miraculous recovery, time to go home, & other shit!

The time is 9:11 a.m. At around 5 this morning, Grandma Cozie bursts into my mom's bedroom (where I am sharing a bed with her for the duration of this stupid visit) wanting a washcloth so she can take a bath.

I'm pissed. It's fucking five o'clock in the morning!!! I cleaned that bathroom yesterday & put clean towels & washcloths in there! I have to get out of bed & show her where they are (right in front of her eyes, on top of the toilet!). Then I climb back into bed.

I officially wake up at seven o'clock. My grandma is back asleep. Mom wants to get ready to go get grocery shopping done. I can't get into my fucking room because my grandma decided to take a bath at the crack of dawn, & now she is asleep again.

And here it is, 9:14 a.m., and she is still asleep. Everything is in my room. My clothes, my purse, my BRAS, my UNDERWEAR. EVERYTHING.

Oh yeah. It's time for her & Uncle James to go home.

Then to make it worse, Uncle Glen & Aunt Roberta are coming up later on. Don't get me wrong, I love Uncle Glen & Aunt Roberta to death...but let me tell you the story of how I was snowed in with my parents, my brother, & old people!!!!!

It was late winter of 1998, the year the El Nino phenomenon happened, around March, I believe. The whole southern gang (Grandma Cozie, Uncle James, Uncle Glen & Aunt Roberta) decide to make the pilgrimage up here to Indiana to visit relatives & stay at our place. Our tiny double-wide modular home out in the middle of nowhere. I live in what used to be a cornfield. There were bad rainstorms down in Alabama when they were making their visit, bad hail & everything. And I swear to God, they brought all the bad weather with them!!! As soon as they got up here, THE SNOW FELL HARD. The temperatures plummeted as well. Next thing you know, all of the roads are covered in snow. Schools are cancelled. Jobs are cancelled. We had no water, we lost power (& since we had a cordless telephone, that really put us at a loss)...it was shitty. I was stuck in this double-wide modular home with my dad, my mom, my brother, my grandma, two great uncles (one being Uncle James, who smokes like a chimney & drinks like a fish....UGH) & a great aunt, who all needs their meds & everything, & are cranky & crotchety. I swear to God, they brought the bad weather up with them. And I have NEVER been cool with my relatives staying here with us since.

Aunt Ruth made a "miraculous recovery," according to Mom. And now I guess they plan on putting her in a rehab clinic to help nurse her back to health. NO THANKS TO VIVIAN, DAMMIT. If she had it her way, the plug would've been pulled on her by now. I don't understand my relatives sometimes. And now Dad has taken his vacation time for NOTHING.

You know, times like this I wish I had a steady boyfriend who I could just move in with for a week or so until they get the hell out.

"You're killing your kid! What kind of parent are you?!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060620/hl_nm/parental_smoking_dc

Parental smoking still a threat to kids' lungs
By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new international study of more than 20,000 children confirms that exposure to cigarette smoke before and after birth impairs their lung function, and that parental smoking remains a serious public health issue.

The effects of smoking during pregnancy last up to age 12, while exposure to cigarette smoking after birth further worsens lung function, Dr. Manfred A. Neuberger of the Medical University in Vienna, one of the study's authors, told Reuters Health.

It is difficult to tell, Neuberger noted, whether the impairment of lung function resulting from prenatal and early life exposure is permanent, given that many individuals with parents and siblings who smoke will have started smoking themselves by their teen years.

The researchers analyzed results from a subset of children who had participated in the Pollution and the Young Study, including a total of 22,712 children from eight countries. The findings appear in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were 31 percent to 40 percent more likely to have poor lung function than children born to non-smokers, the researchers found. Early-life exposure independently increased risk of poor lung function to a lesser degree, by 24 percent to 27 percent.

Sixty percent of the children in the study had been exposed to cigarette smoke before birth or in early life, the researchers found. "Considering the high number of exposed children, this indicates that both environmental tobacco smoke exposure and smoking during pregnancy remain a severe public health problem," Neuberger and his team conclude.

The findings are a "stark reminder" that legal efforts to reduce exposure to cigarette smoke in workplaces aren't protecting the group of people at greatest risk from passive smoking, young children, Drs. Mark D. Eisner of the University of California, San Francisco and Francesco Forastiere of the Rome E Health Authority in Italy write in an editorial accompanying the study.

"Children are primarily exposed to tobacco smoke in the home, where legal restrictions do not apply," they note.

SOURCE: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, June 2006.

This is why I'm heavily against smoking, & am firmly against smoking in public venues. Neither one of my parents considered quitting after my lung surgery, & Aunt Pam didn't quit after all of the shit she had to deal with JR & his cystic fibrosis. WHAT KIND OF PARENTS ARE YOU?!!!

This whole fucking house smells like stale smoke. I HATE IT.

no way! you've GOT to be kidding me!

Someone who worked for Hasbro way back in the 80s must design pajama sets now.

Because I have a pair of pajamas that looks EXACTLY like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Jem-Doll-MATCHING-MEDLEY-Yellow-Halter-and-Pink-Shorts_W0QQitemZ9533052744QQcategoryZ15991QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem



Except the top is more of an actual tank top.

And I got 'em from Target last year.