Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

There Oughta Be a Government Regulation

No, this isn't about government regulation of the securities industry. Or yesterday's Hottie Judge. Here's a better photo for Hattie and fellow rogue judge lovers.

 

This pose comes right before he winks and cocks his finger guns.

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No, what the government should really regulate is toilet height.

My home commode should be the standard height, like the standard kilogram in France.

If I visit the restroom at, say, Dennys / Bob Evans / IHOP / Cracker Barrel, or at work, the seats are too low for proper cleanup. I want to sit and yet still be able to reach my most nether of nether regions. Too often I sit down, find my knees up by my ears, and find my bottom too far from the ends of my fingertips.

I can't get purchase. It shifts my center of balance. But most probably the lower seat wads up my belly fat so much I can't reach far enough back reaching from the front. And we have already covered the futility of a back reacharound.

Gary first recommended I use the disabled stall toilet, which is higher, and he is right. Of course now if I see any one come out of the disabled stall I'll know why she was in there, unless she's thin.

His next recommendation was that I stand up, magically keep my pants up, double over, and approach things that way, because that's a stable position for someone with balance issues. I can just see the chalk line on the restroom floor.

Or I could lose my belly. But - wait a minute. Pregnant women have bellies. How do they clean up on a shorty commode?

The Man Who Spanked the SEC

Here is my new favorite judge:

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, of whom I am appropriately terrified following my Series 7 exam) punishes those in the market who do evil, such as betting against their own team because they're going to throw the game. Specifically, Citigroup, headed by the Indian Guy in Too Big to Fail.

 

This judge looked at the punishment the SEC meted out to Citigroup, and decided it was too soft. Too soft, because the SEC didn't say Citigroup had to publicly confess all their sins.

"In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers," he wrote.

The SEC countered that was making "too much out of the fact that Citigroup did not have to admit wrongdoing."

Yes! They! Do! Yes! They! Do! They have to shout their sins from the rooftops and share a tent with The Occupiers.

Judge Rakoff called the feeble SEC / Citigroup settlement "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest."

Read more about Judge Rakoff and his massive stones. 

 

Coconut

I shared a childhood memory with my bechilded friends at work.

"When I was a kid I loved it when Mom would bring home coconuts. Dave and I would sit on the patio and hammer them open with the patio bricks. Then we'd gnaw on the dirty shards. It was the best thing ever. If I had a kid that's what I would do with it." ("It," Libby snorted.)

When I found "sweet young coconuts" on sale at Dierbergs, I thought it strange they weren't dark and hairy, and I thought it strange they only mentioned drinking the milk and not gnawing on the meat. I still bought one with the intent to make fresh home-made macaroons.

I invited Gary to join the fun of coconuts. Destruction and food, his favorites, just like a child.

He disappointed me. He decided to use tools like the chisel and hammer and two sizes of screwdrivers. He was able to puncture it but eventually gave up and left it to me.

I no longer have the patio bricks of my childhood, but I have a patio,  trash bags, and centrifugal force.

The first swing of the bag on to the cement was disappointing. It bounced! That was all wrong. Eventually it opened up and I saw the dark hair I'd been missing on the inside of the nut, then inside that there was some nasty slimy coconut meat.

"ROTTED!" we cried and threw it away. Turns out, I should have hung it on a tree outside, because research showed I was trying to treat a "Sweet young coconut" like a hairy old coconut. I guess Dierbergs is selling the young ones for the milk. I did try the milk but it was greasy and vile.

Where can I find a hairy old coconut? To that point, where did Mom find them? St. Louisans, have you actually seen with your eyes hairy old brown coconuts at a store?

Bossy? Gary?

Gary protests my characterization of Thanksgiving Eve. "I am NOT bossy."

And, in his world view, he is not bossy. In his family, he is the very least bossy and controlling person. Everyone there has an opinion on how everyone else should behave, spend, date, where they should live, and instead of just having the opinion they nag, yell, or manipulate. It is how they show they care. 

A relationship in trouble is marked by use of the phrase, "I don't care, she can live her life however she wants." Whereas in my world, "She can live her life however she wants" is a sign of respect.

In my family, Mom was controlling out of necessity, because we were her arms. She did go the extra mile to tell us all exactly how we should use our arms, and which arm we should use, and so on. I go to the other extreme. I hate telling people what to do, and if I do make a suggestion, I say if you did it, then you did it right. 

(This is a problem for me at TeddyJ, where we are all to make Processes, and agree on every step. "You can do your job however you want" does not work there.)

So, by in-law standards, Gary is the most easy-going guy alive. By my family's standards, he is bossy. I'm thinking there's no global standard for bossy. Is there?

Anticlimax-giving Day

Things Discussed

Death. I was thankful no one died this year. Mr. Wonderful, my Gary, Wilma.

Sandy whispered, "What do you mean 'Wilma?' Mom didn't almost die."

"Heart attack!"

"Oh! I forgot about that!"

The Future Mrs Nephew Who Was Not There. The Nephew kept the peace admirably. He spoke only when spoken to. When his Mom prompted him, he narrated the photos of his engagement (which evidently involves tying a red armband on the man).

The girl looks adorable, funny and smart. And Jewish. Of course she isn't. Orrrr ... perhaps that's HER big secret. Picture Jennifer Grey's nose

 

... and Kirsten Schall's smile, with a slighly smaller chin:

 ...with chin-length dark hair that curls madly just at the ends.

Other details: Her engagement gift from Sandy was one of the First Mrs. nephew's scarves. They are to be wed sometime in the spring, both the religious wedding and the state wedding. She and her seven sisters and one brother were all born in the United States. She'll be working while The Nephew goes to one of the 49 law schools he applied to.

It was pretty evident that The Nephew sees himself above work, since he remained in his chair while every one of the other NINE people got up and helped clean up after the meal. Sandy said, "I'll help too," and I pointed out, "ALMOST everyone is helping." So he's living his life the Pakistani way.

Things Not Discussed

The Whiteness of The Niece's Boyfriend. He seems nice, trim, and bright, and I can tell you he's a good sport. Every time the conversation got to surgeries an ER visits, I included him in the conversation. "So, Matt, have you had any surgeries?" He complimented her pumpkin pie, so I hope she'll have many compliments from here on. Oh, and his family breeds horses. SO white. I did see him involve The Nephew in a conversation once.

Sandy's Beau  He does not live in Michigan, but Brooklyn. I imagine The Nephew has gone to check him outl, since The Nephew is the formerly drug-addicted prevaricating religious head of the household.

I leaned over to ask Sandy about it, and she muttered, "Can't talk about it. Makes Dad really upset." All I could get out of her was that he lives in Brooklyn, but that was something.

The Other Pies. Even though the niece sent an email that she was bringing cherry and pumpkin pie, the Wonderfuls brought two store-bought pies. Cherry and pumpkin. Now, I know some households where this would have stopped Thanksgiving, especially since there is underlying tension between the two sisters.

Underlying Tension Between the Two Sisters. They haven't spoken for weeks. Mr. Wonderful made no promises about what he would and wouldn't say. Tension? In a few hours they were in a room together taking unflattering photos of each other and giggling like ... sisters.

So, good Thanksgiving. And no one touched the Back-up Pies. My pie was soup, so that made my niece look good, and it gave Gary something to vent about so he was all calm at his parents.

LATER: I think I know now why it was a normal Thankgiving. In my family, if you'd had a father not talking to his daughter, two sisters not talking, a son not talking to a guest, it would be tense and quiet. but the talking baseline at the in-laws is SO HIGH that when you cut back on 60 percent of the talking you still have a normal conversation.

Well, That Sucked Sideways, and We Still Have to Go to Thanksgiving

You can skip the three posts below, if you like, unless you like cinema verite. So odd to me that here I thought my husband might be critically ill and I blogged about it. So strange. I don't think before I write. Blah blah here are my guts.

But! Let me take you back to earlier this evening.

I got home early at 3:00, and Gary got home at 4:00. His jaw hurt. he was grim.

In forty-five minutes he:

Sprayed his inner jaw with ten shots of chloraseptic
Took three Advil
Tool one eight hour Tylenol
Painted his inner jaw with Orajel
Had three shots of Baileys

He was in the kitchen bathing his arms in cold water (he said it made him feel better). I was in the bedroom. He began screaming. I popped out to look at him and he was clutching his heart with one hand and clutching his head with the other. Oh, and then he screamed "I'm dying." This was at 4:51, too late for the doctor.

Then he lost his vision. So I led him out to the car, got his cane, and off we went to the ER (which as I now know is a mere ten minutes away).

In that ten minutes, I began praying. Gary couldn't even moan anymore, he just kept making inarticulate grunting noises. I was very relieved when he was able to say, "go faster," because that showed a comforting level of bossiness. You know, "I know the date and the president and that you're my bitch, woman."

Oh, and then, when we were about five minutes away from the ER, he did stop moaning to tell me that Unum was in charge of his life insurance. I thought he meant medical, but no, he meant life insurance.

He staggered in with his cane and the groaning and he had drugs and a doctor in ten minutes. The doctor said with sudden headache they had to assume stroke, so they wheeled him off to get a CAT scan. I informed on him ("He drank Baileys! After taking Advil and stuff!") and they said, probably not, let's see what the CAT scan says.

The CAT scan said there was no blood in his brain, but the doctor said in one case out of a thousand the blood only shows up in the spinal fluid. So, spinal tap? Discuss. WE decided to do the tap.

Gary had a spinal tap when he was a kid and they tried to get fluid thirteen times before they called in a radiologist. Awful experience. That's why we called it off after four punctures. Gary says I owe him a spinal tap now because it was "my" idea.

Of course, without a spinal tap to give us the one in a thousand easy answer, the next answer on the list was "freak migraine." He was sensitive to light after his vision came back at the ER, but he wasn't nauseated. He demanded I do iPhone searches. "Alternative treatment for migraine"  and "What causes Migraine?" One link said "nerve inflammation can cause migraine," and we have satisfied ourselves with that. Dental work leading to nerve inflammation leading to migraine. That, or a one in a thousand non-bleeding hemorrhagic stroke.

At 8:00, the second dose of drugs kicked in and he became Mad Impetuous Gary! For example:

He said: "It's eight! Get my shirt. Get the nurse. I'm going." "Well, we have to wait till - " "NO GET THE NURSE NOW!"

I went out and whispered to the nurse that he was being strange and impatient and (again, comfortingly) bossy until he screamed "I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW. I'M RIGHT HERE!"

Oh, then they scampered to get him released, and he edited the white board in the room, so where they had written "Gary," he added "The Man!" I reported this to the nurse and she seemed to think it was a little loopy but not excessive.

Then, we left and got him Vicodin. ("I have Vicodin! And a cane! I'm Doctor House!") He refuses to take it or the anti-nausea drug, but he did take three Advil.

So, tonight is my Thanksgiving. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Parrrrtay

Er staff is having holiday party.

Update

No blood in brain. Drugs are good.

In the ER for thanksgiving

Gary's jaw pain turned into exploding skull pain. They are giving him a cat scan right now. The doctor is guessing stroke. He can talk and walk and say his numbers. He also told me his life insurance provider on the way to the hospital. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Grumpy Landlady.

I have been working with this property management company for months now.

This is how it goes:

They silently spend money on emergencies. (The inspector said you need a fire door. The renter smelled gas.)  I am not told of these emergencies, what they cost. To some extent, that is what I'm paying for: to not be bothered.

The next month, I wait for a check and it does not come. I call to ask.

Followed by, "Oh, didn't I send you an invoice? Wait till I'm done with lunch and I'll send you one."

And I find that they have spent this month's rent income on last month's emergency.

I am about ready to call the Better Business Bureau on these people. I don't mind fixing gas leaks, though I strongly suspect it was the property management company's fault that there was a supposed gas leak. I don't mind a fire door, I mind buying a fire door for which I get no documentation.

Grumpy.

Things I Thought While I Was Awake

Why do my legs ache when I've been in bed all day?

Who cares if Mitt Romney is a Mormon? When sister in law Sandy went Muslim, a Muslim woman laughed at Wilma for believing that "Stupid story about Jesus rising from the dead." How much more stupid is a story about talking stones and translating hats?

If you want a really good double-bill, watch Inside Job and then immediately after watch Too Big to Fail. Then applaud for the casting. Too Big to Fail was the show with the identifying captions that were too small to read. After watching Inside Job I didn't need them, everyone looked just like the real life version.

I think I'm better. Everything has stayed inside and my headache is all gone. Back to work tomorrow.

Dueling Diseases in the House

We are both sick with different ailments.

Gary is sick because he went to the dentist and foolishly elected against a root canal. Gary should get root canals as a preventative measure. He should get twice-yearly root canals. However, he is a Big Strong Man and the dentist went with it. Now he yelps and screams and says he has astonishing jaw and ear pain.

"I have astonishing jaw and ear pain," I would say, only I don't, I have astonishing head pain. Plus, I've been alternately sleeping and pooping for a day and a half.

I was half awake yesterday when Gary jiggled my hip and asked, "What do they call the people who take your blood?"

"Phlebotomists," I answered, which was pretty good for half-asleep.

"NO! Dont be ridiculous! Just tell me who the people are who take your blood!"

Vampires? Blood thieves? Eventually I got it. The correct answer was "American Red Cross." He wanted to cancel his platelet appointment.

I am sick with a sinus infection, I think, only I can't wash it out with nasal spray. It must be in my inner sinuses. Usually the self-waterboarding perks me right up.

What I need to do is turn on Gary like a wounded bear, since that's what seems to make him feel better. When he gets home (from his parents, where he is a god, oh let me feed you some ice cream that will make your jaw feel better honey) I shall whirl on him and ask random questions. "What type of wood doesn't float?" is my top choice right now.

Update ==================================

This is the Yellow Yarn flu. If you've had it, you know what I mean.

What Kind of Wood Doesn't Float?

Ah, that takes me back.

Natalie Wood's death is being re-investigated.

A reminder if you forgot: Hart to Hart was the big show on TV in '81, starring Stephanie Powers and Robert Wagner.

Stephanie Powers was in a nine-year relationship with William Holden, and Robert Wagner was married to Natalie Wood.

William Holden died accidentally November 12, 1981, while Natalie Wood didn't die accidentally till  November 29, 1981.

William Holden was alone, drunk, fell, split his head and eventually bled to death.

Natalie Wood was alone, drunk, accidentally slipped and fell overboard.

And Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers had just co-starred in Strangers On A Train. No, they didn't. But criss-cross, am I right?

The Dangers of Sleep

Danger 1
I've had more trouble than usual waking up the past few weeks. One morning I was sitting up, considering what to wear, when a big red dog plummeted from the ceiling, hit the floor, then ran away. (Given that it was a dog, I assume my troublesome 'Dog' neuron is acting up again.)

It does make me wonder, was I asleep and dreaming that I was awake and sitting up, and then went with the more conventional "dogs-falling-out-of-the sky" dream, or was I awake and then fell all the way back in to REM sleep in a split second?

Danger 2
Gary had his yearly visit with his neurologist (we are a two neurologist family) and after the exam was completely done, the doctor said:

"So, Gary, looks like you're doing great."

"Terrific."

"I'm not doing so well myself."

The doctor went on to tell Gary that a few months ago, he had gone to sleep with a little sore on his leg, and woke up the next day with a gaping hole where the sore had been. He'd contracted flesh-eating bacteria, possibly in the hospital.

"This hospital?" I imagine Gary said. He may not have actually said it. He also may or may not have said, "Did you scrub this place down?"

The doctor did volunteer that he was not contagious. Evidently he was wearing some typeof pack that helped him rebuild his leg muscle. Possibly he never had flesh-eating bacteria, and he was just tired of people asking why he was wearing a little electronic pack.

I will be checking Gary for sores every few hours tonight.

Gary on Sandusky

Well! I heard those crickets in response to my expansive characterization of foster children as lying con artists. Today I was talking about Paula Poundstone and foster kids with my friend Kelly, who is a foster mom, and she responded smartly with something along the lines of "God! They are little liars! Especially the girls."

It seems I am not the only one who paints politically incorrect assumptions with a broad brush. This is Gary's take from Monday on Jerry Sundusky, the Penn State coach."Male jocks shower together and wrestle in the shower all of the time. They are not doing this for sexual reasons. There is a lot of male/male contact in sports and a lot of nudity in the locker-room. Coaches and athletes become desensitized to this. However, it is easy to watch some close-contact sports such as wrestling which I did in high school and assume that the athletes must be getting sexually excited. I can assure you that that was not happening with me but the problem with our sexual abuse laws is that no-one can prove that they are innocent and the laws assume guilt. My scout master showered with the rest of the troup and no-one said a word. Today, he would be strung up. I don't like getting naked around other men but that is not because I am attracted to them or think that they are attracted to me. I am just shy."

I am reminded of my Dad, who went swimming in gym class in Normandy High School here in Missouri. Did I say swimming? I mean swimming naked. The gym teacher was naked too. Dad felt this was normal. (It is a Saint Louis ice breaker to ask "What high school did you go to?" and if a man answers "Normandy," and appears to be about 70, I always ask him if he was in Naked Swimming Class with my Dad.)

Gary was in wrestling about forty years ago, and I imagine those rules have changed since then too. I do think it's virtuous that Gary starts with the assumption of innocence, for both pedophiles and Catholic priests, another group he feels have been railroaded. Gary has no idea Jerry Sandusky was indicted by a grand jury. He did back off on his position a bit when he saw the unconvincing interview Sandusky did with Bob Costas.

I didn't know Sandusky had eight accusers. Granted, I'm sure some of them were foster children, and you know how they lie.

Paula Poundstone; In Which I Insult an Entire Community of Children

A decade or so ago I heard on the news that Paula Poundstone had been arrested for drunk driving.

"That's weird," I said to Mom, another Poundstone fan, "She just doesn't seem like a drunk."

She answered, "She just adopted those foster kids, right?"

"I think so. How weird is it that kids would get on the phone and call the police because of a drunk driving incident?"

"It's the foster kids. They are setting her up."

Bear in mind, Mom worked with foster care children at the division of family services. I'm sure the well-adjusted foster children never demanded Mom's attention. Still, it seems there were enough foster kids playing their foster parents for fools that Mom caught on to their games. She assured me foster children know how to scam the system, and they sometimes tell outrageous lies about their new parents.

At any rate, Paula Poundstone went to court ordered Alcoholics Anonymous and got her adopted foster children back. She continued to take in foster children, but sort of fell off the comedy map until Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

We saw her perform at the absurdly overheated Sheldon Concert Hall Saturday. She did allude to the drunk driving charge. (Her younger child and a Jewish friend ate saltines and grape juice and played "Passout." "Mommy used to play Passout a lot.")

She was funny, except she did go off on a long aside about how people keep trying to co-parent her oldest child who has mild cerebal palsy. This girl is now 20+ and is named Totia (Toe-shuh ...spelling?) and is "a bit of a con artist."

I didn't know it at the time, but the drunk driving charge came up when the charge was dropped for '''inappropriate touching'' of one of Ms. Poundstone's children, a 12-year-old girl." Totia! And this is based on NOTHING but the smell test and Mom's bias against foster children, but this Totia sounds like she overplayed her hand. Inapproriate touching? Isn't that a Moms job?

Don't fuck with Paula, child. She will get you twenty years later. She will expose you as the con artist you ... might be.

For the People who Can't Go To Farmhaus

No idea when we bought the dragonfly wind ornament that it was for the birds. 

Evidently we have a bird who enjoys working on her balance and core strength.

Farmhaus

... Friday's post was partly absorbed into the clouds, including the last line that said we'd be going to the Paula Poundstone concert later. Pretend you don't know that. Assume for today we just went to dinner.

First off, Farmhaus is a mere block from my Grandceils house, and if MoDot hadn't jacked up Jamieson I could have driven right past it. Odd to think the street behind the Krepps' is now trendy.

Next, it is tiny.

Do you see Gary? I'm taking the photo across from him and my arm and back are against the walls. There are two tables to the left of us and that's the whole place.

I know he looks grumpy. That's before he selected a glass of Riesling based entirely on its name: Kung Fu Girl Riesling. I even liked it.

We began with Nachos. Here's the actual menu description (my memory was a little off):

House made chips from local sweet potatoes, Salemville blue cheese, cherry wood smoked house bacon lardoons, fire-roasted red pepper catsup  -8-

(Lardoons are square chunks of bacon.)

The chips were very fresh. All the cheeses were great. The ketchup was indeed tasty and you could tell it had fire-roasted tomatoes in it. I don't know why I looked at the description and didn't think, "This will taste like sweet potato chips with ketchup and blue cheese." And yet, it did. I opened my imagination and it was the best chips covered with the best cheese and the best ketchup, I will give you that. It was the best interpretation of chip / cheese / ketchup that could ever be. (This becomes a theme.)

Next, we both had salad:

Roasted Ozark Forest Mushroom Salad: Spicy YellowTree Farm local Greens, Baetje Farms goat’s cheese, toasted Missouri pecans, warm house bacon vin -12-

Local Vegetable Salad: Fournie Farms cucumbers, grilled eggplant, beets, EarthDance Farms broccoli rabe, YellowTree Farm watermelon radish, Biver Farms tomatoes, green beans, sweet Muscat vin, Baetje Farms goat’s cheese, lavash -11-

 We tied in to the salads before we took a proper photo.

Salad of salads! Neo-platonic salad! And to think some of the greens are grown in a backyard near Granceil's. I was genetically predisposed to love the salads. Watermelon radish! Look at that! I can't even get brussel sprouts at the grocery anymore. If I had to make and ideal salad it would be based on these salads. I would travel for this salad.

Now, Eric our waiter (who I think got a shout out in the RFT Best Service Award) did explain that everything was fresh and local, except for the fish. He went on to explain the chef is a fish expert. I had already dismissed the fish and decided on meatloaf, because Gary like meatloaf and I figured I could trade.

Yeah, my own fault. I got only a bite of Gary's grouper (snicker) and had to eat all my meatloaf. People, I don't like meatloaf. I've always thought it was because I grew up with bad meatloaf. I thought this would be a meatloaf revelation.

Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf: Sweet and Yukon Gold smashed potatoes, sous vide pearl onions, tomato merlot reduction -14-

'

It was the very best meatloaf that could ever be (I told you it was a theme). So, it's not me. It's meatloaf. I suppose I always assume meatloaf is going to be as juicy as a burger, and it never is. Gary, the bastard, refused to trade mealoaf for grouper.

Red Grouper: Grilled, smoked onion sauce soubise, spoonbread, grilled Fournie Farms yellow squash -18-

 

Jesus God. I LOVE GROUPER. Who knew? I only got one little scrap. I ate two spoonfuls of spoonbread and I grabbed some of the sauce with my finger before Gary could stop me. Eric explained later that this chef gets the fish FedExed to him, opens the box, sniffs it, looks the fish in the eye and if they look too old or feel too tough he refuses the package. I had no idea. I call that local.

Dessert was an off-the-menu glass of milk with pecan cake, pralines, and butterscotch ice cream, while Gary had a fried apple pie.  The ideal fried apple pie, of course, heaven, the fried apple pie all McDonalds customers older than 30 remember but only better.

So, go to Farmhaus and get the fish and the vegetables. Don't expect a conversion to pork belly if it doesn't already appeal to you. (That was my one wise decision, I said no to the pork belly, though I even said, "You know, maybe that pork belly I had before was overly fatty." Eric set me straight.) 

Grouper, salad and cheese will be on my plate next time.

I Have Plans Again!

Somehow, today has turned into a busy day. Bank and Post Office visits before noon. Then I must fit in a ritual watching of The Music Man before an early dinner at what is said to be The Best Restaraunt in Town, Farmhaus.

The menu at Farmhaus is limited and random. From memory, it reads something like this:

Breakfast (served at dinner): heritage eggs gently fried and served with vintage potatoes over lavash and a squash ragout.

Nachos: Toasted chips made with locally-grown corn niblets, covered with a melange of seven raw milk and aged cheeses, layered with frisee and local dandelion greens.

Meatloaf: A beef pastiche from local naturally deceased cows is wrapped in bacon from cultured European pigs.

I don't remember seeing any desserts.

A few weeks ago, a group of people from work had plans to go en masse to Farmhaus. On the day of, the organizer Steve called and was told, "no way, no how, we don't take reservations for more than four people." The group broke up for the evening and I went to House of Wong, where I got peking duck and a text from Steve: "Farmhaus was quite happy to seat just one person. It was delicious."

Sadly, it was a lie. At any rate, Gary and I are headed there. After, we head to the Paula Poundsone concert.

You Know What? I Believe Herman Cain.

I truly believe he doesn't remember saying or doing anything inappropriate to any of his accusers.

Because he was hammered. The two incidents we know of happened after dinner.

I think he gets drunk and acts like the Sex Machine To All The Chicks. (Cain! Can you dig it?)

Woozy Flu Epidemic in the House

Tonight, at the grocery, I got woozy.

(Then I started buying crazy food again. All vegetarian stuff, just like before. But that isn't germane to this story.)

Still, I was lightheaded enough to wrap things up prematurely. I called home from the parking lot.

"Oh, Gary, I'm so glad you're home. Look, when I get home I'll need you to come out and bring the groceries in from the car. I suddenly got really woozy."

"So did I!"

"Oh, stop it."

"No, I swear! I'm in bed right now! I got all woozy and sweaty and I had to go to bed."

And there he was when I got home, in bed. We lay in bed for about an hour and ate macaroons I had brought in from the car.

So, yet another volley of "I'm sick" "No, I'M sick" ends in a tie.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year will have land mines planted in the cranberry sauce. There are souls hanging in the balance and racial tension and cultural conflicts, all centered around the Kansas City contingent. There is so much woven subtext I can't even present it in an organized manner.

It seems the Very Muslim nephew and Semi-Muslim sister-in-law and Jack Muslim niece have been busy getting busy. Each person has a better half, most of them shrouded in mystery.

First, our niece. She is the Jack Muslim. Her better half will be present. Her boyfriend of over a year is Christian and blond and working and almost has a college degree. They are seriously involved but not married. Any other time this would cause comment. Wilma would say, "I don't understand how you kids can have such long engagements. I wanted to get married as soon as possible because I was WORRIED about my SOUL."

No one will say a word this year against a long pre-marital entanglement. Why? Gary's sister Sandy (the niece and nephew's mother) has found herself a short pre-marital entanglement.

Evidently there's a Muslim corner of Match.com. It's kind of like J-Date, but M-Date. And without any emphasis on "Date." More like M-Arranged Marriage.

Sandy has made plans with a Saudi man who lives in Michigan. He will not be there. I’m not sure how much he knows about Sandy’s plans. Sandy will talk about him. We don't know how much of what she says is based in reality.

The Saudi man is brown, in contrast to Sandy, who is pink, and the niece (brown, sometimes pink when it suits her) and the nephew (browner than brown by choice, brown and pink biologically). I would love to say the family is a wonderful blended family without racism, and it mostly is, but for the nephew. He is disgusted his sister is dating someone who isn't brown.

He, on the other hand, enraged everyone when he was courting a Michigan girl on M-Date and took the photos of his pink relatives off his Facebook page. This "browning" scheme worked because he has given this girl an engagement ring. The initial plan was for his very brown biological father/stranger to negotiate for him, but the father found himself too busy to do the one thing his son has asked him for. Instead, Sandy is going up to Michigan to arrange things. She has dyed her hair defiantly blonde to look as pink as possible.

(The elephant in the room? Before you ask, "wasn't he married befo -"
We don't talk about that. Sandy says the new fiancée knows about the previous wedding, but perhaps not all the horrible details.)

The Saudi man won’t be there, but the fiancée girl might come to Thanksgiving. I won't mention the previous wife. I will try not to press her to see if she knows about her betrothed's smoking drinking womanizing materialistic addicted past.

So, here are things not to talk about at Thanksgiving:

The pinkness of the long-term boyfriend. (The brownness of anyone is not in question.)
The length of the long-term courtship AND the brevity of the short-term courtships.
The previous marriage.
Hell and various ways to get there in comparative religions.
Anything that isn't happening in the present at the actual dinner table.

Hot Driveway, Baby, Yeah

One nice thing? After twenty years, wood fences rot and driveways crumble and you get to upgrade.

Get this upgrade: they make driveways now that melt your snow. You wake up and there is snow everywhere BUT your driveway. It's a series of tubes and antifreeze and electrical power under the driveway.

Handiest time to put it in? If you're in the process of pouring a new driveway. Like we will be this spring! Ee!

Don't ask me how expensive it is. I have no idea. What value can you put on that?

Suggestion Box

Kind of a horrifying thing happened at work this week.

We are blending two departments together, and one thing that's been instituted is a suggestion box. I saw the Change Committee team get on the elevator carrying the suggestion box. They were heading for a meeting.

Here is where I have to rely on my two eyewitnesses: Linda M_____ my team leader and Sarah D_____, a project manager.

Sarah, a delicate sweet flower, was reading through the suggestions and found one that said:

"TELL ELLEN S______ TO STOP WALKING AROUND BAREFOOT!"

She was appalled. She thought, "This uses an employee's name! This is not what the suggestion box is supposed to be used for!" Shaken, she flipped it on the table writing side down and slid it over to Linda M_____, my Team Leader.

I was just sitting at my desk when Linda walked past my desk on the way back from the meeting. "Oh," she laughed nervously, "I have to talk with you about something that came up at the meeting. Let me put my stuff at my desk."

She came back and said, "It's a suggestion box comment."

"The suggestion box?" I asked, alarmed. "What?"

"Well, this was in the suggestion box." She slid "TELL ELLEN S______ TO STOP WALKING AROUND BAREFOOT!" across my desk.

My jaw dropped. Thank God I never stuck my feet in a company toilet. 

She giggled, "You seem to be wearing shoes now."

"Oh my God!" I said, "Who would say something like that?"

"I don't know," she jabbered, "Someone who hates feet? Do you have enemies? Did you write it?"

I paused. "Of course I did." I can lie, but I can't hold up under a direct question. "I had to see if you were taking the suggestion box seriously."

Thankfully, she laughed in relief, but it was nothing compared to the relief Sarah expressed when Linda told her it was a plant. She came by and gave me the details. I was a little sad, because they didn't discuss my feet extensively at the meeting. I have been known to dash off to the printer barefoot if I can't find my shoes. I feel self-conscious every time I do it.

Well, not now. Who's going to complain? HAHahahaaHAha.

The Music Man, Continued, and So on, And Also So Forth

In the past seven days I have seen The Music Man IN FULL five times. Two days Gary was merciful and just jumped to the songs.

He pins me down if I try to leave. The thing is, he keeps seeing details he didn't see before. Last night we had to track down what is carved on Mr. Madison's statue. This involved much TiVoing, squinting, and Googling. And it is: "Clean Your Finger Before You Point At My Spots." Originally Ben Franklin. (Apparently about hypocrisy. Not one of his best. Has anyone heard this before?)

A few nights ago in bed I surmised that I thought a "peckhorn" was a horn like a tuba, but smaller, so it could only hold a peck instead of a bushel. An hour later he was able to get back in bed, because he'd tracked down the elusive peckhorn.

It's our evening ritual now. I do still love Robert Preston. I need to counter with something I love irrationally and interminably.

OOOOOOOOOOOOHklahoma where the wind comes whistlin' down the plain?

NO! My Fair Lady! Oh, there we are. Big Hats, catchy tunes, everything Music Man is. It will be my weapon of choice.

Aha! So THAT'S What's Wrong With Me.

I have always held that a hypochondriac is just someone who isn't diagnosed yet. There is a bell in our heads that rings long before any illness can show up on a test, but still we get tested and re-tested since we KNOW something is wrong.

Of course, right before both undiagnosed MS flare-ups I felt fabulous beforehand. Not sick, not ever been sick, never could be sick. During the flare-up, however, I read every page of the Medical Encyclopedia. Well, except for the MS page.

On to the present. As you know, I've been overly concerned about this choking business. I've been eating slower, smaller bites, drinking with a straw, and no body fluid eruptions as of late. And then there was the blood clot. I can see you (yes, you, allll of you) developing a theory that all I want is medical attention. The trial is over, and now that I don't see a doctor every few months I feel neglected. (I really do feel neglected now that I have had to part with my therapeutic vaginal masseuse.)

So, my yearly physical (planned, yearly, not pathetic) revealed that I have a specific type of white blood cell in my urine.

"OO! OO!" you cry, raising your hand. "Bladder infection! Bladder infection!"

At the time, I had no symptoms of a bladder infection, and had done nothing worthy of a bladder infection. Still, I dutifully peed, and they found no infection. They figured they'd pass it on to my neurologist because he's the one giving me the MS drug that affects that particular type of white blood cell.

I thought I could ask that doctor what was up at my appointment on 11/1. On my way out I checked the card and saw that I won't see him until 1/11 next year. Numbers! Damn them! Whatever. My urine is clean and smells like mountain wildflowers. No worries.

However, the wonderful GP website alerts me when I have medical test results. Someone did another test, and while the first test showed "trace" bacteria, the same test two days later showed ...

Huge colonies OF Bacteria! 
(That is how I read "*10,000 - 50,000 colonies/ml")

And they are FAT Bacteria!  FAT but Happy!
(Or, as they said, "*Multiple Gram Positive Organisms")

Huge happy colonies of fat INTERSPECIES bacteria! Or ....
("*Greater than two species present, suggestive of contamination")

"Screw you!" I thought, "I'm not contaminated. Contaminated with what? Where would I get some other species of bacteria in me? What, like dog bacteria? Oh... wait... No. No I'm sure that's not what they meant."

And before you assume I wiped the pee off the floor and squeezed in into the cup like that one time, no, I followed all the rules perfectly. I didn't contaminate my urine. Maybe some of my bacteria mutated into a new species of super-happy super-fat bacteria! Ones that don't cause any symptoms of bladder infections!

I figure someone at the lab sneezed into it.

Gary on Halloween

I couldn't pull Gary away from work if I sprouted a child from my forehead, but on Halloween he left work at lunch to spend an hour buying candy and staging the Halloween tableau at home. (Then, he went back to work.)

I get the idea he bought the candy at a convenience store. This is because he had a conversation about the Tootsie Rolls with the cashier, and because there is no better place to buy candy at its most overpriced.

Gary bought half the smallest size and half the middle size.

The small size is a "Midgee." I don't think the middle size has a name.

Gary later told me the cashier laughed hysterically when he called it a "chubby."

I was horrified. "You did NOT."

"She thought it was funny!"

"You called it a penis!"

Immediate backtrack. "No! I mis-spoke. What I said was, I called it a fatty. Then she laughed and said something about my growing up in the '70s."

Postscript: We had thirty kids, and only one adolescent. (The pedophile moved off the block this year.) Good year. Almost all the fatties/chubbies were gone by 8:30.