“I do not!  You’re wrong!  THEY have overactive bladders!”  I pointed to the two pamphlets on her counter.  One had an old lady and an old man dancing together because neither one of them had to run to the bathroom to pee.  The other one had an old couple sitting together with big smiles on their face, not a bit worried about where the nearest bathroom is.

The doctor reassured me that just this morning she saw three people in my age range with the same problem and even children get it.  She gave me my prescription and a print-out describing the disorder and how to lessen the effects.  Then she told me the side effects:  Constipation and dry mouth.  Fantastic.  At 6:15 every night I will be taking a crazy pill and a don’t pee pill, both of which cause dry mouth, which  means I’ll spend the rest of the night unable to think about anything else but water.

Right before I left, the medical assistant asked me to give a urine sample.  Please.  I pee so much I could give her three.  I got into the bathroom, got myself ready and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I freakin’ couldn’t pee!!  I was at the damned doctor because I pee too much and I proved them wrong with an inability to pee.  After a few minutes I managed to produce and I went on my way.

When I got home, I read the print-out she gave me, which was very interesting and also made me very angry.   First of all, apparently Overactive Bladder (OAB) is caused by spasms in the bladder, and the medication helps stop that (in 1-6 weeks).  So basically it’s like my bladder has a seizure disorder so I’m taking the equivalent of Keppra or Depakote.  Okay.

Then the really fun part.  I need to eat fresh fruits and vegetables and lots of whole grain and fiber due to the constipation side-effect.  What do I have to avoid? Tomatoes and all citrus fruits like oranges, which I love, love, love.  No caffeine, which means no coffee.  Bad.  No carbonated drinks.  Bastards.  I also have to avoid chocolate.  What?  How can I live without my Peppermint Patties or Jr. Mints?  Last, worst and how-will-I-make-it-through-the-night?  No alcohol.

What. The. FUCK?

1.  Screwdriver – Vodka and orange juice (that’s TWO things I can’t have).

2.  Seabreeze – Vodka and cranberry juice.

3.  Wine.

4. Peppermint Patties/Jr. mints – chocolate.

How Will I Live?

W.T.F?

Now you’re getting a closer look at it than I did, and mine was a quick glance.  I swear my knees got wobbly, my bowels locked up, I think my heart stopped or maybe it sped up, and a scream threatened to let loose.  A life flashed before my eyes: Giving birth, his first steps on his birthday, his first day of kindergarten, his first flight with Gramma and Poppa, finally trusting the water, his curls that everyone wants to touch, his voice changing.  And now this.  This.  He’s thirteen for fuck’s sake!  Terrified, I took a second look, reached down, and with a squinchy face I pulled it out from under the drum or whatever it is.

AND breathe

A rubber glove from his science class.  Okay, so he stole it.  Big Ef’en deal.  At least he’s not stealing virginity.  Gross.

]]> http://kimpugliano.com/my-13-year-old-tried-to-kill-me-to-death/feed/ 8 http://kimpugliano.com/i-think-im-sooo-bad/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-think-im-sooo-bad http://kimpugliano.com/i-think-im-sooo-bad/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 03:53:26 +0000 Kimberly Pugliano http://kimpugliano.com/?p=14141 So in case you haven’t heard, I have a couple of routes I take when I run/walk the pups.  My favorite and most-used route starts with a moderate hill that I walk up.  I walk fast, but I walk.   Except for the part where I stop to let Luke poop.  I try to get our cardio 3 times a week, sometimes less sometimes more.  Last week I decided to do something totally crazy.  I decided I was going to run up the moderate hill.  I walked to the corner from our house to “warm up,” turned the corner and said, “Let’s go pups!!”  We then proceeded to run up the hill.  To clarify, I’m not sure run is the correct word for what I was doing.  I would call it, “aggressive jogging.”   I pushed my way up that hill, pups in tow, and Luke didn’t poop and before I knew it – or forever later – I was at the top!  I made it!  I ran/aggressively jogged up the moderate hill!  I so badly wanted to jump up and down with my arms in the air, Sylvester Stallone style in “Rocky.”  I didn’t, though, because it’s a busy street and someone I know always passes by me and by then I had probably already had triangle sweat down there and a line of sweat under my up-tops, plus one line straight down my lower, lower back.  So I held back my excitement and continued on my aggressive jog/walk journey and when I got home my time was (obviously) the best ever.

As soon as I got home, after I drank two sports bottles of water and walked around trying to get rid of the shakes and splashing cold water on my face I called Beth, Hot Joe and Mom (probably Hot Joe first, though) and told them all, “I ran up Ventu!!  I did it!  I can hardly believe it!  I mean, it wasn’t like a fast run, but it wasn’t walking either!  Best. Day. Ever!”  Then I listened to them each rave about how awesomesauce I was and how proud they were of me and I drank it in and walked around the rest of the day like I owned the world.

The next morning after dropping the kids off at school I decided to clock my mileage so I could be even prouder of my accomplishment.

A whopping 0.2 miles.

Our favorite part of going to the movies is the previews.  It gets us excited, except when it’s an awesome amazing movie coming out this Christmas and it’s June.  That’s just dumb.  Two movies in particular got me excited:  “The Fast and the Furious 6″ with almost all of the original cast (can you say Paul Walker?) plus The Rock.  We’ve seen every Fast Furious movie, me for the eye candy and Hot Joe and Noah for the cars and the racing and whatnot.  The second movie is “Hangover 3.”  Don’t judge.  The first two were stupid funny, and again- Bradley Cooper!!!  I can look.

And then there is television.  We enjoy several television shows but there are some commercials that we love so much we will pause them if one of us is in the bathroom and sometimes we’ll even play it twice.  Here are our top three, with our favorite at the bottom.

Number 3

How sweet is this man for teaching his son to throw the ball when he himself throws like a girl?  And the boy misses the car by a hair every time.  So great.

Number 2

What’s not to like about this entire commercial?  Seriously – her adorable hair cut, her little dress and her blue sweater, holding her daddy’s hand and then her smile followed by a nervous little frown.  We want her.

Number 1

There are a series of these commercials and they are totally unscripted and this guy has the best responses in the world.  I hope they keep these commercials coming.  This particular one is our favorite because the little girl is so dramatic and his response is classic.

Lastly, there are 3 or 4 women who are in multiple commercials.  I refer to them as commercial whores.  There’s the 1-800-Contacts lady and the 1-800-Dentist chick and another one with a little voice who’s on a couple of Burger King Commercials and a dog treat commercial and I don’t know how many others.  I actually found pictures of two of them but I couldn’t find the Burger King one and I don’t want to leave anyone out, so I’m leaving them all out.  Sorry.  I’m pretty sure you know anyway.

And that is the end of my entertainment for the day.

However, I did come across a post from a girl Noah’s age that disturbed me to no end:

That gun?  It’s her comment.  A gun.  As in, “I want to kill myself.”  I was completely shocked, mortified, terrified.  I asked Noah about it and he said, “Oh she does that sometimes.”  I understand girls can be dramatic and will do anything they can for attention, but some of the others said, “I don’t know what to do,” “I really can’t cope,” and, “I know I’m ugly but can some guy just take one for the team and love me.”  Pretty much every single post was a picture of her or a depressed statement.  Was she serious or was she just being dramatic and how do you know the difference?  And why did 55 people ‘like’ this post?

Noah, knowing me, told me to please leave it alone and don’t call her parents (I have no idea who they are) because then everyone would know it was him.

I emailed the above picture to the school counselor, who said she would take it from there, and I know that she will.  The thing is, how do you know if a girl is serious or not?  Why did nobody do anything about it?  Most importantly, why did her parents have no idea she was posting things like this?  I feel like parents are being irresponsible and trusting their children too much (except for my sister, because my nephew posted a picture of a tractor yesterday).  I feel like parents are completely unaware of what kind of stuff their children are wearing, how they are posing, when they are posting and what they are saying.  Quite frankly, it’s pretty frightening.

What will the teenagers of 2020 be doing?  What will social media be like then?

Parents, please, look at your kids’ Instagrams and all of their other little social sites.  Read their texts.  If you don’t know how to do this, ask someone.  If your child owns an iPhone, you have the ability to block any apps from being downloaded and any internet access, and it’s password protected so your child can’t change the parameters.

Please, be more involved.  Don’t let your child be the one posting such frightening things for everyone to read.

Number 1

A hot bubble bath with a glass of wine (heavy pour) and candles throughout the bathroom.

Number 2

A less than adequate walk/run with the pups.

Number 3

Logging out of work, making breakfast for Noah and me and Noah’s lunch, then sitting down for breakfast with Noah.

Number 4

“Big Bang Theory” new or old.  BAZINGA!

Number 5

Make out with Hot Joe.  Don’t be jealous.

Number 6

Driving to Ventura with Noah James, singing to music and talking with my kid.

Number 7

Read.

Number 8

Visit Uncle Grampa.  Then he falls asleep.

Number 9

Nursing a double-scoop hot fudge brownie sundae.  It’s been way too many years since I’ve had a sundae.

Number 10

Make out with Hot Joe (yes.  again.)

Click on the box above to read other Listicles!

I would like to thank the guy in the souped-up whatever with the cool loud motor for getting home at 6 a.m. (I was working but everyone else was sleeping) who couldn’t find a parking spot and knew that when he headed home because after 6 p.m. there is no parking.  He drove up and down our street for 25 minutes before finally leaving.  That’s not selfish at all.

Sometimes when I want Hot Joe’s attention, I leave a Facebook status.

Justin Bieber is a dick, and that is precisely where I would like to take a hammer.  When visiting the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, who wrote in the guest book he, “hoped she would have been a Belieber” if history were different.  I’m thinking she would have hoped that Jews were left alone to live amongst the non-Jews or that she would have gotten out of the war alive or that Hitler never existed, but I could be wrong.  For the whole article, go here.

At Noah’s physical therapy center there is an elderly woman, probably late 70s/early 80s, who apparently had a stroke at some time in her life.  She’s very friendly to the point of being invasive but she means well.  No matter what you are discussing with who or where, she will interject, managing to incorporate her three boys into the story.  Her three boys are probably in their 60s.  Apparently we aren’t the only ones who get a little overwhelmed by this well-meaning woman.  The other day the office manager walked through the room and the elderly woman yelled, “Hello!”  The manager answered back and the elderly lady then yelled, “I’m so excited!”  The manager responded, “Okay.”  Noah and I couldn’t look at each other.  We just held in our giggles over this awkward moment.  We tried to not look at the older woman at that point because we were embarrassed for her but we had to pass by her and she still had a big smile on her face, excited about something.

Lately I have been unbearably thirsty.  To the point where I have been keeping two sports bottles on the coffee table, which I will down in 45 seconds and within 30 minutes I’m off to the restroom, and then every 15 minutes after that and then multiple times at night.  It’s super fun.  Hot Joe has now put a stop to the madness by giving me a small glass filled half-way with ice and the remainder is water.  It’s actually very clever of him because I’m forced to nurse the drink and my water isn’t breaking half-way to the bathroom.  Last night as I obsessed over my thirst I sent Beth a text telling her I was dying of thirst.  I was “thirsting to death” as she used to say when she was little.  I was pretty sure I was going to dehydrate in the middle of “Bones.”  Being the supportive sister she is, this is how she responded:

She’s my sister. I’m suffering. Is this supposed to make me feel better?

President Obama, in the wake of the Boston terrorism, gave a great speech the following morning.  It made me a little teary for the people who were there but there’s one part of the speech that I CANNOT. GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD.  President Obama said, “A 8-year-old boy lost his life.”  Is it just me?  Do you see it?  ‘A’ goes before a consonant.  ‘An’ goes before a vowel.  Dammit President Obama, it’s simple grammar!!!  I text Hot Joe about it, and he thought he would be funny:

]]> http://kimpugliano.com/a-collection-of-my-random/feed/ 11 http://kimpugliano.com/be-submissive/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=be-submissive http://kimpugliano.com/be-submissive/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:11 +0000 Kimberly Pugliano http://kimpugliano.com/?p=14075

After the horrific events of Monday, I put off writing what I had originally planned.  I wanted to write about former pro volleyball player-turned model Gabrielle Reece Sparks, and the controversy surrounding her new book, ‘My Foot is too big for the Glass Slipper.’  Specifically, people were up in arms about her comment, “To truly be feminine means being soft, receptive and – look out, here it comes – submissive.”

Hot Joe and I happened to be watching the interview together and I looked at him and said, “So what’s the big deal?”  I agree with her.  I think she’s got it.  I totally respect it.  I just can’t be that way myself.  I wish I could, I truly do, but I think my personality and my years of self-sufficiency (which include my first marriage) make me too strong-willed.  Does this mean Hot Joe is asking me to do things and I’m saying no?  No.  To the best of our abilities we both give one another everything the other needs.

In response to the outrage and misunderstanding,  Gabrielle states, “The whole book is about being self defined and trying to figure out ways to stay happy and being powerful,”  “Service, the idea of serving others within your home or within your community, takes a source of strength.”

Bravo, Gabrielle.  She admits she and her husband came close to divorce at one time.  She agrees that marriage takes work regardless of what method you use.   I wish I could be more submissive.  I find that to be feminine.  Hot Joe works his ass off, sometimes up to 10 hours a day.  Yesterday and today, he worked his hard hours, washed his hands, had a glass of water and then headed over to help my parents get my Grampa set-up in his new home.  He deserves to come home, take a shower, and be waited on.  He deserves to have everything and anything he wants or needs from me.  This includes, according to Gabrielle and her husband, sex at least every 48 hours.

If that what it takes.

I’m back today.  I’m hooking up with the beautiful Stasha, her gigantic dog and her ever-growing boy for an all new Monday Listicles.

10 Chapters in a Book About Me

I’m writing mine in order, with explanations.

Chapter 1:  August 2, 1979

This is the last day of my first life and the first day of the rest of my life.  This night we were notified that my father had been killed in an on-duty motor vehicle accident en route to a mugging, in an unmarked vehicle.  I was 8-1/2 and one month from starting the 3rd grade.

Chapter 2:  School

I never liked school.   I was in the “Gifted and Talented Program,” which isn’t for smarter kids per se, but kids who think differently.  I never felt like I fit in.  I never had that one best friend.  From grade school to high school – blech.

Chapter 3:  September, 1989

Mom, knowing my insecurities and anxieties, used to tell me, “When you get to college you are going to find hundreds of Kimberlys.  You won’t know what to do with yourself.”  Even though I hated school, college was free to me thanks to LAPD so I gave it a go.  That’s where I met Lori, my best friend in the entire world for ever and ever.  She lives 40 minutes away and we maybe see each other once a year, but she calls when she senses I need her.  We’ve been there with each other through every milestone and my favorite part of her is she thinks my Crazy is, “part of my charm.”  I love her.

Chapter 4:  Most of my 20s

This marks the onset of my bipolar.  If you look up bipolar 2 and read the description of the behavior of someone who has bipolar I probably fit the first 10.  These were my destructive, dangerous, manic years interrupted by bouts of severe depression.

Chapter 5:  January 1995 to November 7, 2004

Met, dated, married, reproduced, bought and sold, moved and moved again and then more times, went into debt, got money, bought another home, and I finally came to my senses and sent him to live with the new Mrs.

Chapter 6:  Noah James

Born August 4, 1999.  No more intense love than that of my child.  The sweetest baby, the funniest little boy and now the in-between fresh teen years with his changing form and smartness of a different kind.  He’s pulled his way through many dramas in his young life and I couldn’t be more amazed by him.

Chapter 7:  Joseph Edward Pugliano

Hot Joe.  Sexy in his body, his scent, his humor, his gait, the way he moves his hands, his cooking, his building, his fixing, his knowledge of the most random stuff, his deep throaty voice, his fierce protection, his love for all creatures (even scary ones) and his pure maleness.  And he chose us.

Chapter 8:  The Newest Silent G

On June 15, 2012, accompanied by our very closest family, Joe became Noah’s legal father and Noah became Noah James Pugliano.  He was reborn, this time without the need for an epidural.

Chapter 9:  The Pups and Snickers

Working alone from home, my pups are with me for everything I do.  Their beds are behind my desk, they man the door when I pee, they follow me up and down the stairs when I do laundry and when I grab out of the basket under the TV they go bat shit crazy, because that’s where I keep the leashes.  Meanwhile, if I call either name – Luke or Allie – Snickers the cat will respond with a meow, running upstairs and jumping on my desk to discuss why I called her.

Chapter 10:  What’s to Come

Only good, I assure you.  Only great.

 

Yes, you did just read that right.  I’m in the mood for a photo challenge this week so I thought I’d jump back in and give it a try.  Here are our topics for the week:

Glow

This is the glow of the Scentsy plug-in that is in our guest bathroom.  We hardly ever turn on the light because it makes the whole bathroom glow.  It’s really very pretty.  Plus it smells good.

Old

I honestly don’t know how old this is or even if it is very old at all, but it belonged to my great grandfather, Poppy, who seemed as old as the trees when I was young and he was the epitome of great grandfatherness.  I was so happy to receive this when he passed away.

Shadow

Noah’s room.  I actually took this awhile ago because I thought it was a cool shot.  Never thought I’d actually do anything with it.

Spring

This is a car part that starts with a D.  I honestly don’t know what it does but I do know that the top can be red or blue.  If I ask Hot Joe what it’s for he’ll get too detailed and I’ll get really confused so we’ll just leave it at “Spring for a car.”

Smile

This picture was taken at physical therapy, when the therapist was about to adjust Noah’s pelvis.  I got underneath the table to take the picture.  Less than 3 seconds later that beautiful smile turned into shock as she inflicted unexpected pain on my poor child.  That pretty much sums up physical therapy.

Interested in joining in the fun?  Click on the Scavenger Hunt Sunday icon at the top of this post and link up.  You can also see many, many other submissions.  This isn’t a contest; it’s just fun!!!