This is my first and possibly last Sunday Salon. I’ve always enjoyed them on others’ blogs, but alas, I am made of lazy. I know you’re thinking, How could someone who works two jobs and around 80 hours a week be lazy? Ahh…good question! I am only not lazy out of necessity. I often dream of being able to be lazy.

So’s! I have much to tell!

I signed up to be the mentor to an international blogger. Lenore paired me up with Marjolein of MarjoleinBookBlog, and it has been awesome. Marjolein and I chat about once a week, and she writes great reviews! Check out Lenore’s most recent post about this International Book Blogger Mentor Program!

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Not too long ago, I acquired my first piece of Original Art. I’ve long been coveting this local artist’s work (okay, it’s been almost exactly 10 years), Marilyn Sommer, and I finally had the money to commission a piece. I had her paint a similar scene of another painting that had already sold, and which was similar to a piece that hung in a restaurant I used to work in. See for yourself:

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In other news, my husband recently had appendicitis, which was three months (almost to the day!) after I had it. We now have matching scars! It’s like having a matching tattoo, only different.

No, I don’t have any pics of him in a hospital gown, playfully lifting it up so you can see his sexy legs. Sowy.

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The housekeeper came on Friday and it’s possible that I laid down on the floor and wriggled around because my floors have never been so clean. I’m not saying I DID do that, I’m just saying it’s possible.

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What’s your news this blustery Sunday morning?

One of the things that I’ve always thought was quite the luxury was having a house cleaner. It’s not something I ever thought I’d have, only because I figured I’d never own a house large enough to NEED a house cleaner. I mean, really, unless your house is 2,000+ square feet, what would you need a house cleaner for? Unless, of course, you had the luxury of being able to AFFORD a house cleaner, which I never anticipated would be my situation.

There’s also the added problem that I’m a very thorough cleaner, and I don’t know that even if I WANTED a house cleaner, that anyone would live up to my standards.

Well, circumstances have become such that not only would I like a house cleaner, I NEED a house cleaner. I’m working two jobs, and my second job is doing great, which is I’m thrilled about, except for the fact that I still have to work my day job, and so I’m left with extremely little time to do anything but eat, sleep, and, err…spend time with my husband.

I asked around to my friends to see if they had a personal recommendation for a house cleaner. I mean, aren’t house cleaners kind of like hair dressers, where if they’re good they’re booked, and if they’re not good, they’ve got plenty of openings? I’m sure that’s not true in all cases, but a personal recommendation would go far for me. I lucked out that a friend of mine has a house cleaner she adores, and this woman, Christine, has a few openings. As it turns out, Christine is trying to cut back on her business, but has a hard time saying no. So I made an appointment for her to come look at my house.

Now, here’s where things get guilt-inducing. If you stand in my living room, I could give you a tour of the house without having to move. My place is TINY. Less-than-1,000-square-feet tiny. So asking someone to help me clean this speck of a house is embarrassing! Am I really that busy that I can’t clean my own house? Unfortunately, I am.

When Christine said she would be willing to clean my house, I think a tear escaped down my cheek. A weight lifted off my shoulders that was getting heavier and heavier the busier I’ve gotten. Christine came over and told me what she’d do. She told me she’s vacuum the edges, and she pointed out things she’d clean, things that I would do if I only had the time, things I think most people don’t notice, but *I* notice. It’s like I’ve hired myself to clean my own house, and I couldn’t be happier.

The only thing I worry about is liking it so much that I’ll want to continue having a house cleaner even after I’m back down to one job. I guess I’ll justify keeping her when I get to that point.

Do you have a house cleaner? How much do you love it?

It’s such a cliche to talk about how fast the year went, how weird it is to be starting a new year when it seems like we only just started 2009, and yet I can’t help myself. I’ve become that person. And the weird thing? I’ve become that person because it’s true. The year did go fast, and it feels like we did just start 2009. I’m sure with each year that passes, those things will become more and more true. Time stops for no one, and it laughs at us as it flies by.

For this Year In Review, I’m going to share some things I’ve learned over this year, both in my personal life and in blogging. To wrap everything up, I’ll talk about the best and worst books (for me) of 2009.

The one thing I’ve left out of this post is goals/resolutions, because goals are something that I form, tweak, and work on throughout the year, not something that I’m spurred to create because of a new year. So I could tell you what ongoing goals I have right now, but that’s not nearly as interesting as what my least favorite books were. In my opinion. The only goal I have at the beginning of 2010 is the same goal I had at the beginning of 2009: to read 100 books this coming year. I didn’t make that goal in 2009, but I’m hopeful I can do it in 2010!

What I’ve Learned (personal):

• As nice as it is to have a clean house before I leave for a vacation, it won’t kill me if this doesn’t happen.
• My dog Samson will never cease to have health problems.
• Dave is a great nurse.
• I still hate change.
• Taking the bus to work instead of driving my care gives me more reading time and helps keep me sane.
• Even someone who seems nice can send a hateful, vicious email.
• Also? Just because someone says something doesn’t make it true.
• A wedding dress waiting to be cleaned that hangs from a hook on the ceiling can be ignored — for a whole year.
• Peeing is a big milestone for someone who just had surgery.

What I’ve Learned (blogging):

• Bloggers really are as fabulous in person as you imagine they’ll be.
• Also, you never run out of things to talk about.
• As important as my blog is to me, sometimes it has to take a back seat to other things in life.
• The world won’t end if I’m not on Twitter.
• But the world is a lot more fun when I AM on Twitter!
• I can get rid of 100 books and still have a house full of books.
• Getting books in the mail never gets old.
• I will always be jealous of how fast some people can read.

My Favorite Books of 2009

These books are in no particular order.

• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
• The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
• The Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch
• The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
• Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore
• Fire by Kristin Cashore
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Good People by Marcus Sakey
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

My Least Favorite Books of 2009

These books are in no particular order.

• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
• Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan
• Every Last Cuckoo by Kate Maloy
• Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Books I’m looking forward to in 2010

• The Victors by Suzanne Collins, the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy
• Tana Fench’s new book

Reading stats

• I read 72 books in 2009.
• Of those books, there were 27 male authors and 45 female authors, for a total of 72 books.
• 62%  of the books I read in 2009 were written by females, and 38% were written by males.
• 37 books I read this year were fantastic.
• Out of those 37 fantastic books, 14 were written by males and 23 were written by females, which exactly follows my overall reading habits: 38% of my favorites written by males, and 62% were written by females.

What were some of your favorite and least favorite books this year? Do you make goals for yourself at the beginning of the year? Did you read more or less than you’d hoped to?

Last year, because blog traffic is slow around the holidays, I celebrated Festivus, which kicks off with the Airing of Grievances. Since only other bloggers are reading blogs around this time of year (’cause we’re crazy like that), it makes sense that we should get some things off our chest! Vent! Proclaim what is wrong with the world (or our families), so that we can start the new year with a clean slate ready for new frustrations.

Ready?

I’ll go first.

1. Stupid people. They’re everywhere.

2. Chase. Ever since my mortgage was moved to them, I’ve had problems. Problems that take HOURS to fix. And happen again the next month.

3. Irv Sutley, an active atheist who went around to county buildings where I work and demanded stars and angels be taken off of Christmas trees. Ironically, this happened the day I returned to work from my appendectomy, and I thought I was going to burst my newly healed scar, I was so angry. Before you cry separation of church and state, read about the issue here and note, “He [Rex Grady, a Santa Rosa attorney who teaches constitutional law at Empire College School of Law] cited another Supreme Court case in 1984 in which justices ruled that a municipal government’s holiday display, which included figures of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, constituted a celebration of Christmas but was not an official endorsement of religion or a particular faith.” I got so angry over this I ended up writing a letter to my County Supervisor.

4. Drivers who get impatient when I wait for a pedestrian to actually reach the sidewalk.

5. My computer is dying a slow death and I need it to hang on until January. Come on little buddy!

6. Blogs that are JUST for product reviews. Seriously, who reads those blogs? How do they get any traffic at all?

7. I’ve got a fungus on ONE toenail that is hanging on for dear life.

8. The only pants that are comfortable right now are my really soft pajama bottoms. Unfortunately, they’re not appropriate for work. Yay for being *almost* healed, boo for having to look presentable at work.

And I know, we’re celebrating Festivus, not Thanksgiving, but I’ve just got to mention that I have the best blogging friends in the whole world. I won’t name names, but you know who you are!

What’re your grievances? Have at it, because no one’s going to read this anyway!

Many of you may know about my recent appendectomy, but for those who don’t or who haven’t seen the pictures, I thought I’d tell the story. I have to warn you: I get graphic, I make inappropriate jokes (sorry, Dave!) and sometimes it might be vulgar. But you know what? Surgery, hospital, and recovery aren’t elegant, graceful, fun, or in any way allow you to keep your dignity.

(All of the pictures below were taken after I was admitted to the hospital but before I had surgery. Except for that last one.)

So last Monday evening, December 7th (the night of my birthday! What a fantastic gift I gave myself, as you’ll see.), I was feeling nauseous and had stomach cramps. I felt like throwing up, but I wasn’t surprised I didn’t because I have a really strong stomach. I’m so nauseous that I can’t sleep and don’t fall asleep until 3am, and had already decided not to go to work on Tuesday, because 3 hours of sleep? Really?

But when I woke up I had this terrible pain in my side, not a sharp pain, just an ache, and I couldn’t explain why. It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. And I know Dave had punched me in the stomach the day before, but surely it wouldn’t hurt this bad?

So I’m laying on the couch (which isn’t comfortable, by the way. NOTHING is comfortable.), and Dave calls and says I should call the doctor because it could be appendicitis. First I call my friend, Ann Marie, because she’s had every sickness from A-Z, but I have no other symptoms associated with appendicitis other than the pain in my side. So she tells me to call my doctor.

I call Kaiser, and I get a condescending advice nurse who says, Is the pain mild, moderate, or severe? If it’s mild you can still go to work, do things around the house, etc, if it’s moderate you’re home from work but can still function, and if it’s severe you’re doubled over in pain. From her tone I knew I wasn’t severe, so I picked moderate. I mean, I wasn’t at work, was I? And SHE went through all these other symptoms with me, and while she didn’t seem too concerned, she gave me an appointment with my doctor that day anyway.

So I go to my doctor, and she puts me through a battery of tests and has blood work done and has my urine tested blah blah blah. But everything’s normal. The only thing wrong with me is I have a pain in my side. But my doctor sends me home with Vicodin, which I’m really grateful for (until I take one and it gives me a massive headache, then I’m not so grateful). When I leave the doctor I’m in severe pain, walk to my car with tears in my eyes, only to find that some asshole has parked so close to me that a piece of paper barely fits through the door when I open it. I’m in severe pain and I have to be a contortionist?! If I had any energy I would have written that guy a nasty note and left it on his windshield, but I didn’t, so I gritted my teeth and contorted.

The next day I’m in severe pain. My husband is out of town at a conference, so I call my friend Becky, who so kindly spends the next 10 hours with me, though neither of us anticipated it would take so long. So Becky saved the day!

The nurse I saw that Wednesday was really nice. I hobbled in at 11:00am, stooped over, clutching my side. She poked and prodded, and everything was fine, but I told her she was poking in the wrong spot. So I poked in the right spot and immediately tears leaked out and I yelled, BUT DON’T TOUCH THERE! She ordered more blood tests, so I had those done, then I went back to get the results from the nurse, who then sent me to have a CT scan. Boy was that a party.

For the CT scan I had to have liquid inserted into my anus. Then she injected me with some kind of dye that made me feel like I was peeing, but I wasn’t (oh good! I still have some dignity left because I haven’t peed my pants). Then she suggested I use the bathroom, where I subsequently peed the liquid out of my ass. Good times. Any shred of dignity I *might* have had walking out of the CT scanning room, I left in my recovery room after the surgery. Weeeee!!

It’s now 4:00pm, and I’ve been running around the hospital for 5 hours. Finally, FINALLY, when I go to the nurse to get the CT results, I find out I DO have appendicitis, and I’m so happy I almost cry. The pain will end! Boy, was I naive.

Surgery was Wednesday evening at 7:30pm, and Dave was able to make it home so I could see him when I woke up.

I can’t even tell you how much pain I was in Thursday. The doctor who did my surgery came to check on me around 10 or 11am, and I burst into tears. She asked if I take something at home that they should be giving me at the hospital. A joke! Except, she didn’t mean it as a joke. *sigh*

So let’s just say that Thursday was intense. I had really sweet nurses who let me take my time and who helped me as much as they could. The big deal when you have surgery is peeing. When are you going to pee! So they have this hat that sits under the toilet seat to catch your pee and measure it. Thursday was all about Can Trish Go Pee?

I had the best roommate on Thursday. She was a young girl, about my age, who’d 5 days ago had her gall bladder removed. She respected my need for privacy (did I mention I was in a lot of pain?), but was helpful when needed. For example, my hospital phone rang but I couldn’t get it because I couldn’t bend to where the phone was, so after a few rings she got it for me. Unfortunately, she was discharged Thursday evening, and by 10:30pm, I had a new, white trash roommate.

This lady looked about 50, but easily could have been 40. She came tooling in like this was no big deal, she does this all the time, oh, and don’t forget to try the red jello! Her sons (late teens, early 20s) quickly follow but are booted out by the nurse who needs to admit her and ask questions. From what I gathered, the woman came in because of pain in her stomach, and the doctors in the ER found bleeding in her stomach. When you’re bleeding in your stomach, they ask you not to eat anything. This lady was obviously not happy with that, but reluctantly agreed. Finally her sons come in, one of them bearing Carl’s Jr. My roommate scarfs down the food, saying something about how she’s not supposed to eat anything, but she’s hungry. I can’t stand the smell of fast food, I’m in pain, it’s late, and I’m tired. So I close my curtain. From around the curtain I hear this lady snidely say to her sons, Well I guess you should leave since SHE wants some privacy. Her sons stay for a little longer before she finally makes them leave, and the younger one storms out.

When the nurse comes back in to check on this lady, this lady says, Can you believe my sons, leaving so fast like that? And the nurse says, But you told them to leave. And the lady says, No I didn’t. And the nurse says, YES, you DID, I heard you. So the lady says, Oh…my youngest son is a prick, though.

And the best part? At some point amongst all this, the lady has to pee, but my hat hasn’t been emptied yet. That didn’t bother her though! When I brought it up to a nurse (I was PISSED (no pun intended)…this was my whole goal all day, to PEE, and this lady peed right over mine), the lady’s like, Oh, it’s okay, I peed on top of hers. HOW GROSS CAN YOU BE???

(Yes, I *am* THAT white)

So that’s my story. I’ve been recovering ever since, and I have to admit it’s taking me longer to recover than I thought it would. I haven’t been up to working or doing much of anything except resting, watching Gilmore Girls, and sitting at the computer (sitting in a chair is actually pretty comfortable).

Anyone else got any good hospital roommate stories? Because now I can commiserate.