Comments on the comments. And blather.

Thanks, everyone, for the congratulations on not losing my mind yesterday. After I got my EMT certification, I volunteered in an emergency room for a little while before the Navy moved us to Hawaii, so I saw... a lot. (The topper was a guy who shot himself in the head, who we tried to keep alive for organ harvest... every time someone did a chest compression, blood squirt out of some hole we hadn't patched yet. We didn't save the organs. The guy was a loss from the get-go.) Apparently I'm good at emergencies - I go straight into procedures as they were drilled into me and will bitch out anyone who gets in my way or fucks them up - including family members in informal situations. Both sides of the family (mine and the husbeast's) have genetic problems that result in trouble swallowing and occasional choking on food, so I've had - probably - more than average experience with choking family members. 99% of the time when I've had to step in and do something, it's to tell OTHER family to leave the choking person alone while they cough. If an airway is only partially blocked, you can make it worse with back-pounding and Heimlich maneuvering and all that. Yesterday, by the time I realized the Goob had swallowed that damn penny, she was running around the living room, singing, so the whole 'freak out' thing seemed really redundant. (Though I did slip last night and call her a dumbass over it, as in "You're the one who swallowed the penny, dumbass.")

Nerves of steel. I has them. (Actually, I tend to totally freak in situations where I can't DO anything to fix them. Medical emergencies where I can do CPR or control bleeding, I can handle.)

Yes, we are monitoring the Goob's poo to make sure the penny comes out the other end. Sigh. The joys of motherhood.

I'm really going to do a doily knitting tutorial, I promise, but right now I'm not able to take my anti-inflammatories (major mouth sores, again) and so my hands are killing me. Soon as that whole mess straightens out, I will do some kind of tutorial. I'm also thinking of posting the 'keys' to all the lace charts I know of, for those trying to decipher German lace patterns. In one system, a square is a purl stitch, in another, it's knit one in back, in another it's a plain knit. So I'll do what I can to make it easier for all us lace-knitting lunatics. The two sets of German patterns I have right now, use two different sets of symbols. It's crazy. And they're both different from Marienne Kinzel.

I finally got my book on how to Batik properly. It didn't contain the information I wanted. (Bugger.) Anyone know if putting bees' wax over pencil or chalk marks will 'set' the marks into the fabric? Otherwise I'm gonna just experiment and hope for the best. Oh, and I'm at another "Would the Phoenicians order this from Dharma Trading?" stage. I need gel to thicken the dye with. I'm supposed to buy sodium alginate. I'm thinking corn starch and water cooked together. I'll make sure to document the insanity.

Due to the lack of anti-inflammatories, I've taken my other as-needed painkillers that make me babble. Does it show?

Last weekend, we put the Goob's crib (the baby boat, in Goober language) up in the attic, and replaced it with a 'youth bed' (the wagon, in Goober language - no idea where she gets this stuff). Yes, the stars and moon on the head board glow in the dark:

This has led to me sleeping in my office (the futon is right on the other side of that wall her bed is against) to keep an eye on her. And has led to things like last night's three AM screaming tantrum in the living room, after she got up and wanted a snack and I told her to go back to bed. She has been informed in no uncertain terms that she is not allowed out of bed in the morning until it's daylight. We'll see if it works. I'm not holding my breath.

So not only am I drugged, I'm a drugged zombie.

Oh. Computer games. Someone asked what I play. I do turn-based strategy (Civilization, Sierra's City Builder series, Galactic Empires, and at the moment a really old game called Age of Wonders which is fantasy) and the occasional round of Free Cell, Minesweeper, and other non-reflex puzzle games. Anything requiring reflexes will eventually twist me up into a near anxiety attack - all that fun nervous system stuff again. I USED to love Super Mario World and wound up giving away my NES after I busted my hand because I kept thinking 'Last time I played Super Mario and was freaked for three days must have been a fluke... I should try it again'. And of course I'd wind up freaked for three days again. The husbeast and I have discussed getting a Wii when the Goob's a little older. Should be interesting to see how bad I spaz on that. Right now my only bad-for-me game I'm playing is Lemmings, and I just can't give that damn game up. It's like an addiction. I'm so old I used to play Lemmings off a 5.5 inch floppy drive on a 286 computer. They won't be going away soon.

That should be more than enough babble for today. And yesterday, and tomorrow.

Oh. New season, Cities of the Underworld, starts at nine PM EST on History Channel this Sunday night. Geek TV. Gotta love it. (History buffs, if you don't watch it, see about getting the back episodes on download. At least the episodes about the major cities like Prague, Istanbul, Rome, and like that.) Sunday's episode is on London. I told the husbeast, and he said "Again?" (there's a previous episode about London in another season) I said "Dude, there's enough stuff under London they could do two DAYS on it, easy." he agreed.

Right. Babbling. Gonna stop now.