nurse) and we were about an hour out from the end of the camp day, so I said, “Okay, sounds like we should keep an eye on it. But I don’t think I should come get her early, do you?” The nurse said she didn’t think so.

I mean, things get into eyes, right? Dust and eyelashes and contact lens solution. And it can be irritating or painful, but you flush the eye and blink a lot and just… let it resolve.

This was my attitude as I went to pick up Carla from camp. Her eye was still bothering her. She kept it half shut and it was red and a little puffy. Otherwise, she was cheerful. She had no idea what happened to the eye! All of sudden, it just started hurting!

Just to be safe – you know, to consult An Actual Doctor instead of relying on my admittedly lacking Mom Skillz – I called the eye doctor on the way home. No answer at his office. The answering service said there was a Dr. C on call and took a message.

Carla and I went home and she lay on the floor and I gave her a compress to put on her eye. Boy, she’s really milking this, I thought affectionately/exasperatedly. I took a photo of her and sent it to my parents along with my (near) daily report of Carla’s activities.

Carla lay there for a long time. I looked at her eye. It was red, yes. But the pupil looked normal and she seemed otherwise fine. She’ll blink it out, I thought. She said, “I think I’m going to go swing,” and I agreed, feeling satisfied that she was Fine, and was done playing the Woe Is Me card.

My father called. He doesn’t often call out of the blue – my parents are schedule-a-time-to-talk folk. He said that my mom had read my email, and told him immediately that something was wrong with Carla’s eye. OVERREACTING MUCH, MOTHER? I thought, exasperated. She’ll blink it out eventually!

But my dad had a bunch of concerned-sounding questions. And while we were talking, Carla came inside from swinging – after maybe two minutes, which is Very Unlike Her – and lay back down on the floor and asked for another cold compress.

My husband was now texting me about Carla’s eye. He, like my dad, was asking a lot of questions in a way that made me nervous. Suddenly, my Wait Until You Blink It Out plan seemed foolish.

My dad said that I should call the on-call ophtho back if I hadn’t heard from him in 30 minutes. It had been… 45. So when I got off the phone – significantly chastened and now feeling kind of worried – I called him back. I waited around for a bit – 15 minutes, maybe? And then I texted my husband that we were going to pick him up on the way to the Emergency Room.

We have been to the Emergency Room a handful of times. Once, my husband sliced open his thumb (if you drop a glass dish in the sink, do not try to catch it in your hand is my hot tip of the day). Once, I was holding Carla’s hand while we were in Target and she sat down and dislocated her elbow. Once, I was working on a project with a friend and she sliced open her finger. There were a couple of other times: Carla’s cheek met a dog’s tooth (it was not a bite, it was a collision); I drove an ATV through a barbed-wire fence neck first; my father-in-law had sudden onset chest pains. It is never pleasant and it always takes a million years.

I had not even considered bringing something for Carla to look at/play with (see above re: Mom Skillz), so the three of us sat in the ER and my husband allowed Carla to play a video game on his phone.

Of course, her eye was starting to look SO MUCH better. The redness had faded, and she was looking at the screen of the phone with both eyes rather than keeping the one squeezed shut. My husband and I exchanged Significant Looks.

We only waited an hour. (In addition to forgetting about entertainment, I also forgot about FOOD [Mom Skillz!] and so it was now seven p.m. and none of us had eaten.) A resident checked Carla and did a full physical exam, which is pretty rare among doctors these days and therefore notable. She wanted to a) flush the eye and b) check it with a special dye to see if there were any scratches. But she needed to consult with the attending physician first and see if they needed to call in the on-call ophtho (presumably the same guy who NEVER called me back harrumph). The attending physician came in. She was cheerful and friendly and agreed with the resident’s assessment. She left. After more time passed, a nurse came in with saline solution and a special syringe. Carla required A Lot of Discussion and several demonstrations before she would allow the nurse to flush her eye with the solution. And then she would only do it for several seconds at a time. It was very cold, apparently. She and the patient angel of a nurse would count to seven out loud together and then take a break. It took ten million years to get 100 ml of saline into my child’s eye. Then we waited for awhile until the attending came back. After a lot of coaxing, she got some of the bright yellow dye in Carla’s eye, turned off the lights, and examined her eye with a special light. She didn’t see any scratches, she said.

Carla said her eye felt a little better! It was only when she looked straight ahead and blinked that it hurt. She was very cheerful. The attending was very cheerful. She said that someone would be in to flush Carla’s eye a second time, and then we could be on our way.

We waited another while. Carla watched a Disney show on Netflix. (There was a TV in the room, but it was off and no one had said we could watch TV. But… My husband just reached behind the bed and grabbed the remote and turned on the TV! I would never in a million years think to do that without explicit permission.)

A fourth person came in. She was a EMT, she told us, and she was there to flush Carla’s eye! Carla was much more amenable to the flushing this time.

After the EMT left, another nurse came in with our discharge papers and we left.

As we walked out, Carla started complaining that her eye still hurt.

The next morning when Carla woke up, her eye was still red and now it was all crusty. To be expected, after undergoing whatever trauma it had undergone. But she was still keeping the one eye closed and complaining of pain when she looked forward and blinked.

So I kept her home from camp and got her an appointment with her eye doctor.

He came in, flushed her eye, put the special dye in… But he said that he could see a bunch of scratches on her eye where something was irritating it. And he LISTENED to her when she said that she was fine when she kept her eyes closed or when she looked to the side, but that it hurt when she looked forward and blinked. Also – and this is a skill I deeply admire – the ophtho managed to listen to Carla and be sympathetic to her fears about being touched/having Things Done to her, while moving things along at a good clip. He did not allow Carla to stall and delay, he did what he needed to do. And it was all over SO FAST!

After MUCH (but efficient) COAXING, he flipped her eyelid inside out. And there it was, plain as day: a little speck of something, minuscule but visible even to my untrained eye. The ophtho used a swab to remove it. He and Carla speculated that it was a little piece of tree bark, although I have no idea how they came to that conclusion; it looked like dust to me. He gave her a prescription for an antibiotic (because of the scratches) and a special ointment and sent us on our way.

She was completely pain free by the time we reached the car.

The moral of the story is: ALWAYS HAVE THE DOCTOR FLIP THE EYELID. We could have saved SO MUCH time and money and trouble if we had asked the resident or the ER attending to just flip! the! eyelid! Or, even better, if we had thought to have my physician husband flip her eyelid himself at home!

Okay, okay. I am going to take a deep breath. This is why we have health insurance (thank goodness) and this is what money is for. Breathing. Breathing.

The secondary motto is DON’T UNDERESTIMATE EYE STUFF. Because even if you think it is just a dumb eyelash that will blink out eventually, maybe it is a piece of metal that could cause serious damage.

Meanwhile, the on-call ophtho never called us back. Never. I am still mad about it. My husband calls people back at 2:30 in the morning when he is on call. Because that is what it means to be on call. You take patient calls and you return them. The returning of the calls is a critical part. My husband suggested that maybe the ophtho wasn’t accustomed to getting emergency calls! And so he wasn’t paying attention to his phone! To which I say PAH. Even if my husband is delayed by doing a procedure or being with a patient, he calls patients back. Even if he gets a call from a patient that is frustrating in its non-urgency, he still calls that patient back. And I called this on-call ophtho TWICE! Still. Mad. About. It.

July 15, 2018 by suzanne day by day

Misery! Of the Optical Sort

Do you know the difference between these two bottles?

The righthand bottle is plain old saline solution. It’s for rinsing and storing your contact lenses. The lefthand bottle is a special enzyme-cleaning solution for your contacts. You put it in a special case with your contacts and the case contains a neutralizing material that does the crucial neutralizing over many (six, I think) hours. You can see right up on the top of the bottle in big, bold letters that you should NOT put it in your eyes. If you are a contact-lenses wearer, you probably already know that. I have been wearing contacts since fourth grade so I DEFINITELY know that.

And yet, the other day, I removed my contacts from the case, put one lens on the tip of my finger, and instead of filling the lens with normal saline as I have EVERY DAY OF MY ADULT LIFE AND MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD, I filled it with the enzyme cleaner instead. And, not noticing my HEINOUS ERROR, I put the enzyme-solution-filled lens in my eye. And then I died.

No, I didn’t die. But I was felled by immediate, searing pain. I literally collapsed to my knees, on my bathroom floor, in a very dramatic fashion.

I like to think this act of unfathomable stupidity was a test of my emergency-handling skills. Okay, I will admit that my immediate reaction was to crumple to the floor and screech loudly and wonder who in the hell was going to call 911 for me (I was alone in the house), which doesn’t bode well for fires or murderers.

But then my logical brain took over, and I started flushing my eye with lots of cold water. My eye refused to open because the last time it did, I tried to murder it. So I soaked a washcloth in water and pushed that up against my eye until it finally did let me open it a crack. Then more flushing until I was finally able to pry to contact out of my eye. More flushing still. Then I was able to google what a person was to do if she was so ridiculous as to put enzyme solution directly in her eye. Flush with water, is the answer. Contact your eye doctor if the pain and irritation remains after several hours.

PHEW.

Let us now look at a soothing hibiscus bush.

Yesterday, there was a single blossom… today, many! Just like popcorn, where you wait and wait and wait, and then all of a sudden your bush is full! But of hibiscus, not popcorn! Which I don’t put on shrubbery anyway! This metaphor has gone awry!

Before and since the Solution Incident of ’18, my eyes have been bothering me for a different reason. I am going to guess “allergies,” given the fact that I also sneeze a lot.

Whatever the case, my eye are constantly red and itchy and uncomfortable. I am constantly rubbing them and trying not to rub them and wiping them with washcloths. In the morning, they are encrusted by… well, crust. It’s really delightful.

I have been self-medicating with over-the-counter antihistamines and allergy eyedrops. They work a teensy bit. The great and all-knowing internet suggests that my best recourse is to stop wearing makeup and contacts. Blah. I like wearing makeup. My face looks naked without at least mascara. And I like wearing contacts. It’s almost a necessity, in summer, because I need to wear sunglasses to protect my eyes against the solar glare. And I don’t have prescription sunglasses, so I can’t wear them unless I am wearing contacts.

Well, I will give up both. If I have to. But the goal here is to have eyes that a) can see and b) can do so without redness, itching, or total nakedness.

Nothing I am doing on my own (eyedrops, antihistamines, rubbing) is working. I think I need either a) a diagnosis and an actual treatment plan or b) an updated glasses prescription so I can get some sunglasses with prescription lenses. In either case, I need to find a new eye doctor.

You may choose to skip this ranty/boring part:

The last time we discussed my eye doctor, I was frustrated by insurance issues. (Which we ended up paying; to make a long story still unfortunately long, my husband and I both got a bill from our eye doctor for the exact same service. Our insurance was covering part of my visit, but not part of my husband’s. Our insurance claimed that my eye doctor was no longer a preferred provider, so they wouldn’t be covering charges. Turns out he WAS a preferred provider, but only became one a month or so after my husband’s visit [and a few weeks before MY visit, which means the insurance company covered part of my visit out of the kindness of their hearts] [he’d just joined a new practice; previous to that he was a preferred provider according to our insurance].) Anyway, we thought we got the insurance issues sorted out. But recently, my husband made an appointment to see the eye doctor and once he was there, in the waiting room, for his appointment, they informed him that our eye doctor is no longer a preferred provider under our insurance plan. SIGH. So we paid in full for covered services for my husband two years in a row. And now we all need to find a new eye doctor anyway.

End

I do not WANT to find a new eye doctor. I want my OLD eye doctor. And I want him to be covered by our insurance. Yes, yes, I know I am very fortunate to have eyes and a selection of eye doctors in the area AND insurance that covers eye stuff. I can still be grumpy about having to find an eye doctor.

You know what this means, right? Research, and then calls to the doctor to see if s/he is taking new patients. And then calls to my insurance provider to see if the doctor is covered. And then calls to the doctor to make an appointment. It sounds like only three calls, which I acknowledge is manageable if mentally TRYING, but let’s agree that it will actually require many, many more than three.

Let us now look at a charming and probably hypoallergenic baby deer that would totally be a preferred provider lookit his little spotties awwwwww.

Fawn 2