Went to the dentist this morning and was willing to give up all national secrets and first born to make them stop scraping. Going to take some excedrin and lay down. Ugh.

Oh man, my allergies are KILLING me! I woke up this morning with instant itchy, watery eyes and a constant sneezing and runny nose. I have so far gone through a half box of tissues and have taken two Alavert and a Zyrtec with no change at all. I think that there must be some flower/plant/tree that grows here that is not in Ohio because I haven’t been like this in years and years! I think that I need to find an allergist here. Ugh.

A very bad thing happened yesterday. Extremely horrible, gross, stressful, and probably hilarious.

I was driving down to my parents from MSN on a lovely Friday afternoon. This trip is a simple two hour drive, mostly interstate with little traffic, farmland. Woman and her dog. Just listening to some CDs and enjoying the nice weather. So here we are at the end of our trip, about a half mile away from the house and Walter has a diarrhea attack in the back of the Jeep. KABLOW!!! None of his usual warnings: whimper, leaping up and down, etc. Nothing. Just God awful, merciless poop. Needless to say that chaos ensued. I am screaming at the dog and at the world in general, driving erratically. I actually drove through a stop sign. People were actually pointing and staring at me as I did it. I am sure that it looked insane. All windows down, going warp speed to get to my parents in order to get him out of the car.

I get to the house and get in the drive way jump out and get Walter out of the car. Tie him to the bumper hitch, run inside and get cleaning supplies. I needed a Hazmat suit and napalm, but settled for lysol, a roll of paper towels, clorox wipes, and three plastic grocery bags. I go out and clean the dog off. Walter had poop on all four paws, his butt, and tail. Yes, I cloroxed the dog. Then, I took him inside the house and locked him in the mud room.

Walking back to the car, I brace myself to look into the back of the Jeep. (All the seats are laid flat so it is one big cargo area.) It is like a poop helicopter back there. Words cannot describe. . . It takes me 45 minutes to clean the back out. Picture a short, Italian girl screaming, crying, and swearing like a sailor, ready to vomit and commit doggie homicide. My poor mom, her neighbors must think I have Tourette’s or something. I call Shawn at work about halfway through and left a message about what happened on his voicemail. He thought at first that I got into an accident because I was a bit hysterical. I guess that I told him that when he gets down here we would have to burn the car.

So, Shawn is now working on cleaning out the car with Resolve, more Lysol, and my dad’s ShopVac. We are then going to have the local car wash detail the interior on it tomorrow. If that doesn’t restore things back to its pre-pooptastic condition, I am selling the car. Period.

The past few days I have been attempting to keep myself busy by obsessively cleaning, taking Walter on as many walks as he can stand, and worrying about selling the house. Shawn is already in Madison, working hard and worrying too much about if he is doing a good job. He is honestly the hardest working man I know and wish that he could relax for a moment to realize how fantastic he is doing.

Meanwhile, I have too much time on my hands. I need to do something. I feel like I am in limbo. Finished with Columbus, but not quite ready for Madison. I want to be able to get on with it already. I have all these great ideas about some art that I want to start on, but feel that I can’t get going on them until I am settled. Besides, it might mess up my immaculate house.

Maybe this feeling is also that I haven’t really had any connection with people since Shawn is gone. I mean I LOVE Walter, but the fuzzy guy is not a great conversationalist. I am supposed to go over to Dave and Christi’s house to watch the OSU game tonight, maybe that will help. We’ll see.

Starting this is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while, but I haven’t had the opportunity to get going on it until now. Crazy, since things are so busy with selling the house in Columbus and figuring out how we are going to start our life in Madison. I am thinking that maybe this will help things get more into focus. We’ll see what happens. . . .