The Acidic Observer, Volume II

Hello Tuesday!

For a minute there I thought I wasn't going to have much, if anything, to add to this little ranty pants saga. I was worried.

First of all, Dan and Steph won the MKR finale - it was the best outcome I could have hoped for. Dammitt. And then, there were no drink driving celebrities, no one suing KFC because they don't serve Big Mac's and no new cars with cameras to replace our eyeballs.

But then, like a beacon of ranty hope, Channel Seven premiered their new show, Celebrity Splash.

Oh. Dear. God.

It was like a car crash - you know you shouldn't look, but the chance of glimpsing something horrific is just too tempting. And it delivered.

I was mildly confused for a moment because I couldn't work out where the celebrities were. I know I'm young-ish, but I like to pride myself on having been born in the mid 80's and, as such, familiar with a vast majority of past and present TV personalities.

However I'm not sure if the word 'celebrities' is as applicable for this show, so much as 'random people, some who used to be on TV before you were born'. But I agree, 'Random People Splash' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Perhaps 'I've Run Out of Money Splash'? or 'My Knees Are Giving Out and I Don't Think I'll Make The Next Olympics Splash'?

Aside from the fact that it appears to be a bunch of victims people throwing themselves from the highest platform available, I'm not quite sure what the point is. There are plenty of belly flops that make you cringe...

Wait! That's it! I noticed they were mildly ambiguous about what the grand prize would be for the unfortunate, spandex clad winner, and it has just occurred to me. 

What this show should really be called is 'Reconstruction Splash'! By throwing themselves from a platform and possibly having their faces mashed and internal organs liquefied by the watery impact, the grand prize is an all expenses paid trip to the reconstructive surgery ward of the local hospital.

And we all know that the first step in reviving a long lost career in television (or a non existent one) is some brand new, well enhanced plastic features. And a body lift so tight, the surgeon uses your belly button as a marker for your new lips.

I know we've run out of ideas for movies and so we're rehashing everything we can (Titanic 3D, anyone?), and it's only a matter of time before we see Fay Wray being dragged to the top of the Empire State Building in 3D, but I honestly thought TV had a bit longer before we were dredging the bottom of the ideas pond.

Okay, let me re-phrase that. Dredging the bottom of the Dutch ideas pond. Because apparently we can't think of terrible ideas all on our own, we have to borrow some from the land of legalised marijuana. Which kind of says it all, really.

In the meantime, I am grateful for my Foxtel subscription - yes, it may be mostly re-runs and shows from the US, but if it means I can avoid the terror that is Free to Air TV, then it's worth every cent.

 

Out of my Control...

Holy crap this week has been dramatic!

I got my first ride in an ambulance on Tuesday. I wasn't excited so much as horribly embarrassed. I was reluctant to go to the GP as it was so, when the GP turned around and said 'Kel, your oxygen levels and blood pressure are low enough to have me worried and I'd like you to go to the hospital in an ambulance', I was hoping the floor would open up and swallow me.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't enjoy being made a fuss over. And as far as I'm concerned, ambulances are for real emergencies - heart attacks, severed limbs, babies being born in carparks.

It was exactly why I didn't tell anyone that I'd fallen over and it really hurt. The only thing that gave me away was the increasing shallowness of breath...and the fact that every time the baby moved on my right side, it brought me to tears.

Needless to say I got a bollocking from The Man for not being honest with him, and a bollocking from my Mum for the same thing.

The Man said he nearly had a heart attack when he got the call saying to meet me at the hospital. And then he almost passed out when they put my drip in and for some reason blood started to pour down my arm.

The nurses were very sweet, and the midwife who checked out bubba was lovely and spent a lot of time on my belly with the doppler so I could listen to the comforting sound of our baby's heartbeat.

I would like to clarify that baby is 100% okay - when I fell, my biggest concern was not falling flat on my belly...hence why I ended up crashing down on my right side a little harder than I might have done if I had more notice of the floor rising up to meet me.

Now, I'm not saying that ALL toys are the devil...but small, pointy, plastic toys on polished, wooden floors in a dark hallway - poised to meet the foot of a woman who's centre of gravity is changing by the minute - are right up there on my shit list.

My only complaint of the whole hospital experience was that they kept trying to give me pain relief that contained aspirin...no matter how many times I told them I'm allergic to aspirin.  Right about the time The Man was ready to strangle someone, a nurse had the sense to write these things down on my chart.

Did I mention they also tried to give me an x-ray without a lead apron to protect the baby because the x-ray tech didn't read all the clinical notes?

Yeah - I'm not even sure where to start on my concern for the training these people receive.

Ahem. Moving on.

Thankfully they didn't make me stay overnight (sleeping with 3 thousand pillows in our own bed still isn't perfect, right now, let alone having to sleep on a shite hospital bed!) and I was discharged. But not before they gave me Endone.

Holy crap - I don't remember a lot of the rest of the night, but I do remember feeling completely out of control and at some point having a spew-fest in the loo.

Vomiting in the car is still the lowest point of my life to date, but this experience was pretty close. The Man tells me I kept telling him not to go home without me, could he take the chicken out and I was getting upset because apparently my chin was getting stuck to my shoulder.

I'm not even sure what the hell to think about all of that. I'll probably just continue to feel embarrassed and hope that one day my husband can look at me without seeing a vomiting, beached whale who can't breathe properly.

My rib won't completely heal while I'm still pregnant because every thump from bubba slows the healing process. And I feel awful for saying that...like I'm blaming the baby somehow. But I'm not. Every thump, as far as I'm concerned, is a sign that everything is okay and baby's health is my priority.

As far as The Man is concerned, this is the last straw and he wants me to go on maternity leave. I can see his point - if I don't take the pain killers then I can't sit and if I can't sit, I can't do my job. However if I take the pain killers, they turn me into a zombie, so I still can't do my job!

I'm not sure how I feel about it...part of me feels like a burden for being so clumsy and stupid, part of me feels guilty for being happy about the prospect of going on leave and not having to worry about work or daycare anymore, and part of me just feels tired and doesn't want to think about it - I just want someone to tell me what to do so it can be done.

And I suppose, in a way, it appears fate has taken the drivers seat in this situation and there's no way to escape the inevitable outcome. So someone is telling me what to do. I just have to do it.

Perhaps this is a life lesson in letting go and accepting that things happen for a reason? Regardless, it looks like things will be taking a different path than I had originally planned...

"The Time Has Come", The Walrus said...

Not  "to talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings..."

But to discuss the fact that The Man and his brother made such strides towards the current renovation project in our home, over the weekend, I thought there must have been vodka in the drinking water.

It looks like this baby will actually have a room, and I'm no longer eyeing off the fan blades in the lounge room as a potential 'cot' because I won't have anywhere to put a real one.

I'll admit, it was a risk letting the two of them take on the demolition. The Man and his brother are terrifyingly accident prone. If something could possibly happen, it inevitably will. It's in their DNA.

I married the one in red...

In true family style, they proceeded to remove gyprock and other miscellaneous building materials from our home with a ladder that was too short, no shoes, no safety glasses, bare hands and with the electricity still running through the house while hammering and chiseling into the wall...that contains the central power board.

I suppose their main line of safety was that beer would not be consumed on the job.

Thank fuck.

Somehow, the only 'massive' injuries sustained were a chisel into the hand (brother) and near impalement with a section of wood that only amounted to massive bruising (The Man). I was informed that he truly has 'balls of steel' because that was what got in the way.

Bandaids and laughter appeared to be the remedy.

Very few nails were stepped on, and each had the courtesy of warning one another whenever they did so. Because, you know, removing them would have been sensible.

When pondering how to thank The Brother for all his hard work, it occured to me the best thank you gift would be a tetanus shot and offering to stitch up his hand. Or just get him home alive to his wife and their unborn child.

Happily, the construction of the new wall and relocation of the door frame will be done by someone else entirely. Although he is an army bud of The Brother, so safety standards could be questionable.

I'll just take Miss 3 to the park and pretend it's not happening.

But in the meantime, I have to try and appear knowledgeable while The Man talks to me about what the electrician will need to do, and data cables, and practical locations for power points and light switches and fan controls and how easy it will be to finish off the floor.

That's totally awesome, but in the meantime I'm more concerned about the gyprock being fixed in the adjoining wall, since the demolition wasn't *strictly* controlled and has now spread to Miss 3's bedroom too.

We are 15 weeks away from blast off in my uterus, and I feel like the space is 25 weeks away from completion. But I have every confidence it will be done in time.

Whether or not the brother's end up in the hospital ward next to me is something we'll have to wait and see...

Polly Dolly: Conference Casual

Conference Casual by Kel001 featuring vintage tops

Due to the current wrist situation typing is a long winded process...so this will be short and sweet.

This is what I'd wear to a Bloggers Conference. The End.

Playing along with Danimezza's Polly Dolly Challenge

I fell down the stairs this morning

Yep, I did. Smack bang right down the front steps.

I've been whinging to the Guru for months how the decking at the top of the stairs needs looking at because it's slippery, and when it rains (like, ALL THE TIME) it only makes it worse.

I feel now I have done everything I can to prove my point. Including doing a shite 'Evil Knievil' impression on my way down the stairs. Sadly, I didn't land on my feet. Well, I did, but they were up around my face. One of them, anyway.

I called the Guru and screeched something about needing to book time in his diary to discuss renovations. Because otherwise I'm going home this afternoon to burn the house down in a rage*. After I've seen my GP.



* Dear Insurance Company - if my house burns down in the (near) future, it totally wasn't me and you will need to pay for us to build a new home. Without a shitty, slippery deck. And by the way, our new Ferrari was in the drive at the time, and it contained the new 60 inch plasma screen I just picked up from The Good Guys.