Best. Little. BBQ Joint. Ever.

So one blustery day last week, we ventured northeast on the bike to the tiny town of Strasburg, to sample the fare at KT's Famous BBQ, a little mom-and-pop joint run by a particular mom & pop we know and respect.

Holy jumpin' Jesus, you must eat here before you die.

I consider myself a pretty darn good cook most of the time - and I was blown away by the food dished up in epic proportions. Of course I couldn't resist ordering the Try It All Platter - those of you who know me will agree that despite my size I can eat a lot - and I knew I could depend on some help from my dining companions (who ordered very wimpy 1/3 pound buffalo burgers with fries, in contrast to my heaping plate of ribs, brisket, pulled pork, chicken, and sausage, a bowl of the most wonderful baked beans ever, a pile of hand-breaded onion rings, a bowl of cheesy scalloped potatoes, and four corn muffins). The made-on-site barbecue sauces were amazing: four different varieties with very different tastes, but all wonderful; Desperado and Gunslinger are the only two I can remember names of, so I guess I need to go back to remediate...

I had to stand up to draw a full breath after the meal, I'd eaten so much. I'd have been ashamed, but it was just so darn good. I didn't even have a tiny bit of room for dessert, which was disappointing too, because as much as a slice of homemade Key Lime pie sounded heavenly, what I really had my eye on was the strawberry shortcake: two deep fried twinkies topped with strawberry and vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce, whipped cream and cherries. Holy hardening arteries, Batman... Oh, but I wanted some. I promised the delightful proprietress we'd return soon for dessert.

Folks, if you've got a hankerin' for some damn fine barbecue served up by some of the nicest folks this side of the Mississippi, please do me a favor and visit KT's Famous BBQ. They're located at 1352 Monroe Street in Strasburg, CO, and are open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am to 8 pm.

Sneaky...

I awoke this morning, trudged downstairs to start coffee... And found this morning greeting had been snuck onto the table while I slept.

How can you not adore a man who does stuff like that??

Slouching Toward Normalcy, and Lessons Learned

Now then.

I write from a fresh perspective, both because I'm just out of a nice long jacuzzi bath with my sweetie, to warm up from the frozen tundra of Sand Creek Stadium (It ain't no Lambeau, but it was damn cold nonetheless) and Stephanie's game... And because things around here are starting to look like they're settling down. But we learned a few things over the past few days. To wit, and in summary:

1) One *can* experience withdrawal symptoms from medicines that are delivered for therapeutic purposes, in therapeutic doses, in therapeutic environments, for time-frames as short as two days.

2) The effects of said withdrawal are decidedly non-therapeutic, for the bearer as well as those who love them. Imagine a version of hell where you're seeing things, dizzy and nauseated, swinging from content to despondent to giddy to crying to furious and back literally in the span of minutes, feeling all manner of strange pains and nerve janglings and afraid you're losing your own mind...but none of those things manifest themselves outwardly, so the people who love you and want only to get you feeling better are left at a total loss as to why they can't do anything right, whether you're just lobbying for attention, whether they're losing their minds, and why the world has come unhinged.
(Honey, I love you, and I'm so sorry you were locked in that shitty place with me not "getting it." I'm glad you're feeling better.)

3) There is tremendous benefit to having an established relationship with a wonderful primary care physician, one who is willing to override the office gatekeepers (and promise to chastise one for calling me Honey oh-so-smarmily) and squeeze in an extra appointment...and who knows a patient well enough to confirm that "yes, that is exactly Ativan withdrawal, and yes that is possible in the doses you were getting," and "that is also withdrawal from and side effect of IV solu-medrol" which we had never even considered. Dr. Clothier, that's why we adore you and think you're a rockstar among chumps in the medical world. (Now if Donna-the-triage-nurse only had a clue, or a foot in her ass.)

4) Intangible things like support, love, well-wishes, and visitors really do help the healing process. Thank you so much to all our wonderful friends and family who sent wishes our way and came to visit while Scott was in the hospital - thank you all for not minding when he nodded off mid-conversation... It's wonderful to know there are so many people who care. And a humongous thank you to Brandy and Andrew who came all the way from Frederick on Sunday to make a wonderful dinner for us when I was too frazzled to be domestic, and whose adorable boys entertained our crew, and whose "Bermuda Triangle: Sinister Cloud" old-school board game entertained us all. We appreciated all you did for us, and I hadn't realized how not-up-to-cooking I would feel after it all. I'm so glad you anticipated that. :-)

5) Marble and granite for countertops is crazy expensive. Corian is less so, and Formica makes a very respectable acrylic polymer that's similar. And I'm so smitten with the idea of maybe knocking down the breakfast bar to counter-height.

6) Sometimes, the best answer the world has for you is "7-10 days."

Since I'm now also slouching toward randomness, I'll close this post and go find something productive to do. Slightly easier to do since I finally found a to-do-list app that syncs between my iPhone and my MacBook. If only I could find the app that *does* the shit for me.

Love's the Only House Big Enough

What a shit sandwich of a weekend. Started off Thursday morning, when I logged on to the trusty bank account to see that my paycheck was friggin' minute, thanks to a failure to launch from my friends at the IRS... If I'm a day late with my tax return, there's hell to pay, but if they don't even bother to send an important piece of correspondence that very much affects a family's livelihood...well...sorry. F#@^ers.

Then Thursday night at work, after a stressful day of rectifying the above payroll snafu and trying to catch a nap, Scott's pressure spiked like it did the same week of March last year, indicating an impending respiratory collapse, so he checked in to the ER and subsequently was admitted to the hospital for a couple days of IV steroids and breathing miscellany. Again. Of course, I stayed right by his side the whole time, which means when I brought him home from the hospital Saturday, wearing the same scrubs I'd put on Thursday evening and haggard from what was then 58-or-so-odd hours of no sleep...I thought the worst was behind us.

I thought wrong. Turns out the metric assload of Ativan they were pumping into him to keep him chilled out in the hospital...well...was unkind without a taper. He's been feeling even worse the last 2 days, albeit breathing better; but jittery, anxious, headachey, pukey, insomnia-riddled, mood-swingy, miserable, and after another two sleepless days and nights I'm flirting with psychosis myself, scarcely able to maintain my normal I'll-take-care-of-everything role, and boy does that screw with 'em.

I'm going to goddamn bed, and to hell with the bills that need paid and the shopping that needs done and the counters that need wiped and the laundry that's piled up and the shit that needs put away.

Sing it, Martina...

Holy Crap, It's March Already

How does this happen? I guess it must mean I'm getting old, time is continually getting away from me. Seems I never quite catch up.

A funny thing happened a bit ago - I got an email notifying me that some site has linked to my blog as one of the Top 20 Nursing Blogs. Why is it funny? Because I so rarely blog about nursing anymore - and that's by design - I don't want any professional static or ripples or anything negative, so I tend to just steer clear. But for a time, back in the glory days, I called myself a 'nurse blogger' and I guess was pretty good at it.

It's been a while since I sat down and wrote, too - and I think that comes from the fact that my life has stabilized in large part. Whatever the reason, I tend to do my best writing when I'm in a dark place, able to pull inspiration from existential angst and psychic pain (go on, read some of my stuff over at BlackHouse...and I just haven't been in that place for a long time. Not that I was ever as far gone as my first-person characters, but I had something to draw from. That well is mostly dry now and I'm okay with that.

I finally broke down and went to the doctor yesterday for this respiratory crap that's been kicking my ass for a week and a half, brutalizing me and the poor guy that's been trying to eke out some semblance of sleep next to my coughing-constantly ass, and anybody who's been forced to be in the same room with me while I blow a pound or so of snot out of my nose every ten minutes... It's gotten old and I just don't goddamn have time to be sick. I've been sleeping so much, even the laundry fairy and the dishes fairy and the little pixies who run around cleaning up after all the people in this house, they're all staying away too. Weird.

So I'm taking antibiotics, b.i.d., with food, as directed, and sucking down nyquil and cough medicine and vitamin C and pushing fluids and going through pile after pile of Puffs-with-lotion-and-Vicks kleenexes (which just might be the greatest invention of the decade) to try and kick what the doc tells me is a nasty bronchitis flirting with pneumonia, an irritated and swollen throat, and a killer sinus infection. And trying not to whine too much about it.

Now then. Off to make leprechaun traps with the boys. A school project, and since I'm the mom who takes an active interest in the kids' schoolwork, that's my bailiwick. Stay tuned.