Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

My Relationship with the Raphael Hotel

I can walk into a Super8 motel and be above it all, certainly. Even more, I can walk nearly naked yet unblushing through the lobby of the Jazz in Chicago. I can even chat pleasantly with the front desk at the Hotel Lancaster in Paris (as an equal, though, not as a ruler. Liberté, égalité, fraternité.)

Yet for some reason the Raphael Hotel in Kansas City turned me into a Jerry-Lewis-level doofus. I was not the aristocrat in any transaction.

It's not them, it's me. Everyone at the hotel was tremendously helpful and friendly.

First, we had a rough drive down. We were both on edge. Gary was so on edge that when said "turn here!" at the entrance of the Raphael, he insisted, "No! This isn't it! This is the Rape-hall Hotel!" I was no better: when the valet opened my car door I had my hands full, then I had to find my car key. After a minute of fumbling I dumped the tangle of iPhone chargers into his hands so I could dig through my purse.

So, my chance to gracefully exit the car, perhaps murmur "why thank you" and press a tip in his hand was shot. Then, I was rattled enough to answer the front desk honestly when they asked how my trip had been. Then, I overshared that the night manager had a very pleasing face. I just dug myself a big hole and climbed the social ladder right down to the bottom.

As we opened the door to the room I vowed to be genteel the next time I encountered anyone. Then I fell in love with the room. I don't like what most hotels call a "suite," often it's just a normal room with more air. This one was three rooms: the bed room, the sitting room, and the bathroom.

The water pressure in the shower could peel off a layer of skin, and the toilet flush echoed down the hall. Turbo shower, turbo toilet, comfy beds, giant tv.

The next day I went down to breakfast and fawned over the waitress and the food. I went to the front desk and grovelled and cooed when they loaned us a tie to replace one Gary forgot. (It was the official hotel staff tie. Gary threatened to walk about and give orders like a boss.)

Then, I couldn't get in the room. The key didn't seem to work. It just flashed red and green. The front desk explained that meant someone in the room had thrown the deadbolt. I explained that meant Gary was taking a shower. SEE? WHY? Why must I open my mouth? It was like i was a giggly girl with a crush.

At about this time Gary began tipping both valets simultaneously: literally, tipping with both hands.

I swore again to be cool and elegant the next time I saw the staff. Instead, I had some KC BBQ and had to gush to the front desk and the bellman how great it was while I stuffed a complimentary cookie into my maw. I talked with my mouth full. The final straw.

I went to bed and swore to be the reserved lady the next day, the one who fits in to such a nice place.

I woke up and dropped a full cup of coffee on the carpet. Coffee bomb all over the floor and wall. I sacrificed three clean towels to clean it up.

So of course I had to skip the express checkout and apologize in person to the front desk. They were, of course, very nice about it.

I must return in disguise someday and be the type of guest they deserve, instead of a hoosier doofus, which is what I am.

We Are Entertained

Well, I just finished The Handmaids Tale and it was delicious. Gary asked me what it was about and I knew if I told him I'd ruin the first third of the book, in which she drops the exposition like little crumbs. I loved it, screamed when it "ended" right before the epilogue, and thank you to all who recommended it.

Gary's first project in retirement is to watch every episode of Alias ever, but as a warm-up he watched all two seasons of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. I enjoyed it as well. The high-school insults are remarkably creative. I'm waiting till the first moment Hot Mom slips up so I can call her a "dick mitten."

I would be interested in going to see The Great Gatsby, but how can anyone but Robert Redford be Gatsby? Of course, Carey Mulligan is more like the Daisy in my head than Mia Farrow. All I really care about seeing is the woman who has shaved off and repainted her eyebrows. That image has never left me.  

I am ashamed to say the plot did not stay with me from high school or the seventies movie. If you asked me yesterday what I remembered about Gatsby it would be the images: pastel shirts, yellow convertible, shaved eyebrows, spectacle billboard, green light and boats beating toward the shore. There's a plot though. I totally forgot how Gatsby ended up. ([SPOILER!]Dead in the pool!) I probably don't remember the plot since there was no conflict between new money and old money in my middle class life.

I'm the same way about all the books I read in class in the high school. I remember the rat mask from 1984 but not the plot. (I think I've confused the plot of 1984 with Brazil.) We read The Old Man and the Sea, and I remember the Man vs Nature conflict but not a single bit of the man's story. He catches the fish and dies at the end? Right? I had no conflict with nature, myself, certainly not surviving on a boat with a big fish.

Of course, I can best remember the books about my two daily conflicts: Man vs Snotty People (The Scarlet Letter, any Austen book) and Man vs The Right Thing To Do (Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible).

I can't criticize my reading list too much, because my newly-integrated high school chose South Pacific for the musical, Raisin in the Sun and, strangely, Huckleberry Finn, which we had to read out loud to appreciate the dialect. If I recall the N-word discussion, the teacher wrote it on the board, said "I hate this word," told us the etymology and carefully selected only reading passages that didn't have that word in there, and otherwise we were to remember Huck's ignorance when we saw it.

Truth be told, watching Gary sleep and watch tv till the wee hours has put me off home-based amusements. I need a project. It might be time to divide the peonies. No, wait, i need to re-learn the guitar first.

I Am Dehydrated ...

... because of all the crying. We must be too confident tonight, because we watched We Bought a Zoo AND Les Miserables.

Has anyone you know died in the last ... oh ... ten years? Do NOT see We Bought a Zoo. There's one line that made me segue from silent weeping to loud retching sobs. It's the one about how "she's the one who could help me get through this BUT SHE'S DEAD." I sobbed so much Gary put it on pause to ask if I was crying about my Mom, and after I nodded, said, "I thought so." Perceptive. That's why I love him.

I got some back because the next movie a) was on the big screen and b) was Les Miserables. That was just constant silent weeping. We were both as blotchy as Anne Hathaway.

So, no more dramas for the rest of the weekend. I'm knuckling down to my two remaining projects.

Geh

I knew Monday I couldn't be in public with this cough, and I assumed I couldn't be seen at the doctor's before work, so I swung by the Urgent Care on the way in to work. Looking to score some cough medicine.

Bronchitis. I was expecting cough medicine, I got antibiotics and instructions that I should cough as much as possible. The antibiotics puzzled me, especially since they were approved right below a poster reading "JUST SAY NO TO ANTIBIOTICS." Then again, I guess the doctor was just trying to protect my now-feeble immune system against secondary infections.

The people at work heard one coughing fit and sent me home. Gary immediately left for his parents. I vegetated and watched my pajama top bounce about as my bronchi kicked at it.

Today I dutifully coughed.

Gary slept till four. He came in and announced that in the future, he would make food he wanted to eat and if I wanted to eat some of his food I would be welcome. Just to be clear, he would not be cooking for me, but if I wanted to eat some of the food he made independently this would be permitted. This is only fair, since for years I have been making food for MYSELF ALONE and letting him eat of it.

Okay. Whatever. I'm too tired to even roll my eyes.

Shaky

My body is in tune with my situation. Every time I cough I feel my bronchi vibrate for a second like the low E on a guitar.

I made a new budget yesterday. All will be well but, as Gary says, screw Dierbergs.

"Schnucks!" he cries. He gives the second-class Schnucks the thumbs up.

"Shop-n-Save?" I counter.

"Walmart."  What the hell. I poise in the parking lot balancing my support of Obamacare against Walmart's indifference to their workers' health.

In Walmart we are all one in our hatred of the incessant beeping. "What is that freaking noise?" a stranger spins and asks me.

"It's Forklift Day at the Walmart!" I say brightly, drily, drolly. He determines that if the beep is for Worker Safety then it's all right. We are united.

We save so much (SO DAMN MUCH) at the Walmart that I exhaust myself chopping all the kale and had to sleep. I haven't had more than two consecutive hours of sleep all weekend because I keep waking myself up. I'll drop off and then wake up to the tail end of a loud mumble. "MmaararMMMPH! Wha? DAMN it." 

All weekend's been like the moment your ankle shifts before you twist it. I know it will be fine. I ran the numbers and all will be well, my visit to Walmart was all for show.

I should pack up some leftovers to bring to work tomorrow, another show of support, but I'm worn out.

Gary doesn't go to work tomorrow.

Gary doesn't go to work tomorrow.

Gary doesn't go to work ever.

I don't think I was this tremulous even before my wedding.

Grey vs Eggplant vs Mahogany

In front of Marcia, I mentioned that I don't have many grey hairs. There are only about ten that I can see.

"Oh, honey," she cooed, "Have you seen the back of your head?"

Well no, skinny bitch, I haven't, and shut up about my appearance. When you were over 200 pounds you could talk, but I don't want to hear that talk from someone thin.

The next day she handed me the card for her colorist at the salon we both frequent.

I was staggered. Back off! Gain some wieght again and then you can pull that but I won't take that from a pretty girl. Can you imagine Cindy Crawford sweetly telling her homely friends they need a dye job? I think not.

So, I immediately had Debbie take a photo of the back of my head.

 

I know, that's an awful cowlick / bald spot. Ignore it to look at the hairs. That's a lot of grey hair. I've dyed my hair before but gave it up because it seemed easier to just ignore the ten grey hairs I had.

I tacked on a dye job to my impending hair cut. I already knew what color I wanted: a shade darker with eggplant streaks peeking out. Another friend had eggplant streaks for a while and I envied them.

Not full on eggplant like these ladies have, but just a bit of eggplant peeking out:

The salon all agreed I was 40% grey in the back, and the grey was even in a horseshoe shape. Female pattern greyness.

 

(I didn't have a sudden shock between Debbie's photo and the one above; it must be the lighting.) That's the before, and this is the after:

You can't quite see the extra color, that's on top of my head. Here it is in the kitchen at home:

And HERE IT IS IN THE BATHROOM:

I came home and jumped when I saw that. Eggplant? Do you see eggplants?

Here's a color chart:

Then I remembered everyone as the salon used the term "mahogany" as a compliment. "Eggplant!" I corrected them. But it seems I'm mahogany in the bathroom, eggplant in the kitchen:

Of course, only looking at the front of my head in the bathroom is what got me into this. It might be a moot point, because my guess is that now Gary is retired I'll be buying my color in a box from now on.

 

Over the Top

Yesterday I read Big Dot's excellent essay on the pleasures of hauling ones self unassisted along the Inca Trail, instead of taking the "glamping" route, which she protests is "not right, turning it into some cushy outing with canapes and high thread-count pillowcases, for goodness sake. Wrong! Totally, totally wrong ... I really can't believe it could possibly be the same for well-rested, fluffed-up, gourmet-fed rich people." - Big Dot

True, I thought at the time, it wouldn't be the same. It would be better. Machu Picchu, only fluffier and tastier.

Well, then today's mail delivered a glossy brochure from TCS & Starquest Expeditions, an organization that shuttles one about the globe on a private jet appointed with some presumably leather seats.

Each jet is customized to go with the excursion you are on. You eat canapes off a silver tray on the jet. The jet has its own on-jet lounge staffed with a concierge.

You intermittently get off the jet and stay a while at the Four Seasons in each of these cities: Los Angeles, Kona, Bora Bora, Sydney, Bali, Chiang Mai, Mumbai with the Taj Mahal, Istanbul, London, and then home.

If you are disappointed in the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai (a location so fancy I've never heard of it), you can upgrade from the Four Seasons Resort to The Four Seasons Tented Camp which includes a visit to the Opium Museum. I believe the journey to the Opium Museum possibly might be on an elephant. There is an elephant trek involved somehow, or perhaps there's a contact high from the Opium Museum and the guides just say, "There's an elephant! Aw, you just missed him. You seem sleepy."

The whole trip takes 23 days in March and April.

The price, not including golf (!), but including airfare, meals, transportation, and "philanthropic contributions" (I have no idea what this is), for a single person with the single supplement because Gary would never do this with me, is ..... 

$96,900 dollars U.S. American.

Points? Can I use my airline points for any of that? Actually, no thank you. There IS something off-putting about being THAT pampered.

The Day of the Peecough

The cough is epic, violent, and shakes me to my core. It's the cough that ends with "uuueeuuuugggnn," a mewly little moan that says why, why me, why must I cough this way.

All the cough syrups in the house are useless. When I realized they were all expired, Gary brought home more equally useless cough syrups.

Since I can't sleep, I spent the day working, chugging cough syrup, and washing my damn pajama bottoms because - well, you know why. One pair of pajamas actually disintegrated on my body as I shifted positions. (New pajama e.t.a is 2 days. Amazon Priiiiime.) I also kept an ear out to hear if anyone at CNN knew what was up with the explosions in Boston.

At about five I coughed so much that I not only soiled my pajamas, but the top sheet, bottom sheet, and matress cover, and my last pair of clean pajama bottoms.

"Oh for God's sake," I muttered, as I pulled up the mattress cover's corners and threw the whole bundle in the wash.

(Let me pause for the people who know where this is going to slap their foreheads. Yeah, you only know because you've done it yourself.)

Fast forward to six o'clock, when the tiVo said, "Be boop! I'm going to change the channel at six to record some ridiculous garbage you don't want to see!"

"No," I said, and searched for the tiVo remote, so I could override that nonsense.

I searched. For a while.

Coughing.

Coughing and wetting myself.

I looked under the bed, I moved the bed, I searched other rooms, and then I heard the washer go into spin mode. And then I knew where the remote was.

I was already disgusted with myself because I evidently can't Kegel and cough at the same time, and I never had enough sense or pessimism to apply a Poise pad, and then I went and ran the Tivo remote through a wash cycle. A hot brutal wash, for the pee, don't you know.

Disgusted. I was disgusted, then I heroically arose and cleaned up, regained my Poise, took some of the prescription cough medicine that expired three years ago (and works better than anything else in the house), and rescued the remote.

Of course, it's dead, because it was not only washed but also agitated and spun. And worst of all, I COULD NOT CHANGE THE CHANNEL from the lame craft show the unregulated tiVo had switched to.

I asked Gary to stop by the Best Buy on the way home and get their cheapest remote. He tried to tell me that if you want the basic remote, you have to order it online, and all that Best Buy has are the high-end fancy tiVo remotes. This is an absurd lie, but I had to let it pass because when you WET THE BED AND and wash the remote you have no authority.

hebbo

I have hit that phase of the head cold when you pull on your lower lip and try to dry it out until it cracks. You stretch the lip out and breathe across it, or drag your knuckles across it, whatever you need to do to make your lower lip pulled and dry as an earlobe.

No one else does that? Just me? Okay.

Misery

I am so disgusted. I thought I was so well. I was eating extra fruits and veggies and proteins. I was full of energy, feisty even, and then I went into a slow decline this week and spun out last night when I got a fever and a wicked sore throat. One of those sore throats in which your tongue can't help curling back to explore the puffy pitted raw landscape in the back of your mouth.

Sadly, the drug regimen I have worked out needs to be administered every four hours. This works very well: three Motrin, one Sudafed, and one Sucrets.

Of course, I fall asleep and then wake up exactly four hours later when all the drugs have worn off, with a sore throat dried out from snoring. Whine! Whine! Stupid sickness. Stupid "normal" immune system. I am comforted that this has blazed across work and three others have been felled by it as well.

Somehow I think this virus was buried in the earth with the cicadas, but then the tornadoes across town lifted it into the atmosphere. On Wednesday, Channel Five was all tornadoes all the time, your 24/7 stop for tornadoes. I could watch tornado coverage for hours. Gary's hair salon might have suffered damage.

I was working from home today, but then I began making stupid mistakes. I decided that since work was tanking, I should stop, take a sick day, and ... make hotel reservations instead! Spending hundreds of unredeemable dollars upfront is just what you want to do when you have a fever. I ended up springing for the hotels that I'd decided were out of my price range before: the Hutton in Nashville and the Raphael Hotel in Kansas City. 

Time for more Motrin. This morning I even looked up remedies like sage tea. It hasn't come to that.

I am Fifty and I am So Hot

Before I begin, I want to make sure I define my terms. Hot flash:  You get warm, then hot, then hotter than you have ever been, then twice as hot as that. That's a hot flash, right?

Before this weekend I have had ONE hot flash in my life, perhaps a year ago. But for that, up till now, nothing.

During this weekend I have had FOUR hot flashes.

I took my temperature during one of them. 96.5. Lower even than my norm of 97.

Ironically, Gary wanted to know if I was pregnant because I seem to be nesting, what with the basement and garage gutting. I think of nesting as acquiring sticks for the nest, not purging unwanted sticks and sweeping. De-nesting.

I know at 11 my boobs showed up over 7 days. Perhaps I can knock out this menopause thing in a week as well.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, She is a Psycho Bitch

The only bit of math I have retained is that order in which you solve expressions, only because it fits neatly in the language hemisphere of my brain because of the mnemonic device "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" (Parentheses, Exponentials, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction. Spoiler: This is a lie.)

 I can remember the mnemonic because my left hemisphere works. I would comfort myself that math pros can do the math but can't remember the mnemonic. Hahahaha: justice. Then I remember Friend #4 who can write and calculate in her head simultaneously.

So, intermittently on Facebook you'll see a question like this:

Then, in the comments you'll see a variety of answers, each insisting they are right. I felt confident I could get it right, because I had my dear Aunt Sally to guide me, especially since there were no parentheses or exponentials. (It's odd that in English a parenthesis connotes a topic is less important; in math it is most important. I wonder if people who use both hemispheres read this parenthetical statement at the top of their lungs instead of the confidential tone I use to write it.)

I wasn't brazen enough to share my answer the entire world on Facebook; I just sent it to Friend #4, and let my friends see it.

Five, I said.

Hot Mom immediately commented that she and her eleven year old daughter both got seven, how did I get five?

I replied:

My: 6-(0)+2/2

Dear: 6-0+(1)

Aunt: 6-(1)

Sally: 5

Logic!

Friend 4 replied that no, seven, and here is why:

P - Parentheses - Left to right, solve all parentheses first.
E - Exponents - Left to right, solve all exponents.
MD - Multiplication and Division - Left to right, solve all multiplication and division in the order they appear.  They have equal weight, so do not skip division to do multiplication later in the expression.
AS - Addition and Subtraction - Like MD, they have equal weight, so solve them left to right.

This concerned me, not only because now I can't do fourth grade math, but I was concerned about the Middle East and wherever else they read right to left. How confusing must that be? They would be hard pressed to answer five as well, because the subtraction is on the right.

What we need is a new mnemonic, one with four words instead of six. (I almost wrote "seven words," then I counted on my fingers.) But in the third word, there must be an M and a D, in that order (left to right). Similarly, the fourth word needs to have both an A and an S.

I've got "Please excuse MacDuff's ASpirations," which doesn't make sense because it was the Macbeth's who were ambitious. "Parents enjoy McDonalds' .... Apple Snacks?" No that's two words. AppleS? No, that S is too easy to ignore.

Piggies Exhibit McDonalds Ass?

I like that one but it won't play to the fourth graders. It's too declarative as well. Aunt Sally had a little mystery to her.

 

And the Devil Shall Be Known as Amazon Prime

I remember all the warnings when the first debit cards showed up. "It makes it too easy to spend money!"

Not really. Easy? You want easy?

I was at my keyboard and I noticed a pen on my desk.  "I hope that isn't my last pen like that."

I clicked twice, typed my password, did a search and clicked once.

 

My elbows didn't even move. I will still have to go to the door Tuesday and bend over to pick up the package.

When I broke the twenty year old plastic strainer, and just now when the can opener died after ten years, I did have to go to the effort of walking from the kitchen into the room where my PC is. Of course, why did I go to all that effort? I could have walked only as far as the iPad.

Decision!

A decision has been made on the vacation!

Gary and I were going back and forth on vacation options, and prices, and such, and he backed off of Hawaii when we totaled it up. It would cost almost what Paris cost, and we aren't excited enough for a Paris outlay of cash.

The cheapest one (half the price of other locales) is Quebec City. Quebec City has:

Waterfalls

Scary bridges over the falls

Hiking trails

A river

A cliff

A funicular to take you up the cliff

People who speak French but will not speak French to us

French food

The Museum of CIVILIZATION BITCHEZ (that's how I read it)

Fortress walls to walk on top of

Cannons

An old church

Day trips to windmills

Quaint narrow streets

Changing of the guard

Pancakes with maple syrup

Lobsters who need to die for their sins

A boat to take you across the river and possibly feed you fancy food

Potential whales (I hold out zero hope)

Chipmunks (I have seen one chipmunk in my life and it was in Canada)

NO bears

An elk-watching hike

A cruise to look at 100 penguins

A cruise to look at a Irish Potato famine quarantine island (that's at the bottom of the list.)

So, that's the plan, man. We can head to Montreal on a day trip if we crave the big city, or head north if we want the country.

Fear of Fire

This evening I brought 20 years of tax returns up from the basement, popped them in the Weber kettle out back, doused them with lighter fluid and torched them, as you do.

Not out of spite. I just didn't want to wear out the shredder. I didn't want to just pitch them either, and cooking them was the best alternative. I suppose I could have been truly fearless and dumped them in the trash. Come to think of it, why didn't I? Oh, wait, social security numbers, identity theft, that's right.

Instead, I faced my biggest fear, the crippling fear of being set on fire while burning your 1997 tax forms in a Weber kettle. BBQphobia. IRSWTFBBQphobia.

It was hard, and scary, and it took me an HOUR and a HALF to burn it all, including the Turbotax CD that got in there by accident. (Burned right up.)

The worst part was that there was a slight wind, and the wind picked up flaming bits of W2s and launched them toward the neighbors' house. The neighbors that barbeque non-stop in summer. The ones who are one with the embers. Whereas I was chasing the embers around with a stick knocking them out of the sky before they could leave my yard.

The fire almost got me once because it hypnotized me. "Wow.Look at that. Let me poke at this tax form. Wow. That flame just touched my hand and it didn't hurt." Then I woke up and realized that's how the fire gets you. That;'s when I got a longer tree branch to poke the fire with. I know, wooden branches are probably not the best pokers. However, both birdbaths are sanitized now because ever time it caught on fire I doused it in the birdbath, and the water would boil for a second.

I'm afraid of fire, which I think is perfectlly reasonable. I've heard two people this week say they are afraid of cruises. They both couldn't go on a cruise because if something went wrong, they'd just be out on the ocean.

At the time I heard that I thought, "No, you go to the lifeboats. Then you go to the helicopter or the coast guard boat." But to each his own, I suppose. I don't trust myself around fire, they don't trust the Carnival company around the ocean.

 

 

 

The Social Pressure of Meeting New People

There's a new employee at work. I tell you, I am terrified. There's a countdown ticking till I say something inappropriate to him. Other people can wait for the new person to embarrass herself. I jump right in and embarrass myself first.

Oh, here's an example. In Chicago I met the husband of one of Hot Mom's friends. Within minutes I was asking his opinion of a college boyfriend's experimental masturbation with Vaseline and a rolled up slab of liver. In minutes, I tell you. I can not tell you what his opinion was because the conversation shut down immediately.

(I'd be more than happy to hear your opinions, though.)

So now, there's this new employee, and he's a real straight arrow as far as I can tell, and then Monday a new female employee ariives, so TWO people to not talk to when more than anything I want to hump their legs and ask them about their salaries.

Movies I Gave Up On

I have no patience with movies any more. If I'm not interested after half an hour: click, delete. It's the wicked Amazon Prime again. When a movie downloads free to your PC there's no investment. Amazon Prime is evil. (It's the primeval Amazon.)

I had hopes for My Brother's Keeper. There's a mercy killing, confessed to and recanted, and a trial. What's not to love? Beards. Oh, and hoarding. I think I got as far as the scene when the documentarian quizzes the completely inarticulate brother. "How did that make you feel?" "I dunno."  "You don't know how you feel?" "Yup." And it went oooooooon. Stop it! Edit that out already. It felt like a five minute news segment made into a 90 minute movie.

I think I watched forty minutes of Around the World in Eighty Days. Then I noticed it was three hours long and bailed. Why did it get five Oscars? Why did it start with ten minutes of explaining who Jules Verne was? I decided to delete anything more than two hours off my list, and now I will never see The Deer Hunter.

Secrecy. It's about secrecy! And the government! Juicy! And you know what? The government is secretive! I swear, they spent thirty minutes telling me the government has secrets, and NOT telling me what those secrets are. 

Rock of Ages. I made it to the first Tom Cruise scene. Were there other scenes? I will never know.

I will come back to Beasts of the Southern Wild someday when Gary isn't next to me screaming POOP SHES PLAYING WITH POOP every time mud showed up in a scene (which would be every scene). As it is I only got as far as the scene when the teacher warns the water will rise.

I almost, almost bailed on Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, but instead I repositioned myself directly in front of the tv, cranked up the speakers, and focused on lip reading because otherwise it's all sighs and mumbles. That was worth it. I even bought her biography after.

Let me know if I gave up too early on any of these (besides Beasts, because I think that's worth a revisit. Or is it?)

March Forth

March is Gary's birthday month, which he will spend focused on his favorite activity: working. That means I have time to work on my new resolutions.

Usually at New Years I resolve to lose one hundred pounds or plod on the treadmill thirty minutes a day. Neither of these makes me feel good. I think the trick to resolutions is to resolve to make yourself feel good.

I did find out something surprising when I was cleaning out the basement. I'd come home tired, and most days I just flopped down on the couch. However, on some days the basement had something that had to be done, so I catered to the basement instead of my butt and I felt more energetic after.

It makes no sense. It goes completely against the spoon theory. Of course, I'm sure that's because I'm just tired, not experiencing neurological fatigue. If it's summer and fatigue hits I'm sure I'll be absorbed by the mattress and drool like always.

I tested it out with Gary a few times this week, and on the days he went to the basement with me and we put together shelves we experienced more energy instead of less. We even ended up going to the in-laws and shoveling snow.

So, move more when I am tired is resolution number one. Only if it makes me feel less tired, though, and is productive. I can tell you, I do not feel energized after half an hour on the treadmill. The garage begs to be cleaned out, though.

And of course, eat more when I am hungry is resolution number two. And what I need to eat more of are vegetables. I hate to say it, but the only place I eat vegetables is at work. If it's dinner, if the vegetables aren't part of the entree, they don't get made. If I'm working at home I don't get veggies, I just keep ladling carbs into my maw, and that doesn't feel good at the end of the day.

I do have one good spinach-filled recipe, and I made some cream of broccoli soup (YES IT IS VEGETABLES), but aside from that and chopped salad, I haven't any favorite recipes chock full of vegetables. (I don't know why, but I don't call bell peppers and artichokes vegetables. Are they? What about carrots? Do they count? I don't even know.) I need some good field-tested recipes involving veggies.

My last resolution for March: keep up with the goats. Goats sing Bon Jovi. The goat thing doesn't seem to end!

I Am Too YOUNG For This

I have to learn about Medicare. Seriously. I'm 50. Too young! And it's too complicated for me already, I can't imagine if I were 80.

It's on behalf of my brother Dave, who, while only 52, is on Medicare because he's disabled. We had him all set up for life after Mom died, then he started getting hit with donut holes and prescription bills over a grand a month.

And while I'm grumping, donuts? What a stupid analogy. If you want an analogy for something you progress across that has a negative thing in the middle, you pick donuts? Not volcanoes? Whirlpools? I keep hearing Dave say "I've fallen into the donut hole" and it makes me picture him snapping his jaws in the air with a half-eaten donut wrapped around his face.

I did find this site, though, and it made things a little clearer.

http://www.medicaremadeclear.com/about/medicare-facts/

I'm sure there's some reason why Dave doesn't have supplemental insurance. I feel I'm going through this exercise to find out his state doesn't allow it or something.

First Class

It wasn't even fifty bucks to upgrade to first class on the one hour trip back from Chicago, so I did. I never fly first class. I now realize if I never take Gary along on vacation I can spend that money on first class for me.

Pros:

Big comfy seats.

First class has its own lavatory.

First class has its own closet.

Free drinks before you take off.

"First class has the best seat because you you don't have to scoot in to see the window the window is right here." - the little girl sitting in front of me. She continued to spend the rest of the trip asking her father what everything cost.

First class gets to leave first.

I like the Left Turn once you get in the plane, but it still doesn't compete with the Long Walk to the good theater seats.

Cons:

The security for first class takes you two hundred yards out of your way. On a related note, I am never having Gary tote around those heavy overnight bags again. Roller bags all the way.

First class serves drinks, but there's no tray table.

In first class the engines sound really whiny and scary.

Unrelated to first class:

At 12:45, the departure sign gave me a gate number of, say, K18, and a departure time of 2:00.

At 1:40, I noticed we weren't boarding, and went to the desk to see what was up. Nobody there, no sign.

I found a departure screen again and found out that the flight was delayed to 2:15 and the gate changed to one five minutes away.

"Hey, you know there are six people waiting for the flight at the original gate," I said to the attendant at the new gate.

"I'll call the desk there," she said.

"No one's at the desk."

"Then they should go look like you did," she muttered to someone when I turned away because we were boarding.

That plane was boarded and on the move at 2:04.

I KNOW. Evil mean dirty trick. I didn't know I was being set up by the airline to miss my flight. I'll be camped in front of the departures sign from now on.

Also unrelated to first class:

I walked though concourse C and thought, wow, did they give this a new paint job? It looks so shiny and new. I wish they'd do this to all the concourses. And then I remembered concourse C is the one that got wiped out in the tornado a few years ago.

Chicago: Reviews

Rev up the Judgemobile! Reviews of how I amused myself in Chicago.

With others (the Hot Mom crowd)

Cowboy Mouth Concert (three thumbs up): Good God, the floor at the House of Blues is a bouncy wood trampoline when thousands of people jump up and down in unison. The band was good, as always, with some added spite in their banter for some standing Chicago gig that turned them down this year.

Howl At The Moon (deformed thumb partially down): This is a dueling piano bar in River North. Hot Mom's out-of-state friends started holding seats at 5:30, then at 7 the singers began. After one song I arched my eyebrow at the woman who had recommended it.

My eyebrow said, "This is awful. Did they not warm up first?"

"This is the B team," she explained. "The A team comes on later."

The B team sang songs from Disney movies that only Moms know, and sang them poorly. I drank all I could, but I just never got into it  I held out till 9 when the A team came on, and they were certainly better, but I left after an hour.

On My Own

Museum of Broadcast Communications (one thumb up): I was determined to have a museum-free Chicago visit, but this was in the same building as my hotel and I have journalist blood.

Hints if you go: open this unmarked door to the cleaning supplies by the Fibber McGee and Molly exhibit.

I got pretty excited to see this old AP ticker with the 11/1963 Dallas dateline:

And then I saw this exhibit and lost the next half hour of my life.

It's a loop of every breaking news report for the LAST FIFTY YEARS. If I didn't have tickets to the matinee of Book of Mormon I would still be there.

Book of Mormon (Three thumbs and a big toe up): Loved it. Made me laugh every minute, made me cry at the end. I make no apologies. The music swells, the conflict is resolved, humanity is uplifted. And my seats were right in the the sweet spot that collects all the stage energy: row F center.

 

Such a good show. Go see it, even if you're Mormon. Don't see it if you're Ugandan, you'll be insulted.

I went to Millennium Park the next day, but that's a post of its own.

It Could Happen To You

I stayed at the Hotel Sax (formerly the House of Blues Hotel)

Here's my view:

I know! Bad view! And the room was wee. Why did I ask to stay in the "European-sized" Queen room? Because of the brown stuff on the walls below.

They described the room as "wood paneled." Well, it was wood-veneer paneled, and the edges were not finished well. There was some molding and a nice embossed wallpaper, though.

The hotel had some other interesting features. Each elevator was decorated with a painting of pregnant woman holding a skull. Then, right off the elevator of death you'd find find a video gaming room. If video was not your game of choice there was a vanilla-scented bowling alley attached to the hotel.

I was not there for the bowling, or the video games, or the skulls, or the view, or the sirens every half an hour. I was there for the pseudo wood paneling.

They do have real wood paneling in the lobby:

I was at the lobby desk Sunday night, because every night I had to recharge my key card. They said it was because my iPhone was demagnetizing my card, but I thought it was their take on the European tradition of turning in your key at night.

Since I was there anyway I asked, "Oh, what's the PBS station in Chicago? I suppose Downton Abbey is on at 8:00 here too?"

Ladies in line laughed. They stayed for the answer though, didn't they? I'm sure I wasn't the only one watching the season finale.

Of course, I had to have cookies and tea beforehand. I finished about twenty minutes before the show was to start, called room service to pick up my tray, put the tray outside the door ...

...which swung shut behind me. Of course. I was trapped outside in my thinnest striped pajamas.

"Oh no."

I tried the door. No. Locked.

"Fine," I thought, "I'm fifty. I'm not easily embarrassed." And I marched with my head held high, back to the lobby, which, may I remind you, looks like this:

Happily, I only got as far as the red couch before I saw the doorman and waved.

"Hello," he said.

"Guess why I'm here!" I said cheerily.

"Why?"

I gestured at my pajamas.

He looked blank. Perhaps people in pseudo-European hotels routinely slob about in their pajamas.

"I'm locked out," I was forced to explain.

He let me in (without asking for my ID, as a friend pointed out) and took the tray. Then, I watched the season finale of Downton Abbey and THAT was the low point of my night.

New Chicago

The four times Gary and I have visited Chicago, we visited the museums. Seriously, all I've ever seen of Chicago is the airport and Michigan Street.

This time, since Gary was not along, I ventured ... on to State Street!

Two streets under my belt. I am a world traveler.

Here's something you'll see on State that you won't see on Michigan: Hookers. I assume they were hookers. They were in their late thirties, flat shoes, short pea coats, no makeup. Doesn't sound sexy? Totally bare-legged, both of them, in 18 degree weather. And they weren't going anywhere, they had a pronounced come-hither stance. They may still be there outside Macy's (Nee Marshall Fields).

Not only has Marshall Fields changed names just to confuse me, I discovered (and this shames me a bit) the Sears tower is not the same tower as the Hancock tower. "Oh, the Sears tower," I shrug, "I was there as a child." Evidently not.

(Yeah, I don't know about this Chicago Dildo Spire there on the left. It hasn't been erected yet.)

Another thing that makes Chicago exotic: next to Macy's on State there is a Target store. It is so odd to see a Target that is not on a highway exit.  (Aside from the citified Target, I don't get why I should go shopping in Chicago. I've never shopped there. Tiffany's and Ikea are the only stores I know of that we don't have in St. Louis.)

I walked many blocks on State. I think we need an international standard for a city block, because I can tell you a Paris city block is four times longer than a Chicago city block. I can say that I have a very inflated idea of how many calories I burn walking a city block. ("I walked ten city blocks, so that must have worked off that 15 ounce steak I had for lunch.")

I got kind of excited by the prospect of taking an architecture tour, but the desk clerk convinced me to wait till spring so I can take the Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise. It got kudos from the desk clerk, and then a stranger standing in line vehemently agreed with him.

Perhaps I can convince Gary to try it next time. The location given is the Southeast corner of Michigan & Wacker, so I've got that going for me.

Leaving the House!

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving the house! Piling into a car, driving to Chicago with Friends 2, 3, and Mr. 2, and then tearing up River North.

I will see new things!

Drive new streets!

See Book of Mormon!

Eat Eggs Benedict!

Watch the season finale of Downton Abbey while eating room service!

Stay an extra day because my family is just fine without me! Nyah Friends 2 and 3!

Live off a smaller version of my stuff. ("Whips chains whistles dildoes and a book.")

(Granted, I was humbled today by a Carnival Triumph "Survivor" who smugly said, "Well, I was fine, but some people who didn't have the foresight to bring a flashlight had a hard time." I've seen those packing lists that include flashlights, and I have always sneered. However, am I bringing a flashlight to Chicago? No I am not.)

So, you'll be seeing weird travel posts of photos of people you don't know and skylines you've seen hundreds of times. As a consolation, here is video of all the goats who scream like humans.

State of My Evening

Driving home late from work, I dreaded walking in again to an empty house. I started thinking about low-maintenance pets. Lizards? Would a lizard greet me when I came in? What about a bird? A parrot!

Then I began to wonder what phrases a parrot would pick up. Obviously, "Hon, can you get me an ice cream bar?" followed by "If you're going into the kitchen can you get me a soda?" Squawk!

Surprisingly, Gary was there to greet me. He was watching the breaking news on CNN about the manhunt for Dorner. At one point he yelled "TUNNEL!"

"What's that, hon?"

"They say he's holed up in a cabin and he's trapped. What about TUNNELS! CHECK FOR TUNNELS!" he yelled at the police through our magic shortwave TV screen that can communicate with sports broadcasters and the California police.

Then, the cabin owner's son called to talk to Anderson Cooper and revealed there was a basement in the cabin. A dirt basement?

"TUNNELS!" we yelled in unison.

There are five cabins in the area? "TUUUUUNNNNNELS!"

Cabin's on fire? TUNNELS!

Eventually Gary tired of yelling at the TV, and went for a nap instead of watching the State of the Union. I was a little glad, because he always pauses the TiVo to yell and Twitter gets ahead of me. Since I was synced with Twitter I saw the CNN's Breaking News announcement that Dorner's body was found inside the burned-out cabin.

Of course, later, when the LAPD sheriff's department announced, "No, we didn't find a body inside, w don't know where you got that idea," I yelled "TUNNELS!" and woke Gary up.

So, I've talked myself out of the parrot idea. Squawk! Hon, get me a soda! TUNNELS!

That Stopping Point

I have a dreadful habit of allllmmmost finishing a project, and then abandoning it.

The basement is alllllllllmmmmost finished.

I got this far: I made a pile in the center of the basement. A pile of everything that will go on the shelves once they are assembled.

Then, Gary helped me put together the frame for one set of shelves. I added the crossbar and wire for one shelf and put bins on it!

And now I'm done! Ta da!

All my interest in the basement? Shelved. Really, the basement's the last place I want to be lately.

The scary thing is, I need to get the basement project done in the next few weeks, because March is Gary's Birthday Month. He says he wants to help, but I don't see the basement taking precedence over the Netflix Battlestar Galactica Marathon that is Gary's life of late.

Helllllllooooooo

Hellllloooo. Patron. The best cough supppressant EVER.

 

hellllooo.

I checked my temperature. 99.5. Still a cold. A cold with pee-puking. I have found if I drink Patron and lie flat with my neck at a particular angle I do not cough. As long as I barely breathe.

On the other hand, the tee-vee has been advertising this shit.

It's drugs for kids with NO alcohol. No dyes or flavors, but also, strangely, no alcohol.

Now, the whiskey with honey and lemon I had for the croup when I was five was an excellent remedy. The Nyquil when I was pre-pubescent, back when it still had alcohol in it, that was effective.

I say dose those kids with bourbon.

Cooking Slump

2:00 pm. Roast Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Vinegar Reduction.

Vinegar boiled over. Par boiled the sprouts, dried them, but they were still mushy and sloppy. And vinegary.

4:00 pm. Potato Pierogies from Scratch. After dicing the red onion, I accidently dumped all the red onion in the soapy sink. Rinsed off the onion and transferred it into a bowl. The vegetable steaming basket hurled itself off a cabinet shelf and landed in the bowl of onions.

I said, "Oh, screw this, this is a cooking slump."

No, I thought, I'll cut my losses and just finish the filling, then make the pasta tomorrow when the slump has lifted.

I got as far as, "add 1/4 cup of milk." Went to the store to buy milk. Looked up a replacement for the "garlic chives" the recipe called for (green onions).

7:00 Finished the filling; packed that up without incident. Successfully melted imported butter on top of lite popcorn for dinner.

10:00 Pulled the pork tenderloin out of the oven that had been cooking on "Slow Cook" all day. Lovely. Shredded. In BBQ sauce.

Gary says, "You know I don't like BBQ sauce." Which, no, I did not know that, you always get sauce. WTF BBQ, as they say.

So, even my cooking successes were failures today. Hope the curse lifts for the pierogi pasta.

Karma

Years ago, I bought Gary this tool chest, which he almost immediately broke.

I put something too heavy in a drawer, it got off the track, and Gary used brute force to twist the drawer into a half-out position - where it stayed stuck for at least a decade.

Does that go with the tidy organized basement I'm fashioning? No. I thought I might visit Sears to see if I could buy a replacement drawer or slide.

Sales Guy: May I help you?

Me: Do you sell replacement drawers or slides?

Sales Guy: I'm afraid we don't.

Me: Then I need to buy a whole new tool chest.

I imagine that made Sales Guy's heart skip a beat, because he is on commission. Instead, he recommended a curvy hook tool I could try first to pry things unstuck.

So, Sales Guy Mark (or maybe Mike) at Sears at Mid-Rivers put customer service before his commission. I was impressed. I was still thinking about it when I was at the Bed Bath and Beyond looking for a dustbuster. I was tempted by the Dyson handheld, as we all are, but settled on the Black and Decker, which they did not have.

Then I had these thoughts.

1. Go buy a dustbuster elsewhere.
2. WAIT NO.
3. Buy a Dyson at Sears from the Sales Guy so he gets the commission he would have gotten if I'd bought a tool chest.
4. I am a GENIUS.

It was some high level rationalization. I wasn't buying an overpriced Dyson for ME, I was buying to for HIM. For Karma. I had to buy a Dyson. I had no choice.

Sadly, Sales Guy was momentarily not at his post, and the vacuum section was staffed by a woman who was very much ON commission. She shadowed me. I couldn't grab a Dyson and sneak back to Tools. It did not work out. I ended up just writing a nice review about Sales Guy online.

Still, the rest of the day I kept thinking I was getting Karma credit for my good deed, only to remember I hadn't actually done anything. I caught a falling sheet of glass in my bare hand and my hand was not severed. Karma! Oh that's right, I didn't do my good deed. I then unearthed a dustbuster I didn't know I had - but it didn't work. There's some aborted Karma right there.

That was a week or two ago. Since then I bought a rehabbed Dyson on Amazon (25% off) (shut up) and I took that curvy tool and just last night finished fixing the tool chest. It works like a dream.

Adventures In Trivia, Act Three: The Mojo Protects Us

Previously on Adventures In Trivia: After buying a trivia win and Munchkins, we buy cake and wine for our bereaved friend Meredith.

When we set off for Meredith's house, Caroline said she wasn't sure but Meredith might live in a sketchy neighborhood. Of course, as the driver, I needed more detail.

Caroline: "Go east into the city, then turn north."

Me: "Seriously? Shit." We all know if you are in the middle of downtown Saint Louis, and you keep heading east, you will be found dead in East Saint Louis. However, if at the last minute you veer off and turn north, you will only be maimed. North Saint Louis is our second worst neighborhood.

Of course, that's if you're headed in from the west, and we were on south 55. The "sketchy" neighborhood we were headed for is home to safe places like Ted Drewes, Cherokee Street, Mom's childhood home, and my Aunt Nancy's house. But, I've never approached the city from the south, and it was dark, just about midnight, and we still had the high drama buzz going from The Win, so ... this was not destined to be a relaxing trip to Meredith's. it could have been, in the daytime. 

The first exit from highway 55 was terrifying.  The exit ramp was decorated by an oil drum propped up on a platform of two by fours. I don't know why. It spooked me. It must have spooked us all, because with every intersection we passed we got more and more giggly. We didn't really know, but as Caroline said, "Come on, we're three college educated women. We can get to the hood."

Finally we got to Meredith's and we executed a smooth operation in which I slowed the car so Caroline could get out and run up to the porch while I turned the car around. I picked her up headed the opposite way without hardly braking. It looked a lot like a drug drop.

Of course, then when we sped off we were so relieved we got even more giggly.

I was thinking about Aunt Nancy anyway, since we were in her hood, and I remembered how she would bellow "Old Man River" whenever we crossed a river. I thought, "I should belt out 'In the Ghetto,' that'll be funny." And it would have been funny if I could have gotten past the breath I had to take to sing without cracking myself up. Finally I just choked out my plan. 

The route of 55 to Broadway to Meramec was a new road though, and you know I love those. And to bookend the Oil Drum Altar I saw on the way in I saw a giant Native American statue on the way out. What's up with that? Marcia said it was just the entrance to the antiques district on Cherokee street, but it looked very forbidding.

Eventually, Caroline said, "Marcia, ask Siri what's the fastest way from the ghetto to Chesterfield."  The non-stop Mojo had worn us out.

Adventures In Trivia, Act Two: The Mojo Fades then Rises Again

Previously on Adventures in Trivia: We buy ourselves half of a trivia victory. Of course, we were close, and those points may have been ours all along.

So, whether we cheated or not, we were very jazzed after our "victory." (Quick aside: let me take this opportunity to apologize the French for calling them sore losers over the tour de France all these years.) We knew we were at least in second for sure, so we celebrated by getting some Munchkins at the Dunkin Donuts.

We had to go through the drive-through because Dunkin Donuts hours are oxymoronic. Open 24 hours, unless it's after 10.

The celebratory food of choice was 2 dozen Munchkins. The guy passed us the box through the window and said, "I put in about 50."

So, how perfect is that? Undeserved Munchkins after an undeserved win! The MojoMeter was through the roof. Plus, Caroline the Math Maven took home 48 Munchkins because Dunkin Donuts does not understand numbers in any form. We were The Team That Could Not Lose.

The next stop was the Walmart to buy cake and wine for a friend, Meredith. Her greyhound died that day and she couldn't join us. Meredith always eulogizes her friends' greyhounds on Facebook, and we didn't know her greyhound that well. Instead, we wanted to follow the traditional mourning gesture of cake and wine left on the front porch.

We walked in to Walmart at 10:30. Marcia took photos of cheerios and wine and the baby clothes displayed next to the wine. We chose a wine and cake. That really only took about 20 minutes. Then we got in line.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, I said, "There are three of us, three lanes are open, whoever gets to the checker first checks out the cake." I won the race. I touched the belt at my checkout and yelled over to Marcia to get the cake from Caroline.

Marcia came back. "She won't leave her line. She met someone she knows."

Of course. A visit to South County with Caroline is a miles-wide reunion tour. She has worked in every building, has a friend in every subdivision, meets a cousin in every Walmart line. 

I checked out a purchase for Marcia and we waited at the end of Caroline's line for the next four people to crawl through. Then, I swear, Caroline got carded, because obviously she has such powers over numbers that she doesn't look her age, and of course she didn't have her license. I thought we'd have to go through the line again. Marcia played big sister and ponyed up her ID and we were out.

It had been an hour buying the cake and wine. Caroline had been carded at middle age, but my Mojo was fading. I did a donut in the parking lot to amp the Mojo back up, only one, very slowly, and that delighted Marcia. I only realized later that a donut in a Mini Cooper is a mini-donut. Or: a Munchkin.

See? It comes full circle! Like a donut!

Next on Adventures in Trivia: A Tale of Two Neighborhoods, or A Post I Cannot Post on Martin Luther King Day Because it Judges People By the Bars on Their Windows and Not the Content Of Their Character.

Adventures In Trivia, Act One: The Mojo Rises

I picked up Caroline and Marcia in the Mini and we tooled off to trivia. We ended up with just us and Anne at a ten-person table. Sure, the odds were against us, but I was doping. I'd just taken my first megadose of Vitamin D.

Given it was just the four of us against dozens of tables of ten I assumed we didn't have a chance, and I thought I'd test my hypothesis. Often my team's been winning at trivia when suddenly in the final round some other team pulls from behind like Secretariat and wins everything. The winning team always donates their winnings back to the charity.

So I told the host, "Just so you know, if we win we're donating all the winnings back to [the charity]." Then I made Significant Eye Gestures so he would Know.

The host said, "Well, there's not that much I can do to influence that. Winning's really all up to you."

As usual, we were always in first or second place, but then one round we scored a point higher than we thought we should. Caroline noticed, because she has advanced math skills.

I started to get worried. Caroline had already calculated how handy the winning pot would be divided by four, and it was a tidy profit.

At the very end, we lost to some other team by one point.

Sigh. Anne left. Others cleaned up. I went to congratulate the other team who was not even paying enough attention to know they had won, and come to find out they didn't even offer to donate their winnings back to the cause. So I didn't even feel good about hypothesizing that the fix was in.

Then I heard "Ellen! Come HERE."

I went back to our table where a bystander said, "You guys won!"

"They entered the numbers wrong before," someone said, dryly.

"No, we tied," Caroline clarified.

Representatives were called to the front from the two winning teams. Caroline stood up for us. The emcee explained that either there would be a series of tie-breaking questions, or the two winning teams could spilit the pot.

Caroline jumped in. "Well, we're going to donate our winnings anyway -"

The emcee interrupted, "Well, that's what we'll do then. Congratulations to you both!" and it was all over.

So, doping and bribery triumph! We were pretty jazzed afterward. We could not lose! We had the Mojo.

Next in Adventures in Trivia: The Mojo Fades, and then Rises Again.

And They Say I Don't Have a Filter

Soon four of us will be desk-sharing at work: me and one of three other guys. I wanted to express in an email that there was plenty of room in my cube for anyone who wanted to move in.

I really don't hang on to paper at work. I like to travel light at my job. I purge routinely.

Specifically, I have a lot of file cabinet space. I am only taking up 2 inches of one of my two file cabinet drawers. 

I was trying to be hospitable. I wanted to say that since I have the most free space, I probably should desk-share with whoever has the most stuff.

I typed, "I probably should be teamed up with whoever has the most stuff in his drawers."

Then, I backspaced.

Oh, If You Insist

So, my boss asked for volunteers today. Space is tight so we need to consolidate cubicles, and that means some of us need to work at home two to three days a week. Hell yeah, I volunteered. I took that challenge squarely on my Spartacus-cleft chin.

Pros

No bathing
No brasseries
No hairstyles
Less deodorant
Less gasoline
Bed and laptop, not chair and desktop
Convenient for cooking and housework

Cons

No socializing
No division between work and home
Can't wear new coat as much

"No socializing" is the only one that troubles me.  Most people have multiple collections: a set of work friends, a set of church friends, school friends, club friends, knitting friends. Marcia has an entire social circle that has nothing to do with work. Libby and Caroline have fellow moms.

What I have now is a collection of work friends, then a mish-mash of one-off friends with no connection to each other. I need another group to lose myself in (and then monopolize every conversation and draw all attention to myself, as I do).

And I need to travel with these people.

Clearly I need to start a band.

Resolutions

Well, the first resolution for 2013 is to organize the basement. Here's the before photo. If you click you might find the Stooges.

The second resolution requires some background. A few years after my Dad died of lung cancer (still smoking on his deathbed) my Aunt began to die of type 2 diabetes. I visited her in the hospital and complained that it seemed people I love would rather die than change their habits.

She said, "Well, you know,it's easy to change when you're 25, but when you're over fifty it's almost impossible to change." Of course, she died a few months later (begging candy bars off her brother till the end).

So, now that I'm fifty, I resolve to change.

First I'll stop smoking. Done! Damn, that was easy. I never started smoking! And ... dessert only twice a week? That sounds reasonable.

 

I Become Even More Continental

While researching Gary's interest in light Swedish literature, I facilitated my search for an FHM cover by changing my Google language perference to Swedish.

I noticed when I changed back that one of my language choices was "Bork bork bork."

"Well, that's stupid," I thought, then I went to my preferences to change it back.

Of course then I wasted an hour testing out all the languages. Some languages take you seriously and customize everything: even the confirmation messages in the old language after you select a new language. 

But some are just silly.

If you decide to waste valuable remaining 2012 time with this, go to your Preferences, Language, and change the box that above says Ewmew Fudd. If your preferences suddenly disappear completely, as they did for me (and I'm sure someone programmed that in) go to http://www.google.com/preferences#languages .

And remember, in the bottom right of the Google home screen it always says Google.com in English, because believe me, if you switch to Hacker language you won't be able to read any words.

UPDATE! I lose all Continental Cred:

I watched The Queen today, nursing my Downton Abbey buzz, and every time they talked about the palace flag at "half-mast" I countered with "half-staff." Of course, in the US half-staff would be correct, but IMDB just told me the UK has its own rules and that I am a condescending snob.

Christmas Gift for Gary

Long ago, a few years after Gary bought the Fit, he saw the steering wheel showed some wear. He called our Honda dealership and they said that particular steering wheel, the one that came with the red trim package, was custom, and if he wanted a new one he'd need to buy a whole new steering wheel.

This year he hinted he'd like a new steering wheel for Christmas. And I know, everyone just said, "just buy him a steering wheel cover," but as I explained to the guy at the only Honda dealership in Saint Louis that answered their damn phone, I want the best for him because he always gets the best for other people.

So. I ordered a new steering wheel that day. That evening I realized I forgot to specify the special red and black steering wheel. When I next had occasion to look at the steering wheel, I noticed it was carefully sewn around the edges to look exactly as if a red and black steering wheel cover had been applied.

Either he had a fancy trompe l'oiel steering wheel or the "custom steering wheel" was custom bullshit.

Damnit. I called the nice Honda man back. He confirmed there are no custom red and black steering wheels, happily cancelled the order for the 500.00 dollar steering wheel, then he even researched the name of the person who originally applied the wheel covers for our original Homda dealership AND gave him my name AND he would be contacting me soon AND thanks for doing business with Frontenac Honda.

Guy never called, of course, because this has been a month of people refusing to do business with me. Missouri Baptist won't schedule my MRI. Amazon won't ship my gifts. Lenova was perplexed I wanted to ship a laptop to my brother in New Mexico, that can't be right, cancel the order.

I eventually ordered my own wheel cover and I intend to stitch it on MYSELF the Wednesday after Christmas, but I wanted Gary to have something. Instead, I got his car detailed. In preparation I ripped apart the old wheel cover myself so I could throw it at his head to punctuate my tale of humiliation.

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Waking Up

I love Propofol. One second you're having a pleasant conversation before your scopage with the nurse anesthesiologist, and then the very next moment you're waking up in recovery next to your husband.

Now, the first few conversations I had after coming out went directly to dreamland. I asked a few nurses "HEY DID I JUST ASK YOU FOR A MUFFIN AND YOU SAID YOU DIDN'T HAVE MUFFINS? AND DID YOU SAY YOU LIKED MY SOCKS? DID WE JUST TALK ABOUT THAT?"

At some point I got my mind right and the doctor came by. My colon was very clean, yes, he encountered the loop by my navel I warned him about, and when I asked if I was boisterous during the procedure, he said,

"You were fine. You were a lady."

I hooted. I wasn't a lady before; I can't imagine the anesthetic would have made me more polite.

But, is this not the most luminous and clean colon you've ever seen?

ACTUAL PHOTO

Yes, that whitish flat thing at the bottom is a polyp, and it has been removed. (Oh! I just remembered! I asked the doctor if I could have the polyp in a jar and he thought I wanted to make jewelry out of it.)

That polyp looks too pure and clean to be pre-cancerous, so no more colonoscopies for me for ten more years.

Live Blogging the Colonoscopy prep!

6:00 - First dose of the MoviPrep bowel purging solution. Happily, I cannot imagine there is anything inside my colon to move: on Becs' advice I have eaten very lightly the last two days, and in addition my nervous colon has been amped up by the prospect of special attention. Nothing is in there to move out since the Gatorade left at 5:00.

Oh, Pro tip:
1) You are encouraged to drink Gatorade the day of the prep.
2) You are cautioned against the red fluids.
Do not add 1) and 2) and drink the BLUE Gatorade. It will mix with any nervous watery yellow colon contents and emerge a plastic Shrek green. And it will TERRIFY you.

6:15 - Not even percolating. The prep fluid isn't bad. There is a taste, but it is far superior to the GoLYTELY gallon of salty strawberry swill I had to take in 1995. Plus, as a co-worker pointed out, you had the shame of toting that obvious gallon jug through the Walgreens.

Pro tip: drink it cold and take the anti-nausea medicine before you get nauseated.

6:26 - I'm just now taking the dose I should have had at 6:15.  I had to call the hospital pre registration number. I warned her I was prepping for my visit and might be abruptly called away.

6:45 -  third dose. I'm a little afraid. 3/4th of the first liter has gone in and nothing has come out. I am a ticking time bomb of poo.

Pro tip: the MoviPrep container is marked with lines indicating the four doses. You have to drink down to the next line for each dose. It goes a lot faster if you drink it with a straw in front of the mirror.

7:11 - done with last dose of this liter. I have to mix up the liter for my midnight dose.

Pro tip: Know that if your appointment is at 6:30 am, and you have to take the second liter 6 hours before your appointment, that means you'll be in the bathroom all night starting at midnight.

7:12 - No action. It has not physicked me at all. 

7:13 - Maybe?

7:17 - Yes.

7:27 - Well, that was a satisfying ten minutes.

7:35 - I just thought "what's for dinner?"

12:30 - It has been like having contractions, only in reverse: the time between the spasms get longer, not shorter. Of course I aimed for fluid clarity, achieved it, and then flecks of detritus began to show up. What is it? I can't even imagine. Seeds shaken out of some diverticuli? Polyps fleeing in fear? Peculiar. Anyway, time for the midnight liter.

1:15 - So I will not get any sleep tonight. And after getting "clear" (Scientology shoutout!) I am back to a shade I call Mountain Dew.

3:24 - I feel guilty. All this flushing is keeping Gary and the dog awake. I had plans to spend the wee hours making chili, but that just seems very off-putting right now. I remember after the last colonoscopy I snarfed down a muffin and immediately regretted mucking up my colon again.

Pro tip: If you are to have a colonoscopy, be sure to do it in the 2010s when they give you Propofol, instead of the 1990s when they give you the dread Versed.

3:52 - Gary's got the alarm set for 4:30. There's really no point in even trying to go to sleep now. Besides, I am so close to total clarity again.

Blue Man Group [SPOILERS]

This was the stage before the Blue Man Group show.

This is key: I read as far as "Whether it's a meal," then I got bored.

About five minutes later, Caroline said, "We need a spontaneous dance party."

"What?" I asked.

"A spontaneous dance party. We need one."

"Uh, okay. When?" I thought there might be a spontaneous dance party at Marcia's, perhaps.

"Don't know."

"Sooooooon?" What the hell. Caroline usually isn't this cryptic.

"Maybe soon. Maybe later."

I assumed she was challenging me to a dance party, so I stood up and shook my boobs vigorously. Then I sat down. Then I read the rest of the message above.

[SPOILER BEGINS] As it turns out, the finale of the BMG show is a spontaneous dance party, and you don't shake your boobs at all, your shake your butt / twin hippos / bandonka-donk (I could go it, they went on for fifteen minutes).

While you are dancing, a dozen massive balls float out into the audience ("It's Rover!" I thought when I saw the first one). The Rover Invasion was accompanied by giant toilet paper streamers, small streamers, and strobe lights.

So I looked up into that uproar and shook my ass for a good ten minutes before I became disoriented and fell into the ass of the man standing nearby. And it was a slow fall. Picture it in strobe light. "Oh ... oh, that feels like a seat against my right hip. Huh. I don't seem to be stopping. Oh, here's this nice man's ass. I seem to be lying sideways on his chair with my face in his ass. I'm glad he stood up and danced, otherwise my face would be in his lap, and that would be awkward. Ah, now he's helping me up. He doesn't seem to feel embarrassed."

It was a good time. I was expecting drumming, but I wasn't expecting as much droll humor and physical comedy. Hah. Gary missed out, though to be fair if the strobe lights messed me up he'd be messed up too.