Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Let the Fun Begin!

Fun in '08!

After I get the damn house cleaned up on Dec 31, '08 will begin, and I already have loads of things to look forward to:

1. Clinical Trial begins 1/2/08. I'm such a nerd. Why am I all excited about being tested like a lab rat? It's all the male authority figure attention I get from the doctors.

2. The Atlanta trip is still on for ... sometime in January. Wait for me Anderson Cooper, I'm coming...

3. The Barenaked Ladies Cruise to ... to ... I don't know. Someplace sunny where the music is fine.

4. Die Die F*&(^&er Die GNO

5. The next blogger gathering

6. The Kathy Griffin concert at the Fox

That gets me to mid-February.

New Year's Eve plans? Rest up.

Brush with Greatness

I was stone dead asleep early this evening when Gary woke me up, screaming something about football history being made. Evidently, there was an important game on. I didn't care, I don't follow football, but I like watching Gary watch football. Plus, the halftime show with Marshall Faulk brought back fond memories for me.

To tell this story, I have to "out" an anonymous friend. Friend #3, Marcia, has a last name that rhymes with "Faulk." Her full name is Marcia Cock.

She once mentioned how it was distracting to listen to sports on the radio, since every "Marshall Faulk" sounded like "Marcia Cock." 

Well, one day I was with the work crowd at the Starbucks across the way. We got coffees, went outside, and the others suddenly huddled squealing, "Oh, my God, I swear to you, that was Marshall Faulk in line behind us!" I knew Marshall Faulk was a football player, because Gary would watch games and scream, "Faulk! Faaaaulk!" Sometimes even when Marshall wasn't playing.

Marcia said on the way back to work how she had wanted to introduce herself one day to him with "Hello, Marshall Faulk, I'm Marcia Cock."

"Well, you should," I said, "He's still in there."

She stopped dead in the crosswalk. "Will you go with me?"

I turned and we headed back to the Starbucks, because I doubted it was the famous running back. He just hadn't seemed large enough.

He was the only patron still in there. Marcia hung back staring at him for a second, but I tromped up to the counter where he was getting his four Vente coffees.

"Is there a problem?" the barista asked, surprised to see me so soon after we left.

"Nope, I just need to know this man's name." I smiled at the nice man getting his coffee.

"Chris," he said, pulling one of the cups out of a cardboard sleeve marked "Chris."

Suddenly Marcia was there, explaining that he looked a lot like Marshall Faulk, and that she'd always wanted to say "Hello, Marshall Faulk, I'm Marcia Cock."

"Heh. That is pretty close," Chris chuckled, backing out the door.

After Chris escaped, I said, "Sorry, Marcia."

If I recall correctly, Marcia's response was, "Why? We just met Marshall Faulk!"

"Chris. His name was Chris. It was even on the coffee."

"Oh my ass. That was Marshall Faulk. No one else has that Joker smile."

I would have spent an enjoyable day ridiculing Marcia (Cock), but when we got back to the office I had to admit that this:

...was the smile I saw in the Starbucks. It's a pretty distinctive smile.

My favorite thing about this story is that we were able to meet Marshall Faulk, but he still got to keep a little distance. He got to be "Chris," and no one argued with him. And independent sources did place Marshall at our Starbucks that day wearing the clothes we saw "Chris" wearing.

Of course, if it's an argument you're looking for, I can bet you Marcia Cock has a totally different memory of this story.

Dueling 'Tudes

I've had two people who have influenced the way I react to bad news. My Mom, of course, and her best friend, "Aunt" Carleen. I am trying to figure out what they had in common so I could bottle their strength in adversity.

I've come to the conclusion they are opposites.

Put a major setback in front of each (for the purpose of example, let's say adult-onset diabetes) and they would  have these reactions:

Aunt Carleen: "Well. I am astonished. It is just the Latest in a Series of Bizaarrrrre Incidents that have happened of late in my life."

Aunt Carleen did speak just like that; like a sober Julia Child. "Bizzaaarrrrre" and "IN-sane, simply IN-sane" were her catchphrases.

She was perpetually astonished by ill fortune. She, an overweight  middle-aged woman, acquiring adult-onset diabetes? Really? It. Is. A-STONishing! Did you ever hear of such a thing?  Simply madness! She would shake her head over the bizarreness of it all. Then she'd eat a ham sandwich on Wonder bread and chips.

Mom doesn't have and will never have adult-onset diabetes, but were she diagnosed, this is what she'd say:

Mom: "Oh. That now? Of course, we will need to switch immediately to the Diabetes Plan. I have lain awake and plotted just how I would have diabetes.Well, let me go in  my clippings folder and look through all the newspaper articles I have collected for such a circumstance. And a call to Dr. F_____ is in order, since he's the top diabetes doctor in the area, according to my research."

Where Carleen would say illness and bad news were aberrations to her perfect normal life, Mom would find perfection an aberration. Both attitudes were equally positive. Carleen: "My life is great! Oddly, this crap keeps happening to me." Mom: "My life is crap. But, I expect that, and quite often, there are nice spots."

They certainly aren't like some (in-laws) who  see their lives as a timeline of bad luck. "My life is crap. And then insane crap unexpectedly falls on me! Why me?"

I suppose the secret is to go to either extreme: Embrace the bad news completely and absorb it into your life, or Deny it (Bizzzaaaare!). Well, I should tell you Aunt Carleen did die of diabetes, still eating candy bars and Wonder bread. Maybe not that much denial.

So maybe the trick is to take the bad news, and simultaneously view it as an oddity and embrace it as part of your life. You know who's probably good at that? Circus freaks.

In Which My Brother-in-Law Almost Gets It

All I know is we were putting gifts in piles on Christmas Eve. I was at the in-laws with the whole (Christmas-observing) crowd: Gary, Karen, Karen's husband (Mr. Wonderful), Ken, Wilma, me.

As I bent over my pile, there were footsteps behind me. The last thing I heard was Karen bossing her husband, demanding he help me with my present pile.

Then I felt him my PAT MY ASS.

It's like when heroes report diving into the water to save drowning victims: I didn't think, I just reacted. My spine snapped straight up and I heard myself haughtily pronounce:

"You did not  just pat my ass."

Luckily, I was pivoting to skewer him with a withering glare, and I faced him by the time I got to "ass," so it came out:

"You did not  just pat my - oh, hi hon. It's you."

"What the hell?" Gary grimaced at me.

This is what happens when you have a husband named Gary, a brother-in-law also named Gary, and a sister-in-law who uses an equally bossy tone with both.

UPDATED: Shake It Like a Polaroid

When I was young (I mean over twenty-one) Gary got me a Polaroid camera for my birthday. (Technically, it was one of the short-lived Kodak Cameras.) For some insane reason, he gave it to me at my family birthday party.

Dad asked, "But why did you get her a camera? She has a camera already."

Gary answered, "I thought this was a cool camera."

Dad pressed on. "But, why?"

"It's an instant camera! The pictures come out already developed!"

"Yes, but why wouldn't you just take them to Walgreen's and get them developed there?"

Eventually Mom told Dad to hush up.

Of course, children, the Polaroid is my generation's version of the digital camera. We didn't turn the Kodamatic back in even when they encouraged us to do so to get the settlement for the class-action lawsuit. Eventually it became impossible to buy film, but by then we were done playing with the camera. And perhaps by then the Internet was piping more exotic photos directly into the house.

A few days ago Gary said, "Hey, look what I found," and tossed the disintegrating box of instant photos on the bed. THE Box. The box labeled "MOM DO NOT LOOK EVEN IF WE ARE DEAD."

I looked, and I was struck by a number of things:

1. My body was emaciated, except for my "huge" thighs, which were perfect.

2. I am partially dressed in almost every photo.

3. I LOOK STUPID.

I don't mean "I look awkward" or "I look uncomfortable" or "I'm wearing Bunny ears." I mean Stupid, as in Educable Mentally Retarded.

When we first married, Gary would amuse himself by having me do the "hamster" look.  I'd let my eyes glaze over and tilt my head a little. Somehow, I could momentarily empty my brain, just long enough for Gary to squeal "Hamster!" because it was the same blank look hamsters have. (Shut up. Really. That's why. Besides, Gerbils and Hamsters aren't the same.)

That is how I look in all these photos. A decent young lingerie-clad body propped up in sexual positions topped off by a hamster head. A blank, unlined, inexperienced face with empty eyes.  I tried to look sexy, but the best I could do was slack-jawed and vacuous. Maybe my left eye would droop a little bit.

"I just want to SMACK me," I huffed at Gary.

"I know," he agreed, "I can't look at them. It's creepy."

Yeah, there's one below the jump. I'm trying to look sexy. Could I look more expressionless? Woo. Hot Momma.

(Update: and, because it made fried rice come out of my nose, I include Zayrina's LOLcats version.)

The Haul

In honor of the season and her sturdy teeth, I bought the Queen Mother some candy for Christmas.

I also got her a book with large print, in honor of her literacy and poor eyesight.

Then, in May when we had encountered armadillos in Memphis on the way to the BNL concert, she told us of a basket she'd seen made of an armadillo's shell and had not purchased. So she got this.

Then, a week ago, she said this sentence:

"I'm trying to get rid of things like candy dishes. I have enough crap in my house, and I don't eat candy anymore."

"Oh ... how do you feel about reading?"

Because I figured the candy and the armadillo wouldn't go over, she also got this:

Only because I dimly remembered she likes ONE Screaming Jay song (I Put a Spell On You) which he helpfully puts on every single one of his albums.

And when I realized she really had no use for that, I broke down and got her this profoundly functional and boring item:

(And she was very gracious and thanked me for every gift. I have raised her well.)

Thoughts After Ones Third Straight Viewing of 'A Christmas Story'

Wilma and Ken saw A Christmas Story last year, hated it, said they were bored, turned it off.

This year, Karen said 'I hate that movie. It's stupid."

(Karen also asked me not to remind her of anything embarrassing; if she's forgotten catching me "naked" there's a reason why.)

Last year I clutched my head and screamed at the thought someone wouldn't like this movie. This year, for the first time, I saw the first fifteen minutes of A Christmas Story. I'd never seen the first fifteen minutes before. It is kind of stupid. There's a long fantasy sequence with Black Bart, which pales next to the Soap Poisoning and A+++++++ sequences later. They actually should start the movie with Flick getting his tongue stuck to the flagpole.

Of course "Bumpkissssssessss!" is the best line ever. Merry Christmas!

Huh. A Question Wikipedia Can't Answer?

I would write a post tonight, but I'm busy researching a question.

I was watching The Santa Clause 2 tonight. (I wasn't watching very attentively, because I was making risotto in order to use up the vat of chicken broth I had after Soupfest '07.) At any rate, I was watching The Santa Clause 2 and trying to guess the ending. He had to be married by a certain time, if I recall, and I decided the movie would use the device that they always use in legal TV shows - they have to serve the papers by midnight! They've run out of time! But wait - doesn't the business have an office in Hawaii? They're 12 hours behind us - it isn't midnight yet! And that office is served, and the day is saved.

The Santa Clause 2 didn't go that way, but it made me think - what time zone is the North Pole in?

At first, I confused time zones with longitudes. That really freaked me out, but then I went to Wikipedia, here, and found that time zones don't all meet at the poles. Plus, I found out that any Ice Station in Antarctica uses the same time as its supply station in New Zealand.

It would make sense if they just stuck the North Pole in the same time zone as Greenwich, but couldn't it just be in the same time zone as Greenwich -12, or the same time zone halfway across the earth (what it appears they call 180 degrees)? No matter whatever time you used, a person could travel directly South and then have to set his watch ahead by up to 12 hours.

So what's the answer? I'm just looking out for Santa here, people.

In Your Face Food

Soon, we will plunge our faces into the official Christmas food. I am particularly prepared for this, having followed the post-pancreas low-fat diet faithfully.

I heard recently that "ham" is typical Christmas food. I never had ham for Christmas. (Mom will correct me, I'm sure.) I know we had a Breakfast smörgåsbord that was delicious.

The in-laws don't have ham, because ham is too easy. Instead, they have a buffet of olives, rye bread dip, dollar rolls, lunch meat, and cakes brownies and cookies diced into the smallest portions you can imagine.

Of course, they don't have turkey or fish. No fish, because if you leave fish or potato salad out for over an hour it becomes poisonous, and no turkey because it makes Karen conscious that she's eating an animal. She will tolerate a carved turkey as long as the legs are chopped off and hidden under the sliced meat.

On the other hand, I like food to look like what it is.  I've spent a fair amount of time lately at West County Mall, where the J. Buck's serves calamari. Not the calamari that looks like octopus suckers, this is the stuff that looks like what it is: baby octopuses.  (Huh. The Typepad spell checker thinks "octopi" is an affectation.)  Evidently U.S. chefs remove the tentacles, but at J. Bucks they keep the tentacles and all. The ones I had a few years ago looked like this:

Hah! Baby Squid! I own you! Get your tiny self into my belly.

In fact, if you like food that looks like what it is, you can't do better than seafood. Lobster, shrimp  (to some degree), those cute baby squid. Nom nom nom! Welcome to the top of the food chain!

Otherwise, it's hard to find foods that look like the original animal (See: Pig snouts, the search for). I have little opportunity to eat quail, but I understand they are sometimes served with the little head and beak intact. I would eat that. I would. I would crunch their bones.

I know this is horrifying the vegetarians out there, and I'm sorry, but at least I'm honest.  If I can't overcome my base desire to eat other living creatures, at least I look them in the eye when I do it.

Everybody do the Flagrante Delicto

Well, one of the in-laws has been caught in a compromising position. In the act. Explicitly, the act of having sex. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, naked.

I feel for the Horny Naked In-Law, because this individual is of the younger generation. I want to say, "We've all been there," while Gary hums "Sunrise, Sunset" in the background. I want to say, "Someday you'll laugh about this."

I know this is true, because like many I have been caught in the act. Well, sort of. It wasn't what it looked like. I swear.

Gary and I were dating, and were were several months into it at least. It was the summer I turned 21. We were in his apartment, making out, and we were at the point in the relationship that Gary had conquered the Northern Hemisphere. I believe I had helpfully removed my shirt and bra to help facilitate matters. God forbid his hands tried to sneak below the high waist of my Zena Jeans, though. But hey, upstairs the party was on.

So there we were, making out in his bed and we both heard a key turn in the front door lock.

"Hi, Gary," his sister Karen sang out.

Gary was fully clothed at the time anyway, so he vaulted out of bed and tossed the coverlet over me before he hit the ground. In one step he was out of the bedroom. So he wouldn't arouse suspicion,  he casually pulled the bedroom door only partially shut. 

"Hi, Karen! What brings you here?" he asked loudly.

She answered, "I was out walking the new puppy and I thought he looked thirsty. I remembered I had your key from when I played tennis on the courts here -- Coco! No! Bad puppy!"

Coco had burst through the bedroom door,  followed soon after by Karen, and I might have escaped attention but the damn puppy went right under the bed. Suddenly I was busted.  Karen reeled back at a 45 degree angle when she saw me sticking out from under the coverlet. If not for the industrial-strength stick up her ass, her spine would have snapped in half.

By the time I choked out "Hi, Karen," she had wrangled the puppy and was apologizing her way out of the apartment. I heard Gary say, "Bye..Karen?" but I didn't catch anything but the shock waves of horror she left behind.

Gary poked his head back in the bedroom just as I realized that the situation was even worse than I thought. I thought I was fully under the covers, but my bare shoulders and arms were exposed. The coverlet was over my breasts and my virtuous unzipped jeans, but my bare feet stuck out. So naked shoulders, naked feet, I'm looking pretty naked. I pulled the coverlet over my head.

Gary tried to soothe me with, "You know, someday, we'll look back on this and laugh. Except for Karen. She won't ever think this is funny."

Well, it took almost a quarter of a century but I can see the humor now. So, this will be my Christmas present to myself: I'll find Karen and see if she thinks it is funny yet.

Peestipated

Did you hear? December is National Hospital Visiting Month! DeNaHoMo '07! Who's with me?

Today I again was back at Big Barnes - recommended by one in seven Republican presidential candidates. I was there for my final visit before being dosed with either the drug or placebo. (So close I can taste its sugary goodness.)

I told the Trial Supervisor emphatically that I needed to be back at work soon, not after four hours, soon. She whipped me right through my blood work, pulse, mental challenge test, and the popular pegs-in-holes test. "Okay!" she chirped, "We just need a urine sample and you can go!"

"You can go." Ha. No. It would appear this was a problem.

"No luck?" she asked when I came out with my empty cup. "Here, have some water." I downed four cups of water. I said I'd give it another "go."

Forty-five minutes later ...

...still there, on the commode, running my hand under warm water, thinking of the ocean, tapping my foot (no doubt in some secret sex code), moving the cup away, moving it back, thinking of baseball, NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. I was severely peestipated.

In the course of that forty five minutes I drank a scant gallon of water. Finally I emerged again. The nurses started to mock me. Still, I was the center of attention! I jumped up and down hard, and got a laugh, then I pushed on my belly for another laugh - and it worked! I got the urge. I ran back in the bathroom and nabbed a half cup.

Of course, since then I could have drowned the entire staff in what's come out. My pee is not only clear, it smells like a field of flowers after a thunderstorm. You could bottle this stuff.

Dear Barnes Waiting Room Social Club

Dear Ladies,

I must say, if a person does have to wait four hours for an MRI, one could only wish for such a good group of eight fellow women to pass the time.

I particularly liked it when we were comparing diseases and the Young Girl with the Rare Disease sighed, "My disease is so retarded."

I also enjoyed the fact that anyone who was finally summoned to the MRI came back to see how the compatriots were.

And the best part was when Gamin Breast Cancer woman who had waited five hours threatened to storm the front desk, and Sturdy Brain Tumor Woman hopped up and thundered, "I'm with you sister!" Then they went out to confront the front desk and use terms like "unacceptable" and "incompetent." And the staff could only come back with "Free parking." Lame.

I also enjoyed how we progressively all got out our cells and called our doctors to beat up on the radiology staff. I was so livid by the end of it I made no acknowledgment of my technician's existence. The Trial Supervisor wanted to know if "Shawn" had done it this time. "Short guy, balding?" I replied, "I have no idea. I refused to look at him."

Putty in My Pancreas

Hey, do you know if you walk into the hospital and tell every one you meet during the registration and screening process that you don't want Versed, at some point they will be gathered around you and chorus, "No, we are not giving you Versed!"

So, I was convincing. Convincing enough the anesthesiologist recommended I write down my Versed experiences because I made it sound like something from the Book of Revelation. (I did tell him I had blogged it, but I don't think I gave him the address.)

What they did give me was Propofol. It convinced me they were filling my arm with lead through the IV, and then the next thing I knew I woke up and burst into tears of relief when I realized I didn't remember anything. I cried for about 10 minutes, then sniffled for another half an hour, and now I'm damn cranky because I can't eat or drink until six. And then no solid food till lunch tomorrow, and even then a low fat diet for five days. Because Christmas is when you need to be on a low fat diet.

Oh, and the cyst appears to be full of "a thick putty material suggestive of an old organized pseudocyst." So, not even a real cyst. At least it was organized. Because damn, I hate disorganization in a cyst.

So, now it appears I get to barrel through the last few steps in the process, and the day after Christmas I might get my first dose of the test drug. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes.

Pancreactive

Just a short update:

The administrator for the clinical trial got on the phone and pushed my pancreas test from Friday to Tuesday. She kicks ass. She takes names. I don't know what she does, but one call from her made an appointment magically open up, when I was told repeatedly the doctor only does this procedure on Fridays.

I want her to run all my medical appointments. I want her to be my medical life-coach. Wouldn't that be great?

At any rate, I was doing the pre-registration over the phone, and when asked if I had any bad reactions to medications mentioned that Versed made the voices in my head relentlessly loud. (Shush, you have voices too.) And then I cleared my throat and said pointedly, "But I understand Ativan is a wonderful drug." She laughed and I imagine from her response I will be quite happy tomorrow.

Perhaps I'll do the conscious sedation version of drunk blogging. I will try to get on while still under the influence. I'll probably repeat the same thing a number of times, and then confess embarrassingly intimate details of my life. That would be a change.

Slippery Fit

We finalized some Christmas shopping Saturday night at about 5 or 6 pm. It was not snowing. We  emerged from a completely insane trip to a nature store (insane, as in I am now the proud owner of a Gandalf staff) to a blizzard. It was then we found that the new Honda Fit is not Fit for foul weather.

Bear in mind, Gary and I are both daredevils when it comes to snow driving. For example, we never shovel our driveway. If it's twenty inches and children come by to shovel it, we will let them, but if it's only a foot then we just barrel over it. We barrel over the stuff the street plow leaves at the edge too. Remember, we buy tiny cars. They are like the squirrels, they can leap over the snow crust and the tire tracks barely dent the surface.

So, when we saw the snow we figured we would just fishtail across the parking lot and blast through any snowdrifts that were in our way and head home after a few more stops. This is not to suggest we drive so foolishly when other people are around. When we got on the road we crept behind everyone else, then braked carefully at the stoplight.

The Fit, however, continued on through the stoplight. We screamed loudly enough for the other cars to hear us and so survived. We were still discussing it when we braked at the next stoplight. I think the other drivers noticed our wild body language this time as again the Fit slid through the stoplight.

We then decided to get our asses home. Unfortunately, the car took five minutes to get up the first gentle incline. Gary had it floored and if we had made contact at any point we would be in orbit right now. We cheered at the top of the hill and turned into the Nissan dealer, where we made the unprecedented decision to abandon ship and call a taxi. That is, after the security guard literally shoved the Fit into a parking spot.

(And by the way, Saint Charles County cab is a fine taxicab company. The cabbie arrived promptly, and was gracious enough to pretend to have some difficulty driving and to tell us many helpful snow hints. For example, don't get on a service road in the snow because they are state maintained. It won't be salted or plowed. And, surprisingly, if you have an SUV it won't help you stop or turn in the snow, an SUV just helps you move forward. So you can be at top speed when you try to stop or turn.)

We recovered the Fit today and weighed it down with 150 pounds of sand, as the cab driver had  suggested. What I don't understand is: the Fit is a big seller in Canada, where they have the sense to call it the Honda Jazz. Is it popular in the desert regions of Canada? Is that what that big area is north of Montreal?

Okay, This is Why I Wasn't at the Blogger Gathering

As it turned out, the Pancreas test wasn't this Friday, but then I got a call from Friend #1, Catherine the Red.

"I need help. I'm going to the Symphony, and I need a little black dress."

Catherine and I are each other's What Not to Wear cruel shopping guides. I'll come out of the dressing room and Catherine says "No. No I can not be your friend if you wear that." I poke the spots on Catherine that are bulging a bit to see if they can be pantyhose-controlled.

And, now she needed a little black dress for the Symphony! It reminded me of my teenage years when I worked at the public library, and a very little girl came up to me and said, "I want to learn to read."  All I could do was tell her Mom and pick out the best Dr. Seuss books, but still. And now Catherine my young friend needed an LBD.

She had already put some dresses aside at the Saint Louis Galleria Dillards. I brought her more. It came down to a tie.

The first was a dress we titled Catherine Goes to the Symphony. It had a very flattering T-shaped line. It was a two-tone dress, technically, the bottom lean sheath was black and hit her beneath the knee, and the top bodice / bosom area was a cream shade designed to match ones pearls. It was shirred, and then the cream straps were both a shirred halter strap and a shirred off the shoulder strap. It was simplicity. It was elegance.

The other dress was one Catherine had picked out earlier. It was a baby-doll above the knee flirty dress with spaghetti straps and a giant appliqué on the thigh made of rhinestones.

I titled this dress the Disco Ball dress. I did not approve.

To her credit, Catherine was torn between Catherine Goes to the Symphony and Disco Ball because the symphony was not the only place she might wear it. She might wear it to the Fox, a New Jerusalem where the walls are made of rhinestones. It might also go to a work party, or a party with her new boyfriend who is MY age.

We switched between the two for about ninety minutes. She pranced about in the Disco Ball dress, and showed off her fabulous legs, and she stood tall and elegant like a madrigal singer in the Catherine Goes to the Symphony dress.

So, in case you go to the symphony in the next few days and see someone in a black dress with a rhinestone appliqué, check out her legs. They were the tie-breaker.

By the time Disco Ball won, it was at least eight-thirty and we were hungry. Too hungry to wait in line at the restaurant. Still, Catherine walked past the line that extended out into the mall, up to the hostess, and asked:

"Is Kevin working tonight? He's my trainer."
"Yes he is working here tonight," the hostess said.
"Hmm. How long would the wait be to get a seat in his station?"
"Stand right over there. There's a seat opening up right now."

So, screw my lifelong dream of bribing my way into a crowded restaurant. I have been totally outclassed by someone who wears rhinestones. 

Hoopl-eme

I could do a meme a day. What's wrong with memes? Katie honored me with this meme tag. For some reason we aren't allowed to CALL it a meme. So, I will concede and call it a hoopla, as  requested in the rules, which are:

1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible.

See, she rushes me. But she has a great scar, and I'm a sucker for a great scar.

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1. One year, Dad made Mom a balsa-wood abstract tree. A triangle of balsa slats, with four horizontal slats across it. Lights and ornaments are wired to it. Just Wednesday I pulled it off the nail in her garage, hung it over the fireplace, plugged it in. Instant Christmas.

2. I started to make my own balsa-slat tree a year ago. It is currently still in the slat phase.

3. Mom's tree has gingerbread man ornaments, one of which still has the teethmarks I made in it forty years ago.

4. I know someone who was thirteen when she realized there is no Santa. According to her, she just didn't think much about it.

5. Every year about this time, Gary says, "You know, I think your Mom would like a DVD player."

6. About an hour ago I impulsively gave Gary the only present I've bought him thus far. Some Lush product man set. He's all about the Lush. He's walked around all night screaming "My hands! My hands smell like cloves!" He sticks his hands in my face. "Smell my hands!"

7. Gary bought me a present, but I know what it is. Recycled BNL Guitar string earrings. Squee, I say.

8. It doesn't feel like Christmas around here yet. We need to bring out the holiday CDs.

9. The Holiday record I remember from my youth was some odd spoken Red Skelton thing in which Santa literally runs the reindeer sled into the Iron Curtain.

10. About twenty four years ago, Mom, Dad, my boyfriend Gary, and I were in the kitchen. Dad was roaming in and out, we were at the table. "So, Gary," Mom asked, "What are you getting Ellen for Christmas?" Gary and I exchanged a look. I asked,"Gary, you want to field this one?"  Mom demanded my Dad freeze, because something Big was Up, and then Gary asked Dad for my hand.

11. It is simply not practical to make a house out of gingerbread. A sugar cube house is totally the way to go.

12. I'm glad this meme landed in my lap, because I need to pull my thoughts together so I can do justice to the story of what I did tonight instead of attending the Holiday Blogger Festival. (See, Holiday. I brought it back to the Holidays.)

In an ecumenical spirit, I tag Friend #3, who has my permission to ignore it or respond entirely in Hebrew.

In Which I am Validated by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Last Friday night, Friend #3 and I were in my car.

"Oh! Oh!" I said, "You have to hear this song. I was all into this song a few months ago and for some reason I heard it again and I've listened to nothing else for two days now."

I jumped back to the beginning of Closing Time on the Essential Leonard Cohen CD.

"Oh my," she said eventually. "Well."

"What?"

"I don't know. I don't like it that much."

"You haven't even heard it!"

"Well, yes, I'm listening to it right now!"

"No, you aren't, you're talking. You have to listen to the words," I argued. "Seriously, shut up and listen to this part," I demanded, just as ...

I missed you since the place got wrecked / By the winds of change and the weeds of sex

... came up. How can a person be over forty and not love that? Friend #3 is over forty. I crumpled under the dashboard cooing at that line, and the next one...

looks like freedom but it feels like death / it's something in between, I guess

"I dunno," she said. "I listen to songs for the music. I hear the lyrics eventually, but if I don't like the music then I won't listen to the lyrics."

Then I popped open the door and Friend #3 is now a bloody stain on Highway 170. IN MY MIND.

I don't get this point of view. Gary has the same point of view, sadly. He thinks that the music in a song counts for almost everything and if the lyrics are crap, well, who listens to the lyrics? If he was to weight them, he would say that music counts for 90% and lyrics count for 10%.

It's this viewpoint that nominates the "Um brella -ella -ella - uh -uh" song for a Grammy.

What is with people? In my world, Music = 50% Lyrics = 50%. Please, use both hemispheres of your brain! Plus, if your music happens to contain poetry you can listen to it and it never becomes stale.  I'll listen to Closing Time again when I'm 100 and I'll appreciate other lines, no doubt ...

she's a hundred but she's wearing  something tight.

Just so you know, this year's inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Madonna, the Dave Clark Five, the Ventures,  John Mellencamp and Leonard Cohen.

New News, Old News

First, and most important, Montana drinks the Kool-aid:

Hiiii! Everyone, turn and wave at Whitehall, Montana! Hii!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Having successfully terrified the individual from Montana, I turn to other new news:

The family doctor has declared Mom's elbow a bursa. The treatment? Ignore it for a few months. Try not to use that elbow, which mind you is virtually the only working part of Mom's body. At least my cyst is getting some high-tech attention.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

And to the old news:

Every few years for the last twenty, Gary and I would get a phone call from those hunting for a Mr. Gary X. S________. 

My Gary, Mr. Gary E. S________, would assure the caller he is not the Gary they want. He is usually met with skepticism, because:

1. The Other Gary is not listed in the phone book; my Gary is.
2. Doppelganger Gary has a wife named Elaine (more on how I know this later).
3. The phone book mistakenly lists me as Elaine.
4. The caller is trying to get Doppelganger Gary to pay up.

Most phone calls start with, "Hi, Is this the Gary S_________ who owns [popular local business]?" and continue on to "What do you intend to do about this outstanding balance / bounced check / overdue payment?"

"No, really," Gary says, "That's the other Gary. I swear. I don't own [popular local business]. I'm a computer programmer."

Usually Gary points to the middle initial, and since the caller just flopped open the phone book this is convincing enough to end the call.

Gary gets the money collection calls; I get the fun calls. The social calls. The calls for Mrs. Doppleganger.

"Hello, is this Elaine?"
"Ellen."
"The Elaine who is married to Gary S________?"
"Ellen, but yes."
"Oh, Hiiiiii! How aaaaaare you? We need to know your address so we can put it on the invitations to your baby shower."
I pause. "No. No you don't. I think you have the wrong Mrs. Gary S________."
"No ... this is the number Laura told us to call. You're Elaine S_______, right, Gary's wife?"
"I'm Ellen. I can assure you I am not pregnant. You want the other Gary S_______'s wife."
"Are you sure?"
"I can not believe you are arguing with me about this."
"But Laura said..."
"No, you have the wrong person. Bye now."

Honestly, I don't think I convinced them, and I did wonder why they were throwing a baby shower for a woman whose address they didn't know.  However, I did receive a nice "Congratulations on your new baby!" card a few months later.

Almost a month after that, I got a call from a young girl looking for Gary S_______.

"He's not here right now," I said, not realizing immediately she wanted the other Gary S______. "Could I take a message?"
"Well, just tell him Shauna called."
"Um, Shauna, okay .... do you work with Gary?"
"No, but I met him in a bar last night and he said to give him a call if there was ever anything I needed."
(Oh, Shauna, Shauna.) "Oh, you want the other Gary S_____. My Gary wasn't at a bar last night. I'm positive. He was here. All night." (He was, we stayed up past closing time. And my Gary wouldn't be talking to a Shauna.  Hmm. Of course, if he did, he would offer to help.) "Are you sure it was last night?"
"Oh, yeah. We talked a long time. I just assumed he was the one in the phone book. I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassed."
"No, don't be, we get these calls all the time. Especially since his wife's name is a lot like mine."
"Wife! Wife?" (A pause, during which Shauna becomes a woman.) "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry. A month ago I got a card meant for his wife congratulating me on our new baby."
"No way. No way."
(I felt like dirt, but happily my esteem for Other Gary was lower than dirt. Serves him right, I thought. I hope Shauna runs into him again at the bar and throws a drink in his face.)  "Sorry," I said.
"No, it's okay. Bye."

DoppleGary has kept his nose clean for about ten years now. That's why when Gary's bank, Bank of America, left a message on our machine requesting he resolve his overdue balance, I assumed it was my Gary. Gary emailed me today that it looks like Other Gary is up to his old tricks creative money flow redistribution.

This also means I need to correct my credit report (yet again) to remove the name "Elaine" that keeps popping up on it. Seriously, doesn't anyone ever look at middle initials?

The Digestive Cystem

So I sat down with the pancreas doctor. He began by asking, "So, what brings you here?"

"I thought you had seen my CT scan."

"Well, I did, but I want you to tell me."

See, that's not a good start. What does he think I'm going to say? Something that breaks the case wide open? "Hey, could this have something to do with that day I spent camping at the Nevada nuclear test site?"

Still, I humored him and spelled out everything he already knew. And he responded by asking me questions I HAVE ANSWERED TWO HUNDRED TIMES IN THE LAST MONTH.

I did get some information out of him. I answered (for the two hundredth time) how often I drank, and the doctor wrote down (FOR THE TWO HUNDREDTH TIME) "rarely."

"Okay," I asked, "How much do I have to drink to crank it up past 'rarely'?"

According to him, drinking routinely once a month rates you an "occasionally." Something to strive for.

So, hopefully Friday I'll be at the lab getting a tube snaked down to my belly. The tube will give me an ultrasound from the inside of my belly (ugh - inner-belly ultrasound gel) and then push out a robotic needle into the cyst and suck out the insides for analysis. "Don't worry, though," the doctor said, "you'll be given a sedati--"

"No Versed. No."

Long pause. "Well, you'll have to take that up with the doctor who performs the procedure."

Laugh with me the hollow laugh of doooom. This means, of course, I'll be taking Versed again. Will it be as bad as the last time? I have an entire bathroom I even haven't painted since it was built, much less decorated.

Then again, I'm bolstered with six years of Celexa this time. Perhaps I'll get that peek into my true self and not see an empty fraud this time. Perhaps the hospital staff can catch the pigs flying out of my ass this time.
 

Update Du Month

I was so busy "posting every day for a month" that I need a day to catch up and update you on old news:

Cysts
I find out tomorrow what the next step is for the PancreaCyst. Mom, however, woke up Wednesday with a cyst swinging off her elbow, much like this:

...except Mom's arms are less hairy and more frail. And the first thing we both thought was, "That looks just like a testicle hanging off [my/Mom's] elbow." Our Google research has determined Mom either has Tennis Elbow or A Ganglion. Or the Dread Elbow Testicle.

Montana
Still hates me. Eatmahcurleez, Montana.

The Linens
Are still at the bottom of the basement steps.

The Genius Brownie Pan
Well, it's a bad idea to bake a pan of brownies and then pull out the directions. With every brownie with two edges, you need to check the brownies ten minutes early. I expect a few more test batches before I have the new brownies perfected.

Spongeworthy
I stood in the aisle at the drugstore and wondered why there are so many variations on the condom. It's as bad as toilet paper. Given that Gary has been known to throw toilet paper out of the bathroom, I looked for the most expensive box. Too many were tied at the same price, so I went with the Today Sponge. I know I'll pop it up there and totally forget about it.

L'Estate
The in-laws just handed the abandoned waif of sixty-five years everything she asked for, so with that and the lawyer fees and the taxes it's down to a quarter of its former splendor. Still, as I pointed out to Gary, "Who complains about an inheritance? Quit griping about it." I'd be happy with even the tail of an emu.

UPDATED: Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

I think that the last semester of getting a degree in meteorology should include experiencing an ice storm, a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, and a wildfire. The Weather Channel employs people who have evidently never experienced an ice storm. If you listen to them, there is this very moment an ice storm closing down Saint Louis. This has been widely reported, even in this AP news story.

I'd heard about the ice storm Saturday night as I was headed out to Friend #2's Moving Party.  (An aside: Mr. #2 is not at all pleased that I made fun of Sting. "Hey, you, this is for Sting!" he said as he flipped me off. Mental note: Target Sting.)

Sister-in-law Karen called us to warn us not to go outside because the roads were getting really slick. I realized Karen had not set foot outside her house to see how the roads really were. They were fine. I tuned in to the Weather Channel and saw the roads were Extremely Hazardous in the Midwest! I looked outside again. I drove off to the party, where my car was parked outside all night and the windows didn't even frost up.

Right now the Weather Channel meteorologists are speaking hopefully that we might get an inch of ice overnight, but I don't buy it. If we do, we'll all just take an extra hour to get to work and the ice will melt by mid-day.

I started thinking about this last weekend when I watched the Tornado episode of Desperate Housewives. I am sure others across the Midwest also howled with laughter when they saw Katherine putting tape on her windows, and Susan packing a bag and putting blankets and water and canned goods in her basement. You know, because those tornadoes can sometimes hover over your house for almost a minute sometimes. 

I was greatly comforted by the tornado that hit about three miles from our house. The Charter television company saw I was sitting on my couch with my dog on my head, eating chips, looking out the window to see if the sky was green (tornado  indicator #1) and listening for the freight train (tornado  indicator #2). Charter Cable kindly shut off what ever program I was watching and put a crawl across a black screen that said "A TORNADO HAS BEEN SIGHTED IN YOUR AREA TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY."

I think that's the only time I've gone in the basement due to weather. Supposedly the really big ice storm is to begin at 3 am tonight. We shall see.

UPDATE:

First, they called off the ice storm. The National Weather Service rescinded the ice storm warning for my area.

Second, Gary sent this in an email:

"Water, clothes and food are put in the basement because if your neighborhood is destroyed by the tornado, you could be trapped in your basement for days waiting for someone to dig you out of the wreckage. TV always shows people climbing out of their basement to find their entire house gone but that is not what happens. Usually, your basement is buried in concrete, wood and cars. The neighborhood looks flat in the films but there are tons of debris blocking exit from the basement."

Social Butterfly

Here is what happens when you decide early not to throw a yearly tea party. The week the party would have been:

1.  You attend the company Christmas party and enjoy it.

2. You attend the Yearly Company Lunch and enjoy it.

3. You attend Friend #1 Catherine the Red's birthday party and enjoy it and her friends, which number well over eight.

 

4. An impromptu "Die Die F*ck3r DIE!" GNO is planned for January.

5. You will attend Friend #2s House Moving Girls Night, and anticipate enjoying it, especially since you bought Chambord and brownies for the new pan. And Cheetos.

6. Your husband gets to buy a Christmas tree, because he can't complain the tree will be knocked over during the party.

Yeah, it's a new way of looking at things. I just never got the Tea Party itch this year. I blame Global Warming.

Oh No Oenophilia

Last night at the company Christmas party I cliqued about with Friends #2-4.  It was quite nice; an open bar and dinner at Trattoria Branica. They fed us salmon, assorted vegetation, and a hunk of beef. The beef must have been from Montana, but the salmon was divine.

So we were hanging out by the bar, where it was oddly quiet, and I smelled the wine and thought, "Wine. Perhaps I should give wine another try. All my friends like wine. It smells good. I should like wine."

I don't like wine. Every time someone offers me wine and they say, "Here. Ellen, you'll like this, it's sweet; it's a Riesling."  This is why the word "Riesling" now makes bile rise in  my throat, from all the swigs that turned out to be as sweet as  black coffee.

But, like coffee, it smells good, so I keep trying it.

I bellied up and asked the bartender for a Blush wine, because Friend #2 had said it was sweet. "Not Manischewitz sweet, but pretty sweet," Friend #3 agreed. When I accepted the Blush, I asked suspiciously, "Is this sweet?"

"Oh no," he said, "It's not at all sweet."

I handed it back, then I realized he'd just have to pour it out. "Oh. Well, I'll drink it anyway."

"I can make it sweet," he said and I thought, "What is he going to do? Add four packets of Equal and cream like I do to coffee?"

He glanced about the bar, went for a bottle, stopped himself, then went for the Chambord. Friend #3 intoned "Oh Lord, bless this thy hand grenade," because that joke slays me.

And you know what? Wine and Chambord are really good together. I called it Chwine, because  Winebord sounded too much like a blatantly cruel interrogation technique. (I looked up Chambord recipes to see if it already had a name, but it would appear the people who name Chambord cocktails are the same ones who populate www.urban-dictionary.com.)

Toe Boy of the Year

This Google Analytics thing has sparked my imagination. Every little visitor dot has significance to me. I have assigned a persona to every big dot. Like "Oh...That's a nice size dot in Oklahoma City. I bet that's Joy."  And, by the way, a big wave at New Zealand, land of the BIG DOT in Auckland. Hi Aucklanders! You kick Montana's ass. Stinking Montanese.

The most intriguing series of dots is in Germany, though. Through the month of November, someone criss-crossed Germany and visited once every other day, each time from a different city. I have two potential personas for the Wandering German Dot:

1. My friend Melanie, who does impressive stuff like teach herself German, then began directing German plays, then started translating German plays, and is now directing a German play in Germany.

or, the German dot could be...

2. The Obsessive German  Toe Enthusiast. Now, you know how I love the Toe Boys, and especially the Germans. However, one day this past month someone came here by way of this search:

"site:mocklog.typepad.com   mediocretia   toes"

and then he surfed from toe to toe from 1:10 to 1:19. My toes have been targeted!

In Which Montana Breaks Our Heart

If I go to Google Analytics, I see a map that displays my visitors by country and state. The darker the green, the more visits from that state. So I have to say:

Where's the love, Montana?

Google Analytics says you are giving me the cold shoulder.

In Which We Have Hope for a Miraculous Recovery

I've been feeling a little under the weather MS-wise since I went off the Copaxone. It isn't anything serious. When asked by the neurologist, I reported I felt like I was wearing a tight pair of knee socks all the time. Oh, and I had a Nerf football under my right ribcage. I've felt the Nerf football and the tight knee socks before, so it isn't a new problem, just a little flare-up of one from before.

It only affects the sensation outside my legs. The inside of my legs works fine, meaning I can walk and do leg lifts and limbo and such.

One thing that made me encouraged was that it seemed to be getting better this past week. Until today. Today I REALLY felt it. I worried about it all day.

Then I came home. And got undressed. And took off the tight knee socks I had put on that morning.

Seriously, I sat on the bed, shaking my head, looking at the knee socks, and thought, "Perhaps I really do have a Nerf football under my ribcage."

Senior Citizen Skip Day

The title? Technically, there's no post for 12/02/07. So that blows NaBloPoYear. Damnit.

But, still I had to tell you about  the Incident Over the Basement Stairs.

I am a great believer in gravity. This is why everything that needs to go into the basement is tossed over the ledge at one end of the basement stairs. (The basement stairs aren't the type that are behind a door, they just take up the wall on one side of the dining area. You can stand at the top of the stairs at put things in the basket that is designed for the top step, or you can accept that the things in that basket never get downstairs and instead, stand across from the landing at the top of the stairs, by the half-wall that keeps you from plunging to your death when you walk across the great room, and just toss the stuff over the ledge.)

I once thought this was lazy.  Then I paid a surprise visit to Friend #5, the Uptight Friend, and discovered that you could indeed plunge to the bottom of her steps and land in a soft pile of clothing and then be suffocated.  If we didn't have an upstairs laundry room my stairs would have looked like that in weeks, but instead, we only toss things that need to be stored.

I say "we." Gary hates it. I hate the basement. I love the gravity. Gary goes into the basement every day to play the drums, and he yells upward about the stuff at the bottom of the stairs, and I yell downward well why doesn't he put it away then, and this works for me.

Well, Saturday, Gary was being particularly fractious, and it didn't sit well since I was organizing the linen closet. Many linens were lost in the brutal purge. Some linens went to live in the basement. As I was headed to the basement drop-off ledge, he followed me, carping "BLAH BLAH! NEVER! AND YOU ALWAYS BLAH AND DON'T EVEN THINK OF TOSSING THAT OVER THE SIDE!"

I turned, fixed him in my steady gaze, held out my hand which was balancing the linens like a waiter's tray, and flipped my wrist. Linens belly-flopped to the bottom of the steps.

He looked at me. Suddenly his hand shot out and he slapped a bit of Tupperware off the ledge.

I,  laughing, defiantly took a bag of candy off the table and threw it over.

He tossed The Kite Runner. Then he didn't wait for me to respond, because I was laughing too hard and because he had spotted the stuffed reindeer. He held it by its horns over the precipice. "Not the reindeer!" I screamed and grabbed it. Then I spiked it into the basement.

This is why I don't remember what the fight was about. Surprisingly he brought many of the things up later. But the linens are still sitting down there.

Genius

I was thumbing through Paste Magazine (because I live for music, snort) (oh and I want Paste to show their commitment to recycling by getting rid of the subscription cards that fall out of every magazine) ...

... Let me start again. I've buried the lead.

I was thumbing through Paste Magazine, and I saw this on page 55.

It's a brownie pan. Every brownie has at least two chewy edges.

You can get one on http://www.bakersedge.com/ or on Amazon.

Wilma's already getting one.

These people need some type of Genius Grant. It appears they are coming out with a Lasagna Pan next.

I hope it isn't a disappointment, like those pans that make only the "tops" of muffins.

SHOCKING UPDATE! Gary tells me now, "Uh, you should have asked before you ordered that. Mom hates the edges of the brownies. Haven't you ever noticed she cuts them off? I've never had a brownie edge in my life."

So it's my pan now. I'm going to introduce Gary to brownie edges. Of course, I bake very little, and Gary's always dieting. I'm still buying it. Of course, now he claims "The really gourmet brownies always cut off the edges, too, you know."