Interactive Cat Feeders

35 Replies

Elizabeth and I attended a little seminar at the animal shelter about keeping indoor cats happy and active. Today I may or may not be considering buying FOOD PUZZLES for our cats. To satisfy their hunting/predator instincts and reduce their domestic ennui. (Do they make similar devices to reduce domestic ennui in at-home parents? “Not that I’m aware of,” says the animal-shelter employee. “Wine!,” whispers the middle-aged female attendee next to me. We snort. “MOM,” says Elizabeth.)

(image from Amazon.com)

Northmate Catch Interactive Feeder. This is one of the cheaper options, which puts it higher on my list. I am still cranky about the $45 cat watering fountain that the cats loved but was a TERRIBLE PAIN to clean.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Catit Senses 2.0 Food Tree. “I’m particularly drawn to this one,” I said to Elizabeth later, looking at options online after the seminar. “That’s because they used this picture in the PowerPoint,” said Elizabeth.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Trixie Tunnel Feeder. Why am I doing this to you, you wonder. And yet you have not looked away.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Catit Senses 2.0 Digger. This one gives them the sensation of digging for rodents, which makes them happy. Nature is kind of gross.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Trixie 5-in-1 Activity Center. This reminds me of shopping for baby toys: special features to stimulate their little brains. Oh god. Is this my life now? *brief feeling of panic and distress* *soothing automatic psychological self-defense mechanisms kick in* *goes back to shopping for cat feeders*

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Pyrus Hide-and-Seek Puzzle Toy. I am virtually certain my cats are too stupid for this toy. It’s not their fault! They’re perfect the way they are! But too stupid for this toy.

 

(image from Amazon.com)

Profcenter IQ Toy. I believe the ferret could figure this out. I have faith in that dog, even though he does not appear to be a particularly bright representative of his species. I’d be willing to give the green checkmark a shot, just to see what it can do. But not my cats, unless all there is to this toy is moving the intelligent-looking circles out of the way so they can eat the food underneath. Then maybe.

What It’s Like to Do a Barium Swallow Test

17 Replies

First I would like to complain to you that when I went to my barium swallow test, I forgot my cell phone at home. This meant two things:

1. I could not see if there were any Pokéstops at the hospital.

2. I could not proceed with my original plan, which was to stay in the city after the test and go over to the mall and have lunch and browse Target and maybe get a few Pokéstops. (Without my cell phone, I fret about the statistically-small chance that the school will call about a sick kid or something. Also, without my phone I can’t get the Pokéstops.)

On to the test itself. I was partly worried about how long it would take: when Edward gets his MRI, we are at the hospital for hours and hours and hours; last time it was five-and-a-half hours. Part of it is the time the actual prep and test take, but part of it is that hospitals seem to be in a different dimension of time and space, and the hours pass without any particular concern for their passing. And of course sometimes at a hospital there are emergencies that mean routine appointments get bumped, as well they should.

Anyway, when the lady from the scheduling department called to set up my appointment, I asked her how long the whole thing would take, and she said, “Oh, 15-20 minutes.” I thought, “AH HA HA HA HA HA okay, fine, DON’T tell me if you don’t want to!” But from the moment I walked into the hospital (half an hour fretfully early) to the moment I walked out again was 45 minutes total. The time from “changed into johnny and waiting for doctor” to “changing out of johnny” was less than 15 minutes. Most of the time was spent in waiting rooms, because I was half an hour early. So it was not very long between thinking “Soon I will be one of these carefree individuals on their way OUT of this waiting room” to being in fact one of those carefree individuals.

Let’s rewind to where I am walking into the hospital. I’d been told not to eat or drink anything after 10:00 the night before, so I was feeling a bit grim: first Monday of Daylight Saving Time AND no coffee. I’d been told to go straight to Diagnostic Imaging, and so I did. There they checked me in and gave me a hospital bracelet, and instructed me to walk over to X-ray.

At X-ray, they had me undress just from the waist up, and put on two johnnies: one opening in the back and a second one opening in the front. (I didn’t have to remove those johnnies at any point during the exam.) All my stuff went into a little locker. A technician brought me into the x-ray room and showed me basically how things would go: she stood where I’d be standing and described the various things the doctor would ask me to do. She showed me a barium tablet that the doctor would have me swallow to see how a pill went down. I asked if most people did fine with the whole thing and she said, “Oh, yes!” and that hardly anyone had trouble—it was just a bit icky to have to drink the drink, she said. She also told me that “it goes in white, and it comes out white—so don’t be alarmed later!”

The doctor came in and had me stand up on a little step, standing in front of what turned out to be an x-ray table turned up on its end. He moved a machine in front of me, so I was sort of snugged into a little nook. He handed me a plastic cup of the barium and told me to get ready to drink it but not drink it yet. Then he had me turn partly to one side and then partly to the other, each time drinking the barium until he said to stop—maybe 7 or 8 seconds each time? Then I had to face forward and drink again. Then he had me swallow the barium tablet and drink again.

I didn’t find the barium particularly gross, but it helped to go into it EXPECTING it to be fairly gross. It was very bland, and tasted faintly like strawberries. It was about the thickness of…well, the technician said milkshake, but milkshakes are such a different TYPE of thickness: cold and crystally and melty. It reminded me more of yogurt thinned with milk (but with no yogurt flavor). I tried to pretend it WAS yogurt, to help me drink it.

The doctor had me turn to my side, and then he lowered the table, which was how I came to realize it was an x-ray table on-end. (The technician had not mentioned this part.) It was an odd sensation: like you’re standing against a wall, and then the wall just lies down and takes you with it. The technician gave me a pillow. The doctor had me drink more barium, through a straw this time, while lying on my side. This was the worst part for me: something about lying on my side, plus this was my second full cup of the barium. (They weren’t forcing me to drink that much: that was just how much I was naturally going through during the swallowing tests. Possibly I was drinking it too fast—but I wasn’t gulping it down or anything.) In the last few seconds, I gagged—but just once, and then the test was done anyway. I continued pretending it was a nice nutritious smoothie and not at all making me queasy—but I did feel slightly queasy. I think it was more mental than physical.

The doctor left, and the technician brought me back to the changing area—and then it was done. I stopped on the way home and got a large coffee and a sausage-egg-and-cheese bagel sandwich, and felt so much better. The sweet, sweet relief of coffee is well worth the occasional pain of being a little dependent on it.

Overall, I would say that most of the fretting could be assigned to the Newness, as opposed to the actual procedure. If I had to do the same test again, I would be only very mildly anxious about it: maybe a 1 or 2 on a scale of 10, and most of that would be the nervousness that comes from not being sure I’m following directions correctly, combined with worrying about what they’ll find. LESS anxious than, say, a routine physical where I have to step on a scale, take off the johnny, talk about exercise and alcohol, discuss how many years I have left before they start suggesting colonoscopies, etc.

Barium Swallow; School Dance; Daylight Saving Time Printout

27 Replies

I had two letters to write today, and I have written them. I love that moment when they are in the mailbox and out of my hands.

I have been having some weird trouble with tightness in my throat and a light cough. It started in November and felt like symptoms of anxiety, so naturally I thought it was president-related—but it finally persisted to the point where I was having trouble swallowing pills, and I started to imagine being asked later why I hadn’t gone to the doctor, so I went to the doctor. Now I have to have a barium swallow test on Monday. The only thing I know about a barium swallow test is that when Edward was drinking the icky stuff he has to drink before an MRI, the technician said, “Just be glad it’s not barium—that stuff is so much worse!”

Elizabeth is going to a school dance soon, and has been practicing putting glitter on her face and hair. She has also been mentioning a particular boy Quite Often. Very casually—but his name comes up multiple times per day. This is a pretty fun stage.

It’s Daylight Saving Time this weekend, so if you need The Printout that Prevents One Million Discussions of the “Wait, So Normally Right Now it Would Be SEVEN O’Clock…No, FIVE O’Clock…Wait…” variety, it is here: Spring Ahead Printout.

Recent Purchases: Dining Room Curtains, Skirt of Abundant Glitter, More Embroidered Jeans

26 Replies

Recent purchases I wish to discuss:

1. Curtains for the dining room! We converted the porch to a dining room….ten years ago? Or so? And I have never bought curtains, because I couldn’t decide or even really narrow it down. Recently the needing-curtains issue has come to the forefront of our attention, and I have spent quite a bit of time looking at curtains online and in stores and wondering how, HOW, does anyone ever choose? And then not buying anything.

Today at Target there were four curtain panels on the endcap, marked down because they were purchased online and then returned to the store. They happened to be one of the many curtains I had considered online but been unsure of because it’s hard to tell about colors/fabrics online. And they seemed good, I was in a good Buying Mood, so I bought them. And I had William hold one up to the window, and he and I agreed they were good! And so I waited for Paul to come home, in case he wanted to veto them, and he did not want to veto them. And then it was down to the final issue: would I be able to find them on the Target website and order two more panels? And yes! With some struggles (Were they listed on the site by the brand name on the package? No! Did the package contain any other identifying information? No!), I WAS able to find them and order two more, AND they were on sale! Here they are:

(image from Target.com)

Closer shot:

(image from Target.com)

They are basically grey plus a weird greenish yellow. I love a good weird greenish yellow. Online, I was uncertain if it was the kind of greenish yellow I like, but it is indeed within that range. I was also worried the curtains would be too busy, but they are not. My dining room is painted Sea Salt (that post about paint colors was written when it was Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin and we didn’t yet know we’d get Obama), and the wall-art in the room works really well I think with the colors of the curtains. I am pleased.

 

2. A Cat & Jack skirt for Elizabeth. It’s black with gold sparkles. I bought it on clearance, without noticing that it was supposed to be hand-washed in cold water. As if I am going to hand-wash ANYTHING, let alone a child’s garment, let alone in cold water. It went through the washer and dryer before I read the label. We now have gold glitter EVERYWHERE. I’ve run half a dozen loads of laundry since then but am still finding abundant gold glitter in the lint filter. There is gold glitter on the floors of both levels of the house. There is gold glitter stuck to many, many other pieces of clothing. This morning a child noted I had a single gold glitter piece on my cheek. If you walk barefoot in my house, no matter which rooms you walk in, you will have a sheen of gold on the soles of your feet. Please visit us for all your gold-glitter needs: it is the loaves-and-fishes of gold glitter around here.

 

3. More of those embroidered jeans I bought awhile back! When we last spoke on this topic, I’d ordered one pair, and then as soon as I tried them on I rushed to the website to immediately buy more—but since they were a clearance item AND I’d waited a couple of weeks between jeans-arriving and jeans-trying-on, they were sold out in my size. Working on nothing more than hope, I kept the product tab open on my desktop, and every day I checked just in case. I thought maybe someone would return some, or they’d find another box of them in the warehouse or something. And one day, one GLORIOUS day, they were suddenly in stock in my size. I immediately ordered two more pairs. I am so jeans-happy.

Catching Up

15 Replies

I am so behind on the things I have wanted to write about.

I saw the movie Arrival. If you have not yet seen it, I will say this: I agree with everyone who said not to look into it or read anything about it, just see it cold.

Rob has had another college acceptance, and also a rejection. Maybe I already wrote about this? The rejection was from one of the schools lower on his list, which seems like a very good way to get the first rejection. I can picture THINKING you are prepared for rejection, and then finding upon receipt of actual rejection that you ARE NOT IN FACT PREPARED. We are still waiting to hear from his top two choices, and both of those colleges have low acceptance rates, so this was a good rehearsal. …I feel as if I already wrote all of this. Possibly I did, or perhaps there is a draft somewhere?

Rob has a new job that means he misses dinner five days a week. I am distressed by this. Sometimes I can save him a plate for later, but sometimes we are having something that doesn’t really re-heat, and/or something that gets eaten entirely by others if he is not here to eat his share. Sometimes he makes sandwiches, sometimes he heats something up; and now I have bought some frozen meals, frozen burritos, and cans of hearty soups. I have tried to interest him in learning to make scrambled eggs, fried eggs on toast, tuna-and-Triscuits, egg salad sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other things I consider staples of the Single Dinner, but he doesn’t like the foods that I like. Well. We will figure this out. And in approximately six months, it will not be an issue because he will LIVE AT COLLEGE.

I remember there was something I bought and wanted to recommend. What was it? This is the trouble with waiting. Well, I’ll think of it later.

I continue to be engrossed with political stuff. I decided my first half-hour of Twitter-reading per day had to take place while walking vigorously on the treadmill. This has: (1) decreased my Twitter-reading and (2) increased my treadmill usage and (3) decreased my adrenaline while reading. If you lean liberal and you are panicking, may I recommend skimming this book? It seemed to me to be one of those books where the entire point could have been made in one single article, so most of the book is devoted to giving long, thorough examples to back up the main point and create more pages. As soon as I understood the point and skimmed a couple of examples, I felt I’d extracted the vital essence.

I completely forgot to bring two of the kids to their dentist appointments. The appointments were on the calendar. The dentist office called the day before and reminded me. And then I…didn’t bring them. I realized it about half an hour after the second appointment would have been over. I was completely mortified. This sort of thing makes me feel as if I am losing my mind. The dentist’s office was very cool about it, but I found it very difficult to shake the mortified/horrified mood. Then I accidentally rescheduled one of the appointments for a day when we can’t make it, so I will have to call BACK and reschedule AGAIN.

Edward had his MRI. The worst part was getting him to drink the stuff he has to drink beforehand. This was his third MRI so I’d thought it would be easier to get him to drink it, but this was the hardest time yet. It was bad enough, I’m not even sure it would be possible to do it ever again. Even this time they were very uncertain they’d be able to do it, based on what a small amount of liquid I was able to persuade him to drink over TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS OF CONSTANT EXHAUSTING EFFORT. And then he threw it up. Upside: two Pokéstops within reach of the waiting room.

I have started taking online French lessons using a program available for free through our library. I feel as if almost ANY language would be more practical than French—but French is the only one that appeals to me. I took two years of it in high school and still like it. But I hate, hate, HATE the part where the program wants me to use the microphone to compare my pronunciation to theirs. Not only is it disheartening, but it’s difficult to use and I can’t figure out how to use the feedback to improve my pronunciation. It is enough to make me want to ditch the whole thing. So I think I will skip that part and pretend I don’t even HAVE a microphone. Who’s going to tell them otherwise? For all they know I DON’T have one!

Pillow Protector

33 Replies

I have outwitted one of my children. I am going to tell you how it went down.

Henry will not keep a pillowcase on his pillow. I have explained to him the reasons for pillowcases. I have reprimanded and scolded. I have monitored the situation and required him to put the pillowcase back on each time. But every time I check, the pillowcase is off the pillow and crumpled up on the floor. I had just about given up: I don’t want to add “Put Henry’s pillowcase back on” to my daily chores; nor does this feel like a hill to die on. But it BUGGED me.

Then I had a thought: wouldn’t it be great if there were ZIPPERED pillowcases? Because I think the main issue is that the pillowcase keeps getting scrunched up or halfway falling off the pillow, and then he gets frustrated and flings it.

I could not find zippered pillowcases, but I found THESE:

(image from Amazon.com)

pillow protectors, which are basically the same thing. Target had half a dozen different kinds, all with helpful little circles cut out of the plastic packaging so I could feel the material. The organic one felt the nicest and most like a regular pillowcase to me (the others felt a little more slippery). Naturally it was also the most expensive at $7+. But I was at the paying point, and so I bought one.

I laundered the new pillow protector, and I put it onto his pillow. It zips on, and the zipper is mostly tucked out of the way so it’s quite discreet. But did I leave it at that? Heck no: I then put the pillowcase back on OVER the pillow protector. Henry will take it off as usual, for whatever reason he does so. And then he will feel victorious. But I will be victorious! ME! Because his pillow will still have a case on it! A case I can remove and launder!

Tax Prep

57 Replies

I’ve been using tax-preparation software to do my taxes for years, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I want someone else to do it. Even with the software, I end up intensely frustrated: partly because I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do, and partly because the tax forms every citizen MUST fill out should not be so complicated that a college-educated citizen can’t figure out what to do EVEN WITH helpful guiding software. Plus, we got a follow-up question on our financial aid forms from a college Rob applied to, which brought to light that I may have failed to take a large deduction I could have taken last year and the two years previous.

Anyway, that brings us to now. Here are the two options I’m considering:

1. My friend has just this year made this same decision about having someone else handle it, and she got a recommendation for a local accountant who does tax preparation. My friend says this woman seems very nice and competent. Upside: the personal recommendation; I can picture getting to know her and having her get to know me, and having that make taxes easier. Downsides: her office is in a dark and slightly scary location; I don’t actually know anything more about her; one day she would retire and I would feel stressed starting over with someone new.

2. There’s an H&R Block near me. It says “walk-ins welcome.” Upsides: I can just walk in, I don’t have to make the scary call for an appointment; feels more anonymous; it’s a big company which makes me feel less like I have to personally check their credentials. Downsides: They’d care less about my business, I would guess, but maybe not, I don’t know.

But notice how many of these upsides and downsides are based on guessing. I don’t really know anything about this. I am hoping for input. ANY input: differences you’ve found in costs, differences you’ve found in quality, anything you know about the differences between hiring an accountant and going to H&R Block, and also between those two things and any third or fourth option I haven’t considered.

[By the way, we are having some trouble with posting comments and commenting. I have Paul looking into it, and he is figuring it out, but it is taking time and he still has to get in touch with the website…host…or whatever, and then they have to fix whatever the issue is on their end. So you may notice weirdness for awhile with: new posts not showing up; edits not showing up; comments not showing up; comment fields auto-filling with weird information. The only solution I have right now is to hard-refresh, which on my Mac is done by holding down shift and command and then pressing R.]

Owl

18 Replies

Last night we had a little drama involving an injured owl.

Paul noticed there were two cars pulled over on the road outside our house, and two people in the road who were guiding traffic. At first we thought they were protecting a large cat sitting in the road, but then the cat took brief shallow flight and we realized it was an owl.

Paul went out with a flashlight to see if he could be of any assistance, but one of the people was already on the phone to the police, and the police were contacting Animal Control. The other person kept gently approaching the owl so that it would gradually retreat into our driveway, and this was a successful idea. The children and I watched all of this from the window, rapt. Paul came back in and joined us. “If you’re wondering if you’re visible from out there: yes.”

Two police cars arrived, and two officers got out and joined the gathering. They shone their flashlights on the owl, which gave the window audience a nice view of it. Paul went back out. He came back in, saying the officers had asked if we had anything that would serve as a Temporary Owl Containment Device; everyone was a little worried the owl would suddenly fly back out into the road. I first offered the cat carrier, but looking from cat carrier to owl it was clear we needed something larger and more vertically-oriented, and ideally something that could be sneakily placed over the owl instead of requiring any of us to engage more personally with the wings and talons and beak. Rob found a big plastic bin, but it would have to have air holes put into it and we were trying for speed. Paul thought of using one of our laundry hampers, turned upside down; they look like this:

(image from Amazon.com)

This turned out to be just the thing: the owl had some vertical space and a little wiggle-room, and plenty of air, and could see out—but he could not fly into the road. We put an electric lantern on top, to make the whole thing more visible: we were a little worried that whoever was coming for the owl would try to pull into our driveway, or that someone else might pull into the driveway just to turn around or something.

One of the police officers left at this point, considering the scene secured. The two people who’d originally stopped to help also left. The remaining officer stood vigilant. At one point he crouched down to look at the owl, perhaps offering a comforting word.

You have to picture me weeping gently this ENTIRE TIME, with the children saying “MOM. MOM.” I was so touched by the whole thing. People stopping their cars to help, and then doing the best they could to direct traffic! The police, arriving on the scene! The existence of experts who could be called on a Sunday night to come out and take custody of an injured owl! All these citizens working together to help!

The guy from Animal Rescue arrived with a cat carrier that didn’t look much larger than ours, and then completely impressed me with his smooth and casual owl-handling. It was dark and I was at a distance, but it appeared to me that he lifted up the laundry hamper and extracted the owl in one smooth gentle movement, no flinch or fuss, despite the owl attempting to cling to the inside of the hamper. He held the owl up and examined it a bit with a flashlight, and felt its wings. Paul reported that the guy said there was no blood, and that the wings didn’t seem broken, so he didn’t think it was a serious injury.

This is the part that amazed me. Have you ever tried to get a cat into a cat carrier? It is no easy feat. But this guy got a WILD OWL into the cat carrier, and he did it in one easy swoop: one moment he was holding the carrier in one hand and the owl in the other, and the next moment the twain were one.

He said he would take the owl to an owl rehabilitation center nearby (fresh weeping at the idea of such establishments existing, and people working in them), and most likely bring the owl back to release it into the same neighborhood. He didn’t think it would be more than a few weeks.

We are HUGELY hoping that we will be aware in advance of this homecoming, and can see it happen, and can hear an update on what the injury was. But I am not counting on it. It seems more likely that the animal rescue guy would just show up sometime with no fuss, extracting the owl from the cat carrier in one easy swoop.

Advice Requested: Winter Boots and Russian Textbooks

40 Replies

I need to buy new winter boots. I have had my old ones for about 12 years. They are L.L. Bean, slip-on style, and they were excellent boots (comfy, waterproof, warm without being too hot, grippy soles) until last year when something changed with the rubber on the bottom of the boots and it stopped being grippy and is instead hard and slippery. Clearly that is not what is needed in a winter boot.

I looked online at L.L. Bean to see if they still had the same type of boot, and they do not (these are probably the closest equivalent), but also I saw their prices and now am willing to branch out, brand-wise. Do any of you have boots you’d recommend? I don’t have anything particular in mind other than grippy soles (I fall easily enough as it is, without adding slippery soles), which makes it both harder and easier to make suggestions. Like, I liked the slip-on style, but I don’t think I would mind switching to laced. It would be nice if they were cute, but my old ones were not cute and that didn’t bother me. My old ones were the lightish brown of construction boots, but I don’t mind switching to a different color. My old ones were shortish, but I don’t mind the idea of trying taller. Just: GRIPPY SOLES. GRIPPY. And I guess fairly waterproof, since I use them for shoveling and for walking in snow/slush. And durable, so I don’t have to do this too often.

 

Also, William is learning Russian online. He likes languages and wanted to try something with an alphabet different from ours, so that’s what he picked. He said just now that he thinks he needs a textbook or something, because sometimes the online source will say something he’s not sure is right; I think the actual story is it appeals to him to have a textbook. His birthday is coming up, and teenage boys are very hard to buy for, so if anyone can recommend any sort of Russian-learning book, I would be very glad to hear about it.

Changing My Cartilage Piercing for the First Time

22 Replies

It has been awhile since I had my cartilage piercings done: I had the first one done in July of last year, and the second done in August. I still love them. The only thing I don’t love is that I’ve continued to sleep on my side, which mashes the earrings. Every morning when I wake up, the area around the piercings looks a little puffy, and one of the earrings is tipped up diagonally. I think the tipped one must also have been pierced a little crooked, but maybe not, maybe it’s that the cartilage is softer or I sleep more on that side or something.

Either way, I felt uneasy about squashing them like that, and I don’t like how one keeps being tilted, so I went back to the piercing place and asked if there was anything I could do. They recommended flat-backed earrings, which have little discs on the backs instead of the familiar curly nubbin. I bought six of them, because they were on a buy-2-get-1-free sale.

I went home and I braced myself for the unknown and possibly gross. I was nervous about changing them: I’d read that it was more challenging to change a cartilage piercing than an earlobe piercing. I got everything I’d need: the saline spray, some rubbing alcohol in a soda-bottle cap to sterilize the new earrings and clean the old ones, some little cotton pads to wipe the ear clean.

I took out the first of the old earrings, which was hard to do. I know how to take out ear-piercing earrings, which snap-lock in place, but the cartilage is so much more rigid than the earlobe, and there was less room to get my fingers into position, and I was nervous it would hurt, and I was nervous I’d do it wrong. But I got ready, and then I pulled, and the earring came unsnapped as expected. What was not expected was that the ear around the piercing immediately puffed up both front and back: an alarming little lump on both sides. Hm. That doesn’t seem right. Or was that lump already there, and I hadn’t seen it because the earrings was there? It was hard to say.

I chose one of the new earrings, and tried to take the flat backing off of it. I tugged and nothing happened. I twisted and nothing happened. Finally I thought to twist the STUD part of the earring—and it unscrewed. Uh oh. This meant that the earring post needed to go into the piercing from the BACK, and then the stud would get screwed back on. I didn’t know how that would work, but I know people change their own piercings all the time, so I proceeded on faith.

I got the new earring ready. I bent my ear-shell forward and…it was clear I was not going to be able to put an earring in from the back. No way. I couldn’t even see where to put it. And the earring post was SHARP, so I was not inclined to start stabbing it around hopefully. And the whole thing seemed gross and scary, and I was worried something was going to hurt. But the earring was out, and a new earring had to go in, and no one else was home, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who would be willing to do it even if they’d ALL been home. I was on my own. Like Indiana Jones, basically.

The first solution my panicky brain came up with was to forget the whole thing. Never mind! Let the piercing heal up! Failed experiment! But I didn’t WANT to. I LIKE those piercings. I am not really a badass in any way, but I have badass aspirations if I can ever stop crying and cringing at everything, and those piercings feel like a step in the right direction. Plus I think they’re pretty. So here was my next thought process:

1. An earring has to go into that hole.
2. It has to be the kind of earring that goes in from the front.
3. I could put the original earring back in, but that’s discouraging and solves nothing.
4. What I wanted originally was SMALLER gold balls, like the ones in my second earlobe piercing.
5. I DO HAVE more of those smaller gold balls.
6. They do go in from the front.
7. Seems to me that we have a plan and it is time to stop dithering and spring into action.

Like Indiana Jones, I sprang to my room and got a pair of the earrings, which are sterile until unwrapped. I unwrapped them. Should I put them in the rubbing alcohol, even if they’re sterile? I mean, they’re unwrapped now, so are they still sterile? For how long? Well, let’s not sit here fretting about it, let’s just pour a little rubbing alcohol into the palm of my hand and give the earrings a quick dip.

I was worried that the earring wouldn’t go in: as I mentioned earlier, I’d read that it could be more difficult than with an earlobe piercing. I was further worried that the post would be shorter than the freshly puffy width it needed to bridge. I got the post through with only a little stabby fumbling: ouch, ouch, ouch, okay there we go. But only a teeny bit of the post stuck out of the back of the ear. I took the backing, I put it against that little point, and I shoved it on; it snapped into place with only a slight and brief pinch. It was in. It did not continue to hurt; it felt fine.

Now I had one large gold stud and one small. The question was: proceed, or leave well enough alone? It bugs me to have things uneven, and the first one had gone fairly well, and so INTO THE FRAY. Indiana Jones would have done the same with HIS cartilage piercings. I will stop mentioning him now.

I prepared to remove the second earring. I braced. I winced. I applied the pull-apart pressure. Nothing happened, and I felt like I didn’t have a good grip on it; the angle felt weird. I tried again, with more resolve and a better grip, and this time it snapped out. The ear had a lump like the first ear did, but this one looked less like it was new and more like it had been there all along: smoother and the skin looked more normal. I’d thought I seen a lump when that earring was still in, but I hadn’t been able to tell for sure. I know that can happen with cartilage piercings, and that the lump can linger for kind of a long time (like, a year), and it didn’t look scary in any other way so I’d figured that was the situation.

I put the new earring in, and got the back into position. But this time I couldn’t seem to get a good grip: the stud part kept slipping to the side as I tried to hold it steady, and I was nervous to apply a lot of pressure and then have it slip. I tried various things: using a bit of paper towel to hold the stud part steady, changing the angle of the ear flap, switching hands around. At one point the earring slipped out and I had to put it back in again. I was getting nervous and sweaty. And then I did get it, and it snapped into place. Huge relief.

I still have my saline spray from last time. It is surprisingly expensive, but it helps: I first bought the H2Ocean from the piercing place because I didn’t want to argue with them about it (it’s one of their huge mark-up items, so they really push it), and when it was all used up I tried the kind of saline they make for contact lenses, which I was sure was exactly the same stuff. I don’t know WHY it didn’t work as well, and maybe it’s because I’m suggestible, or maybe it’s because the ocean spray is literally better in some way, or most likely it’s because the cheaper saline wasn’t a propelled spray so I dribbled most of it down my shirt, but anyway I ended up buying a larger bottle of H2Ocean from Amazon. (The piercing place sold me 1.5 ounces for $7; Amazon has 4 ounces for $10-12.) And when I brought it out to use it in this story, for my fresh cartilage earrings, it didn’t work: it just wouldn’t spray at all. I tried removing the nozzle and cleaning it, squiggling into the crevices with a toothpick. I tried turning the nozzle different directions. I tried pressing really hard while clenching my teeth and saying “SERIOUSLY??” Nothing worked. I used the cheaper saline instead, getting saline all in my hair and down my shirt. Later I had Paul look at the H2Ocean, and he said he didn’t know why it was broken (we suspect a child tampered with it) but it WAS broken. It is a testimony to my H2devotion that I ordered ANOTHER $11 bottle of it, to have on hand in case the fresh earrings caused the piercings to go south.

But they have NOT gone south. They are still a little puffy, but not alarming-looking. They don’t hurt. No fluids are emerging from them. The one that seemed to puff as soon as I took the old earring out is still kind of shiny and the earring looks pressed in because of the swelling, but the other one (the one that had seemed to have a little lump all along) looks the same as normal. And even the first one doesn’t look bad or scary, just a little puffy and pink as if maybe I squeezed it and disrupted it and poked it and squeezed it again, and as if it were a little puffy to begin with and that’s why we started this whole thing.

The new earrings don’t really Solve The Problem per se, since they still have the regular non-flat backings. But the gold-ball part is about half the size of the ones I had before, so although they do still get squished when I sleep on them, there is less metal to press into skin. And I prefer the look of them: I thought the old ones were too big. So I am basically happy, though a little squinty about the $20+ I spent on six flat-backed earrings I can’t use on my own.

The last time I went to the piercing place and asked for advice about earrings, the clerk gave suggestions and then said something like “Unfortunately our piercer is off today, so he can’t change them for you.” So my IMPRESSION is that if I ask, the piercer CAN change them for me? I don’t know if there’s a cost to this, and I don’t know if he can change them for me if I bring back earrings I bought on another occasion. But when I had the piercings done I noticed a Tip Jar in his room, so perhaps it’s the kind of thing where he does it and there is an understanding that I will leave a little something in the jar? Do speak up if you know how this goes. Also do speak up if you have figured out how to change a flat-backed earring yourself.