Remember Me?

No need to adjust your screen, and your eyes aren’t tricking you — this really is a new blog post. As my almost two months of absence can attest, I’ve been struggling with the blog lately. The entire thought process surrounding this is long, fairly dull, and might lead to concerns for my overall mental stability. (“You spend time thinking about that, really?”)

But, lest you think I am pretending in order to excuse a too-long absence, here are just some of the questions I’ve been pondering: Who is the blog for? (Me? Readers? Both?) What is the blog about, other than me? Does it have a theme, a purpose? Does it need one? Are Facebook and/or Twitter working better for me to keep in touch with people? Should I be using the blog differently now that I’m using FB & Twitter more? Would I want to do more with the blog if it had a less-stupid name? And, of course, once I get those questions answered, there’s the usual, mundane stuff about finding the time to write and all that. (And all I can say about that is it’s amazing what a mere 30-minute change in work hours can do to complicate things.)

But anyway, I’m happy to report that the time I spent on my blog hiatus certainly wasn’t dull. I’m never going to manage to recap it in any comprehensive way, but here’s a quick overview. Since last you heard from me, I:

• had house guests, twice (Marlene & Chris in October, Shannon & Wendy in November);
• went to Nashville for the National Preservation Conference and, among other things, ate more barbecue than would probably be considered appropriate;
• took a trip to Mexico (Akumal, on the Riviera Maya), had a blast, and discovered that tequila doesn’t kill the H1N1 virus;
• had the swine flu and an ear infection — at the same time;
• got to see nearly my entire family (Mom, the Minnesota cousins, the Pennsylvania cousins, my uncle, and — of course — Brian, Jen, and the boys) for an early Thanksgiving/family hockey night extravaganza;
• did a bunch of planning for my trip to Egypt and made a website for the friend whose wedding I’ll be attending there;
• went to several Caps games, a Redskins game, and a couple of concerts (Andrew Bird & Bruce Springsteen), and — this is the biggie —
• got a new nephew – at least for now, one who I’m excited to be meeting for the first time this upcoming weekend.

I don’ t know if this post marks my return to regular blogging or just a drive-by visit to the blogosphere, but given that it’s a new month, I thought I’d kick it off with a post.  We’ll see where it goes from here. And by all means, if you have any opinions about the questions I raised or advice on getting my blogging mojo back, by all means, have at it in the comments.

Better Living Through Chemistry, Indeed

If there has been one thing I’ve been saying too much here on the blog, and even more in real life, it’s “I’m too tired.” For the last — I dunno, maybe two years? — I’ve been growing increasingly weary. I’d come home from work on Friday and not leave my apartment again until brunch on Sunday; Saturday was often lost in a haze of dozing. And at least a couple of days a week, I’d come home from work and fall asleep on the couch almost immediately, before having dinner. I still managed (as most of the posts here can attest) to go about my life, but I was crushingly exhausted a lot of the time.

Then, somewhat lost amid her MS diagnosis was the news that Eileen had also been diagnosed with a thyroid disorder — one where the primary symptom is unexplained tiredness. She told me that her doctor said it ran in families, and in chatting with Mom, it came out that our dad had also had thyroid issues. Needless to say, given this information, I quickly added “is my thyroid OK?” to the list of questions for my doctor.

And then I waited, first for a month or so until I could get an appointment for a physical, and then for another 16 weeks for a new-patient appointment at the endocrinologist. But finally, it has been confirmed that I have the same thing as Eileen has and my dad had — Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, or, as it’s more commonly known, hypothyroidism. (I’m calling it by its full name whenever possible, though. I think it sounds fairly badass, like an opponent of Godzilla or the villain in an anime movie.) And it turns out that it’s responsible for a lot of other complaints I have, not just the tiredness, but little things that I had just chalked up to aging or other factors: weight gain, hyper-sensitivity to cold, forgetfulness.

Hashimoto’s, fortunately, is a manageable disease. I’ve been on the meds — synthetic thyroid pills — for two weeks now, and I am already blown away by how much better I feel. Eileen had told me that they were “life-changing” for her, but given our genetic predisposition for hyperbole, I took it with a grain of salt. But no kidding, these tiny little suckers are freakin’ amazing.

It took a week for my thyroid level to get up to normal, but now that it is, I could honestly dance for joy — I feel that much better. But lest it sound like I, too, might be succumbing to exaggeration, this is what I’ve been up to in the past seven days: Over the weekend, I went to the Maryland Renaissance Faire, a Caps game, and, as already noted, ice skating. I’ve been to a couple of happy hours and went to a party on Friday night. I haven’t once had the urge to fall asleep while watching tv — or during meetings. Freakin’ amazing, I say again.

Now I just need to get past the one side effect my little miracle of chemistry has produced — I am starving all. the. time. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, I am hungry enough to eat my shoes. Rationally, I know that this is just my body adjusting to a new metabolic speed, but holy crap is it hard to not just eat, eat, eat.

Speaking of which, it’s lunchtime.

Bad Auntie (or, The Day I Almost Ruined My Nephew’s Hockey Career)

Yesterday, I made my first-ever trip out to the Kettler Capitals Iceplex, the rink out in Ballston where my Washington Capitals practice. I was not, as you might suspect, heading out to stalk get an up-close view of the players (though I wouldn’t have complained if that had come to pass), but rather to go ice skating with Jen and D, my sister-in-law and older nephew. D has decided that he wants to play Mites on Ice hockey  at a Caps game, but there’s a glitch in his plan — he doesn’t know how to skate.  Yesterday’s trip was his second time out on the ice, and Jen invited me to join them.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am going to come out right here and say I am a terrible ice skater. I always have been, even when I skated semi-regularly as a kid, and having not been on the ice more than once or twice in a decade or so has done nothing to improve my skills.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Things went remarkably well for most of our visit — a spill here and there for D, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Jen and I went around with him most of the time, each of us holding a hand, but he’d also let go for short stretches every now and again. Towards the end, we decided to take some pictures, and that’s where things went off the rails. We slowed down for a moment to let Jen snap one last picture, and D wobbled and fell just as a group of people came around the corner. I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, and skated over two of his (thankfully glove-covered) fingers on my way down to the ice.

I can’t say with certainty which one of us freaked out more. D was, without a doubt, louder, but I was just as upset. I mean, I skated over two of his tiny little fingers. I hurt one of the little guys I love more than anything in the world. And worse, I did it when he was trying out something new, something that he liked, something that he really wanted to do. I was afraid I’d instantly ruined ice skating for him — squashing his dream of playing Mites on Ice, and thereby denying him his future NHL career. I was heartbroken.

Fortunately, D ended up being a real trooper. After what felt like an eternity of sobbing, he started to calm down. (In reality, he wasn’t hurt all that badly;  one finger was bleeding a bit and both were clearly going to bruise, but they were definitely not broken.) Seeing an opening, I went straight for bribery, offering him chocolate milk in exchange for getting back out on the ice — knowing that it was critical that he skate at least a few minutes more so that he wouldn’t end up permanently afraid. He was reluctant, but eventually the lure of chocolate milk overwhelmed him, and we made one last circuit of the rink.

Once the skates were returned, while we waited for the customization on my Caps jersey to be finished, we sat in the snack bar and D had his reward. And thus, my status as a beloved auntie — as well as  D’s future as a hockey star  — was saved. Phew.