Is "uvula" a dirty word?

I have strep throat. Again. It's approximately the 19th time I've had it in the past two years, so it's lost most of its sympathy points and moved on to just plain annoying.

Those are my tonsils, not a dirty picture.

Instead of people being like, "Oh I'm so sorry! I'll buy you some ice cream and massage your head!" they're all like, "Again, Amanda? What do you keep doing to infect yourself?" As if I keep getting genital warts instead of spotty swollen tonsils inflamed with Hell's own special brand of white-hot volcano fire.

I took my doctor's note to my manager, who gave me one of those "how dare you!" looks and walked away. I was like, "Thanks, I will get better soon!" It's not like I wanted to miss 14 hours of work; that's at least $100 even if I was still making minimum wage, and I enjoy being able to keep my car, home, insurance, and electricity. But that's not what this post is about; it's about how pitiful I am, and in need of some nice chicken broth.

After I shelled out $20 (of my mom's money) for the antibiotic that would put out the fire in my throat, I drove home sleepily and laid down with Luke. Luke is my dog, for all you morons who didn't read my last post. He was very understanding of how bad I felt, so he did his best to comfort me.

Also he ate some of my sour cream & onion chips while I was in the bathroom. Jerk.

Kacy left for work a few minutes after I got home because she didn't care how I felt. Such a cold-hearted bitch. Actually she left her ibuprofen with and told Luke to behave for me. He stared solemnly into her soul, then licked her face. We translated that as, "yeah right, loser!" What he was actually saying was more like, "I'll behave if behaving means walking across Other Mommy's ribs repeatedly, crinkling the pages of the book she's reading, and barking at phantom rabid spiders while she sleeps to mess with her dreams." It was a very relaxing afternoon.

My belly is not pleased with my throat for the roadblock. All I've eaten is ice cream because it doesn't scratch, burn, or make me want to stab a rusty fork into my jugular. Last time I had strep, all I wanted to eat were bacon-chili-cheese-dogs. I don't recommend that practice.

To supplement my restless fever-induced dreams, I read a little of Stephen King's "Under the Dome" before napping. In case you aren't familiar with the story, I'll fill you in a bit. An invisible undetectable impenetrable dome spontaneously arises around this small town in Maine. Everyone goes crazy, riots break out, the military tries to intervene but can't help, and nobody knows how it happened or how to get rid of it. When people go too close to the wall of the Dome they have seizures and prophesy about what will happen to their town. Super-creepy. I haven't finished it yet so I can't spoil the end for you. In my delirious sleep I became certain my bed was in an unbreakable bubble and if I sat up my head would hit it and be electrocuted.

Tossing and turning, suffocating from the hallucination of decreased oxygen, was how I spent most of my afternoon.

In other news, here's Luke's drivers license picture.

Floppy Cheeks

I hate dogs. I hate most animals, but dogs have filled me with inexplicable terror ever since I can remember, as if even the mildest of Dachshunds were actually a rabid blood-spattered Saint Bernard raving to tear my throat out. When they're not causing me to experience anxiety and sometimes bladder issues, they discover plenty of other ways to ruin my day. If I'm trying to sleep late, nap, watch TV, read, or any of my other thrilling hobbies, the last thing I want is a stupid slobbery beast hopping around, bow-wowing and scratching everything in sight.

But now I have one of those beasts.

Kacy decided my company wasn't enough for her anymore, so she made a deal with the devil and brought his firstborn child home. She let her dad do the honors of bringing the Antichrist home for the first time because she was a-scared and she knew I would refrain from cussing him out and throwing dirty socks at him.

He thrust the Boxer puppy into my face to greet me when I let them in to our pristine, poop-free, cinnamon-scented home. I was like, seriously? But I cradled the dumb little monster motherly against my bosom anyway because Kacy's dad looked so enthusiastic about the magnificent event of bringing a child into our lives.

My plot to murder Kacy was well into Stage 3 already as I sat down on the couch with the creature, but just as I was calculating roughly the amount of rat poison needed to do the job, the wrinkly little gremlin yawned hugely and snuggled against me.

Damn it.

I called off the animal sacrifice and laid down with the puppy snoring contentedly, garlic mysteriously oozing from his pores directly into my nostrils. Kacy came home after she was sure I wouldn't grenade her car and told me she'd named him Luke, after Luke Perry because of all his wrinkles.

She also named herself Mommy and me Other Mommy. Someday when he's old enough, we'll have to explain our confusing family to him and hope he can understand .

Luke eats our socks, gets into the trash, hides under my bed, barks at nothing, chews on poo, and tries to play with the horses next door, so we were forced to take disciplinary action. Spanking and "no"ing seemed to challenge him to behave worse, so as a last resort we got a shock collar. We've only actually used it a few times, so don't judge us. As soon as he sees us pick up the shock remote, he stops behaving like Satan and watches us sideways to make sure we're noticing how angelic he's being all of a sudden with no fear-induced motive at all.

Since Kacy and I are lame and don't have anything better to do, one of our favorite forms of entertainment is doing things to make Luke turn his head sideways. Unfamiliar sounds and abnormal events are the best ways to cause his delightful expression of confusion and curiosity. Once he becomes accustomed to something, he no longer has to turn his brain perpendicular to his neck to comprehend it, so the challenge is coming up with things he's never experienced. Sirens, saxophones, and baby laughter all did the trick for a while until he grew bored with them and matured into the need for more complex, sophisticated ideas. Like the blow dryer when it's sitting quietly on the couch, not attacking his moms' heads or roaring its battle cry.

Random spirits and auras also seem to fascinate Luke enough to flop his head over while staring upstairs in wide-eyed horror. But we pretend that's caused by flies and specks of dust.

I guess we'll keep him after all.