Tuesday, August 30, 2011

out and about without a clue

So, there I was, sitting on the bench at the depot, when the young woman next to me asked what bus I was waiting for. I told her the Prison Bus. (No I didn't, I answered appropriately.) "Where does that go?" I told her. She ascertained that it would get her where she wanted to be, which was good, because the bus she thought she had to take instead wasn't for another 50 minutes. I know, this story is fascinating so far. Bear with me.

Now, the woman had with her a disabled child who was a different race than she was. Said child did not look biracial in the least, so I was mildly curious, but I just assumed she was the girl's mother. An older gentleman arrived, asked what bus we were waiting for (same one!) and then proceeded to make small talk. It was from this that eventually it came out that the woman was not the little girl's mother, but instead a private duty nurse. Apparently--and you would think I would have known this, working in pediatrics n' all--children with trachs or G tubes are not allowed to attend school without a one-to-one nurse. Can you imagine the expense of that? It boggles the mind. So this young woman had worked full time with this four year old for the last year and a half, 7am to 5pm, four days a week. She said it was a good job.

More people show up to wait, the prison bus being very popular. The bus is late. Other buses pull in, falsely raising our hopes. In truth, it's a nice warm sunny day and I am in no hurry to get home or anywhere else, so I don't mind. Other than the fact that I wouldn't have drunk the medium iced coffee I did if I knew I was gonna be waiting so long, ifyouknowwhatimsayin.

Eventually, another woman gets off one of those buses pulling in and comes over to us. She's probably my age or a little older. Old enough to know better and too young to be senile, okay? She asks us if we know where The Happiest Place on Earth is and how to get there. The nurse tells her that, well, it's far. She can't walk there. Well, can she take a bus? Which bus? We tell her to get on the same bus as us. If it ever comes. She asks me if there was any other way to get there from where she started. With my vast knowledge of the MBTA (seriously, I can tell you how to get anywhere on the T, it's one of my superpowers; they should give me a job), I tell her the one other way she could have done it, which wouldn't have been any easier. Then she asks us how far "far" is. Couple/three miles. So, she could get in one of those taxis and be there in 5 minutes? Eh, maybe ten.

Then she turns to me and says, completely out of the blue, "Do you think the iPhone is a good phone?" I noncommittally say that a lot of people have them. It is a very weird conversational jump and I am glad when the prison bus arrives just then. It gives me the opportunity to sit far away from her. She sits across from the nurse and the little girl instead and grills her on her cell phone options. Maybe that's why she was going to the store, to buy a new phone. I kinda think you'd have done some research beforehand, not depended on asking strangers' opinions, but different strokes n' all. She also repeatedly asks the nurse to let her know when she's at her stop. The nurse tells her she's getting off before that, but that she's sitting on the right side of the bus, just, y'know, look for it. It's hard to miss. When the nurse is trying to get off, with the small child and the stroller, the woman is demanding of her as she struggles to do so, how many more stops? The young woman, obviously way more patient than me, finally snaps and says she doesn't know, JUST LOOK OUT THE WINDOW. And then when the woman does finally arrive at the big box store of her dreams, she asks the bus driver, oh, is this the last bus of the day? He doesn't know, but he doesn't think so. (Seriously, I know more than the MBTA employees. If I had a dollar for every time I heard a bus driver tell someone the next bus was in x number of minutes and be completely wrong, I could buy...I dunno, something expensive.)

So I am completely befuddled by this whole thing. How do you set out to go someplace with no idea of where it is or how to get there or how you will return? What would possess you to just randomly head in the direction of the town it's in and assume you'll get there somehow? And why would you think strangers would not just give you directions, but would hold your hand and babysit you till you arrived? And tell you what cell phone to buy while they were doing it? Though, shit, maybe if this woman did have an iPhone, there'd be some kind of app to direct her through life. Steve Jobs and his minions should get right on that!

In summary, people are very very strange.

xoxo

Monday, August 29, 2011

more reason to live, however

Apparently I missed it, but Beyonce publicly announced her pregnancy on the VMAs last night. Which, I'm very happy, she and Jay-Z should have some adorable, smart, talented children. Also, I remember hearing/reading like a year ago that she was pregnant and then after many months had passed, realized, hmmm, shouldn't she have had that kid by now? And then saw a non-pregnant photo of her. So my internet research (because GOD KNOWS I have nothing better to do than figure out the personal lives of celebrities) then led me to the conclusion that she had never been pregnant at all and it was just a rumor OR she had been pregnant and then lost the pregnancy but had never publicly addressed either. Which is fine. Bey and Hova are people and even if they are mega rich and famous musicians, they deserve their privacy too. BUT ANYWAY, whether she was or was not ever pregnant before, I'm happy for them that she's pregnant now and far along enough to be showing and announcing. Besides which, remember when Jay-Z was all shy about even hugging her at awards shows and now it's like he's admitting he had sex with his own wife and knocked her up? He's come a long way in getting in touch with his softer side, yo. Ha!

D was watching the VMAs, but I checked out early (I thought we were gonna be watching Sunday night baseball.) I had to check out early because all my comments were along the lines of "is this what they consider music these days?" and "who are these people?" and so forth. I need to rent me a fourteen year old for a week or something. I did see the Foo Fighters win and hear Dave Grohl make a comment about "don't lose faith in real rock music, it's still out there, even if you have to look harder." Apparently he was sitting through the show saying the same things I was! Oh, us cranky old people.

But the reason I found out about Bey's announcement even though I left the room before it all happened was that I read the coverage on gofugyourself this morning. This is Heather's interpretation of Kanye's reaction to the announcement. (Keep in mind Kanye always gets caplocked on gofugyourself, and always rhymes, badly.; it's a thing.)

And I quote!:

KANYE RUNS UP TO JAY-Z, WHO SALUTES BEYONCE, AND HITS HIS BACK, AND IS LIKE, WHAT YO, SHE’S PREGGO, YOU ARE A SPERM PRO, WAY TO GO BRO.

I am going to have to work "you are a sperm pro" into my everyday conversation, because oh, it brings the lulz.

xoxo

panic in the disco, denouement


No trees down on my house or in my street. Still feel sick from the stress and adrenaline. Adrenaline hangover? Ativan hangover? Feels like I am heading into Very Bad Brain Time again. I don't even feel like going to the gym after Saturday's failure. And historically this is the time of the year when everything starts going south, brain chemical-wise (you can look it up!) Which is kinda amazing, considering September and October are my favorite months of the year. Also feeling like I may need to give up on the bulk for awhile, since food is sitting in my stomach like a rock and I don't want to eat. Hopefully that will pass.

And maybe it will all pass and tomorrow I will wake up and feel perky and happy and calm. Or maybe I need to go to the doctor and explore new adventures in pharmaceuticals. Or maybe I need to get laid. Or maybe going to the Sox game on Wednesday is the cure to all my ills. The brain is a complicated organ. You never know what is gonna kick start it back to normal functioning! Heh.

Here's a newborn kitten. Go "awwwwwwwwww."



xoxo

Sunday, August 28, 2011

panic in the disco, part 4

I did not go to the liquor store last night. I did kill the rest of the wine while I stripped all the beds in the house, washed the sheets, and remade, scrubbed the kitchen floor, vacuumed the nasty hall rug and the rug under my dining room table*** with carpet deodorizer, and bagged up a few more bags of trash in the basement. As you know, the only time my house actually gets really cleaned (as opposed to straightened) is when I am having a panic attack or important visitors (like, y'know, the electrician).

I am feeling less panicked and less convinced a tree is going to fall on my house since a.) my basement remains dry as a bone, my sandbagging of the sliders having worked a treat so far through the intermittent downpours and b.) the forecast now is tropical storm, blah blah, 2-3 inches of rain, 50 mph winds, so as Mr Indemnity wisely forecasted on Friday, just a regular fuckin' nor'easter all up in here, more or less. Since D is up all night, I asked him when I was going to bed last night, mellowed out on wine and half an Ativan, to go check the basement every now and then and alert me if any puddles were forming. I figured if my sandbagging wasn't completely weather-tight, I could at least shopvac the puddles as they were occurring and stay ahead of it so it didn't turn into a huge mess. But, like I said, it was bueno. When I woke up at six am and realized I'd slept through the night *and* that it wasn't even raining at the moment, I was, shall we say, relieved.

But since a tree still *might* fall on my house, I think today I shall wash the hardwoods in my living/dining room. I'm tempted to wash the slipcovers, too, but I have to see if I'm willing to take the chance that we don't lose power when I'm in the middle of a wash cycle. I should probably actually go throw them in now while it's still quiet out there, huh?

And if heavy drinking does become called for, never fear. Not only do I have those couple beers in the fridge, I realized that I have an unopened off-brand bottle of Irish Creme (Cream?) in the closet that Mr Indemnity gave me for Xmas a few years ago, for reasons that are totally unclear. I don't know what kind of drinks I could improvise with it, but like I said the other day, where there's a will to get drunk, there's apparently a way!

Oh! And you know what else I found in my storm preparations and cleaning frenzy? A huge rubbermaid tub full of brand new, never used, *very* nice towels. Plus some pretty cloth napkins. Apparently my mom had them squirreled away, again for reasons that are entirely unclear. My life is like one long sad episode of Hoarders. (Do you know in the basement, my parents had the box to everything they ever bought? The box. Apparently there was a method to this madness, however. I found a box with a broken coffee maker in it. So, y'know, when the appliance breaks, you don't throw it away. You return it to the box that you also never threw away and put it in your basement, like a little museum of sad defective merchandise. I come by my crazee honestly, is the point I'm making.)

Stay dry. Stay drunk. Don't let any tree limbs hit ya.

xoxo

***When it gets very humid, I am convinced that hall rug and one corner of the dining room rug smell vaguely like pee. I am unsure of the origin of this pee smell. I would like to blame one of our various cats, two of whom have died in this house, or the one who boarded here. But in truth, I think my dad used to step in his own pee when he missed the toilet in his declining years and then track traces of it all over the first floor on the soles of his shoes. This is why I will never stop going barefoot in the house. If it ever gets to the point where I'm stepping in my own bodily fluids, I wanna know about it.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

panic in the disco, part 3

I was feeling much better last night, after being talked down, and after the mega-basement cleaning D and I did, which as you know, burns off the crazee energy, and then this morning when, as I was getting ready to leave, I heard in passing on D's TV some weather wonk say something like, "2-4 inches of rain, which we can get in a thunderstorm..." I may have misheard, but the idea that that's all the rain we were slated for left me heading for work in a good, calm mood.

At some point during the day that changed. I saw a couple of people online make comments that led me to believe perhaps the storm track had changed or something. I tried to look online to find out, and all I could find was doom, gloom, and death for New England. I started to feel anxious and unsettled again. I choked down my lunch, which sat in my stomach like a rock, the way food does when I am too upset to eat. I go out in our waiting area to try to find an actual updated forecast on the television. Well. I get Governor Patrick's doom, gloom, and death press conference. It does not make me feel better. Since I am done with patients, I decide to leave work early, go to the gym, and do the rest of my storm prep.

At the gym, something happens that has never happened before. I change, I go upstairs, I cannot lift any weights. I literally cannot lift a weight that was on the verge of getting too easy last week. I attempt a few sets, and I just...can't do it. I say a couple bad words, put my dumbbells away, change and leave. It has started to rain. I walk in the rain to CVS because I have a two day only 25% off coupon. I take my three items to the cashier, where they all ring up as on sale (though none of them had signs saying they were on sale or I wouldn't have chosen them) and are thus ineligible for my coupon. I tell the cashier thanks, but I don't want it, and I leave. I get on my bus and I am very close to crying. I am thinking very VERY dark thoughts.

But before I can go home with my very dark thoughts, I must stop at the Happiest Place on Earth, sure to lift my spirits: WalMart! Since I couldn't find my crank flashlight, I go in search of lantern batteries. Everyone has beaten me to them. In fact there is nothing in that store even vaguely flashlight related and the "associates" are repeating so over and over to the approximately 658 people in there with me looking for an artificial light source. I buy trash bags, grape jelly, and light bulbs, and leave. It is still raining as I walk the few blocks home. A man asks me if I would like a ride in his Caddie. I demure, and wonder once again what it is about me that screams, "oh, yes, I do accept rides from probable rapists or serial killers."

At home, I finally find the crank flashlight, sorta right near where I looked for it yesterday (sigh) and then I bring in all my stuff from the patio that I should have done *before* the rains commenced. I check my basement approximately every fifteen minutes to make sure there's no puddles forming. I eat something without bringing it back up. And then I write this post.

How was your day?

xoxo

Friday, August 26, 2011

panic in the disco, part 2

My good friend Mr Indemnity just attempted to talk me in off the hurricane ledge by pointing out to me that this storm will not turn out to be anything worse than a typical nor'easter.

That's easy for people who didn't have trees fall into their driveways this calendar year to say. Have I survived 3-5 inches of rain in this house before, with at worst, some shopvaccing of some puddles in the cellar, and at best, no harm, no foul? Yes. Have we had 50 mile per hour winds that did not snap any trees? Yes. Have we had big storms that did NOT cause us to lose power? Yes. Are these bastard weathermen trying to make me crazier than I already am? Well, most likely it's unintentional. I will say when I was just at Shaws buying fruit, bread, peanut butter, water, and pie, there were people merrily buying huge shopping carts of ice cream and meat. Apparently, they have emergency generators or they are far more laid back than I am. Glass fuckin' half full types, the bastards.

Now I must go find my hand-crank-able flashlight that I know is here somewhere, unless I gave it to charity.

xoxo

Thursday, August 25, 2011

panic in the disco

You can imagine my reaction to the hurricane news. My son, who is watching news center 5 or whatever at 6:30 am texts me that we need to get groceries before the storm. No, sorry, D, we are not going to buy a shitload of perishable food that will rot when we lose our power. We will get some drinks and some fruit and some bread and some peanut butter and cereal and perhaps that milk-in-a-bag and snack food items and more whey. Stuff that does not need to be kept cold nor cooked.

If I didn't already have a tree fall into my driveway this year and if I hadn't already had to shopvac a puddle out of my basement from one of last week's flash floods, I'd be a little more sanguine. Of course, I continue to hope and pray that the storm track changes. It is slated to hit us on Gandhi's birthday, so, y'know, the forcefield of good fortune might be enough to push it way out to sea. Or at least make it lose energy.

So how are your storm preparations coming along? I figure I have to put my plants in the house, along with my bistro set, my Buddha shrine, and all my solar lights. Sandbag my sliders out from the basement to the patio. Pray we do not lose electricity because then I lose the sump pump. Take ativan and cry a lot. I don't know what else to do.

xoxo

Saturday, August 20, 2011

jaw-breaking peanut brittle in the ice cream of life

Evocative Images 101, y'all. Shut up. What I mean to say is, nothing ever goes smoothly.

When I was explaining to Marcy the other day *why* I had to take a nap on Wednesday morning after my electrician dropped by and gave me the bad news, I expressed that I am being worn down by the fact that every fucking thing is a problem. There was the fiasco with my equipment at work, and the pain in the ass with D and MassHealth, and the simple little stove thing turning out to be a big, relatively expensive thing. Things have not been on an upswing since then.

Wednesday after my electrician visit and my nap but before ancient Chinese medicine fucked with my hormones, I got my Rue La La Boston daily email. The deal for the day was a 45 minute soak for two at Inman Oasis for $25, $50 value. I like Inman Oasis. I had a $20 Rue La La credit that I've been holding onto for probably a year and a half, that I got for completing some survey or other. Do the math. It would be stupid not to take the deal. I bought the soak for 5 bucks, woohoo. And then yesterday I realized I hadn't gotten my voucher in email, even though it was supposed to come within 24 hours. I emailed Rue La La. My "concierge" emailed back that he was resending the voucher, to check my spam folder, and to call the 888 number if I didn't get it by today. Guess where I had to call today? And sit on hold? Uh, yeah. Today's concierge told me she had another call about this yesterday. Apparently there was a problem inputting the codes or something and thus the vouchers were not sent in their usual timely manner. But she is positive I will get it by tomorrow. My hopes are not, y'know, high. Grr. This is the most work I have ever had to do for a fucking $5 purchase, lemme tell you that.

Then yesterday, going to leave work. It's pouring! I am not going to walk the fifteen minutes from work to the gym in that, so I retreat to my office to wait for it to let up. It does. About half way there, it starts thundering really loudly again. However, the sky is actually lighter in the direction in which I am walking. I feel safe that I will make it to the Y before storming recommences. Wrong. Three blacks away and the sky opens up and, despite my emergency umbrella, the sideways force of rain ensures that I am completely soaked from the waist down. I walk into the Y looking much like someone who has taken a shower while wearing their clothes and the new girl at the front desk takes that opportunity to inform me that my payment for July did not go through. WTF. It's mid-August and I'm at the gym 5 days a week on average. I'm fairly sure it's that my debit card expired the end of June and they just need the new expiration date. I dry myself off with my complementary towel, change, workout, and when I am going to leave, my dress I wore to work is still so wet, it's impossible to put back on. So I take myself home on public transport wearing yoga shorts that I am vaguely aware might possibly give me camel toe. Because apparently I have no shame, I don't really give a fuck. (But, seriously, what would you do? Put back on soaking wet clothes just in order to preserve some semblance of modesty? Just, no.)

Today I get to work (7:15, Saturday morning) to find that the monitor attached to the piece of equipment we just spent all that money replacing is dead. I place a frantic call to my 8am patient, but they have already left. Luckily, I manage to steal a monitor off another computer that my MDs use and get up and running by the time they arrive, but seriously? When they were telling us the computer on the equipment was so damn old and needed to be replaced, not fixed, why didn't they replace the equally aged monitor too? But I'm sure the adrenaline rush at 7:30am was good for me.

And just a bit ago, I got an email from my son with a video link in it, but, um, no, it's not really from him, so apparently he's got a virus on his netbook. Son of a bitch.

On the plus side, in case you didn't already hear, I won a hundred bucks and some miscellaneous stuff yesterday, and as of last night the money is supposed to be in my Paypal account. I'm kinda scared to check whether it's really there or not, because with the way things have been going, I wouldn't count on it. Sigh.

Is Mercury in retrograde or something?

xoxo

Thursday, August 18, 2011

secrets of ancient chinese medicine

This is going to be a TMI post, so bail now if you need to. I have *got* to tell this to someone and I didn't think I should bring it up at work today. I mean, with the conversations that go on in my office, I probably *could* have, but I decided to err on the side of discretion. Ahem.

Yesterday I went to see Marcy. I was telling her that I'd noticed I'd been feeling a little down, a little depressed, in a flat sort of way. Not sad and crying, not particularly cranky or anxious, just meh. Flat. Well, when she got me on the table, she put four needles at the top of my head, sorta in an north-south-east-west pattern. She said those were "extra points" which were not on a meridian. There's something called the Governing Vessel running up through your body and out the top of your head, and the Chinese believed in stimulating those points to draw energy up whenever you had something that needed to be lifted up. Not only your mood, as in my case, but for instance, they would do the same if you had a prolapsed organ or to prevent miscarriage in a pregnant woman. Marcy said she would definitely NOT do those points on me if I were in one of my anxious phases, because it would probably crank the crazy dial to 11.

I left Marcy's and took the commuter rail back to the gym. Unlike when I had the horrible gym session unwisely lifting right after getting a massage, I figured the hour it would take me to take the Green Line to North Station, then take the train home, then walk to the gym from the station and change clothes would be quite enough time for any post-acupuncture fuzziness to clear. Indeed it was. I killed it, including the shoulder presses I'd been whining to my lifting friends about my lack of progress with last week. Some of that can be attributed to my taking their advice to cut down on my warm up set, but in retrospect, I feel like my energy might have been elevated too.

Came home from the gym and ate a late dinner and was wide awake. Physically tired but very alert. I went to bed to read, hoping that might make me sleepy. As I was reading, I became aware that I was, well, physically aroused. Very physically aroused. To be clear, the novel I was reading, while containing some mild sexual content, was in no way titillating or particularly spicy. Neither was I, or had I been, daydreaming about anything exciting. Anthony Kiedis was not eating ice cream out of my navel in my subconscious, is what I'm saying. I was just physically horny as hell.

One way to take care of that. (Well, technically, more than one, but I only had one way at my disposal. So I used it.) And I think I may have mentioned before, but I am like a dude. Usually an orgasm leaves me satisfied and ready to just roll over and crash. Not yesterday. I was still not sleepy in the least. I turned the light back on and recommenced reading. After a bit I realized that not only was I not sleepy and not getting sleepy, I was still/again aroused and to the point of physical discomfort. Ignoring it and concentrating on my reading did not make it go away. Well, I was really perplexed by this party in my pants, but it was, like I said, uncomfortable, so I went for round two. After which...

Can you see how this story is going? I swear to you all, I ended up finally having to take an ativan to knock me out, because it was 2:30 am and I had to get up for work in the morning.

It makes me wonder...do the Chinese treat erectile dysfunction with those points? Was the ol' penis one of the things this is supposed to elevate? Because I felt like the Cialis warning about the erection lasting four hours or more. I was tempted to email Marcy today and ask.

Anyway, that, boys and girls, is the story of how ancient Chinese medicine turned me into a nymphomaniac. Let's just hope tonight is one and done.

xoxo

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

oh, look

It's 7:45 and my electrician has come and gone. Is my breaker fixed? No. Why not? Because the problem is not the breaker. Really? I thought the appliance guy was 99.9% sure that's what it was. Well, he's not an electrician, is he?

Do you wanna know what the problem really is? The problem really is that when this fucking poorly designed money pit of a fucking house was built, they put the wrong wiring in for the stove. The wire is only supposed to handle 40 amps(?-I think amps) and my stove draws 50. And according to my electrician, they usually put in a wire that can handle 60, just y'know, to cover all the bases. He could not explain to me how my stove has thus been working, mostly, for the past 7 years since I bought it except [blah blah blah mumbo jumbo] but I felt the wire when they had the panel open and it was scary warm. Sigh. He's going on vacation next week, but then we can set up a time for him to come back and put in new wiring. It should only take two or three hours. Sigh.

Meanwhile, more sandwiches! Woohoo!

Here's some cat pictures. That always, y'know, calms me.





xoxo

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

ah, the 70s...ah, puberty

I mentioned the electrician's coming tomorrow? I decided to be nice and clean 90% of the crap up away from where he will have to work in my garage. Yes, I know my dad has been dead a year, but I *still* haven't completely gotten all his junk outta there. ::cough:: Hoarders.::cough:: I did the worst of it and then ran out of steam. But just now I did a whole bunch more.

And I found, believe it or not, a whole cardboard box of photos that I am sure have been sitting right there since 1995. Needless to say, 99.9% of them had been ruined by sitting in a box in a garage for over 15 years, but there was one remarkably unfaded baby picture of moi, a picture of my mom and me in front of the Acropolis circa 1971 (my mom has long hair, which I do not ever remember her having, and is thin, which, ditto) that I was totally unaware of the existence of, and then there was this:




my 8th grade graduation class picture, name of the school covered up to protect the privacy of my fellow dorky classmates who would wish to deny this image is of them. Is the picture quality too bad, or can you pick me out? Hint: I am wearing something I re-bought in a different color 30+ years later. The tallest boy in the back row, next to our (tall, blond) teacher? He was my first "boyfriend", the first guy I ever made out with, and the first one that ever touched my boobs. He had a very tragic family life and later appeared on TV on Candlepins for Cash at least once. I do not remember if he won. The red-haired girl and the skinny little girl on the far left were my BFFs, though obviously that last "F" was inaccurate. The red-haired girl became a lawyer, but is not mayor of any cities in Massachusetts. I have no idea what happened to the skinny girl.

I was looking at this picture and thinking, wow, either the 70s were a cruel decade or age 13 is tough and awkward, because have you ever seen such a collection of unattractive dorks? At least two or three of those girls grew up to be stunningly pretty--within the next couple of years, even--but you really can't prove it by this.

I like my outfit, though. Like I said, I bought part of it again.

xoxo




Monday, August 15, 2011

tying up the updates

The more I look at this blog title, the more it doesn't make sense and/or seems vaguely like a dirty pun. And don't you hate when you type or write a word enough that it doesn't look like a real word anymore? There's got to be a name for that. That doesn't look like a word. Oh, I crack myself up. Not changing the blog title. Onward!

1.) Finally got word from MassHealth that they have received enough information about D's case and he does NOT need this further evaluation that was scheduled for Labor Day weekend (which, btw, WTF? what kind of psychotherapist works on Labor Day weekend? a bad one, I am sure!). Anyway, that's one tiny bit o' stress off my plate.

2.) The appliance repair guy came and looked at my stove last week and confirmed what was my original thought. Not the stove. He was 99.9% sure it's a bad breaker. My electrician is coming Wednesday to fix said breaker. If it turns out to be the breaker. If it turns out to be something more complicated, he may not be able to do it Wednesday. This is impacting my ability to cook, since I am afraid to use more than one burner at a time, but no one ever died from eating sandwiches, I say.

3.) I had my last session with Liz Friday. I hugged her. I'm not entirely sure she was ready for that. We touchy-feely massage therapist type people really need to remember that not everyone is down with our hugging bullshit. Especially after all the boundary lectures we also were forcefed. But, no, I don't think I traumatized her.

4.) I have seen such remarkable things on public transport and around town lately. There was the very nicely dressed and groomed and actually quite beautiful 40-ish woman who was wearing one dirty(!) man's winter glove with the rest of her lovely ensemble. There was the woman with the baby stroller on the bus who, to her credit, folded up the handicapped seat and parked the stroller there, but nevertheless still managed to park it halfway into the aisle. Her (I'm sorry, but) fat friend then sat across from it, further sticking out into the aisle, such that there was now about 6 inches of clearing. And every time someone trying to squeeze past inadvertently bumped the stroller, the woman would loudly make vicious comments about them. [I don't think her lovely little baby is going to grow up to be a nice person, but eh. Stranger things have happened.] Then there was yet in another long line of egregiously-lying-on-the-cell-phone peeps. Woman calmly told her caller that, yes, of course she was at home and where else did he think she would be? Oh! And Scott and Courtney, i.e. Inappropriate PDA Gym Couple, are apparently back to being a real item, because he referred to her as his girlfriend the other day. This was when he was on a treadmill two down from me the other day and was having a conversation with the guy next to him in which he called the other guy by his first name every other sentence. Scott is, in case this isn't yet apparent to you, a bit of a douche. Nevertheless, I hope those crazy kids make it. Or not.

Happy Monday!

xoxo

P.S. I published this first on the wrong blog and OMFG I knew that was gonna happen some time. Perimenopause is still kicking my ass.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

london calling

I must say, the rioting in England has taken me by surprise. This is mainly due to the fact that with my VAST knowledge of the modern UK gleaned mainly from watching lots of British sitcoms, scifi shows, and movies, I thought that a.) it was less...arduous...being poor there than it is here and b.) there is less racial tension.

Example of the latter? Let's take Dr Who and Rose and Mickey's relationship. That fact that theirs is an interracial relationship seems totally unremarked and unremarkable. In American TV, interracial relationships even in 2011 seem to be shown either To Make A Point or else to prove how hip and liberal the writers and producers are that they aren't making a point of it. Know what I mean? But Rose's boyfriend being a black kid seems to have no more relevance than if her boyfriend were a tall kid or a freckled kid or whatever. If Rose's mother dislikes him initially, it's because he's kind of a hapless slacker, not because he's a different race than her daughter. Also from Dr Who, we have Martha, beautiful black medical student/doctor from upper middle class family who saves the world. At least once. There is nothing about how her character is written that suggests her role couldn't have been cast with a white woman or an Asian woman. All of this, and many other examples, led me to believe (apparently wrongly) that race is much more of a non-issue in the UK than it is here.

Evidence for the former? Well, let's return to Rose and Mickey and the council estate they live in. Compare it to, oh, the projects in The Wire. Where would you rather live? I'm not saying that if you were Rose, you *wouldn't* jump at the chance to travel time and space with a mysterious man and his magical box/spaceship. I'm just saying you might be just fine living in her little apartment, fine enough that you wouldn't feel compelled to deal heroin and shoot people in order to maybe make it out of there. Pretty much any time they show where the "poor people" live in British TV or movies (the squat in Trsinsspotting being a notable exception), my reaction is the same. It's like, eh. Looks pretty nice. I could go fifteen minutes from my house right now and find you places that make those council estates look like luxury housing.

It's also sort of my impression from lots and lots of British media that it is possible to go on the dole there and stay on forever, and while I am quite sure that there is something very demoralizing and aimless about not having a job, having no prospects for ever having a job, or having no hope of ever having a satisfying, interesting job, the fact that there is a safety net in place and that you *will* always have at least a place to live and enough money to feed yourself and your family seems a lot better than here, where I think most of us Americans feel deep down in some corner of our souls that we are just one long period of unemployment or one devastating illness away from losing everything, and that if we don't/didn't have family to rescue us, we could be on the streets.

I hope this post doesn't come off as jokey about a very sad and serious situation, but honestly, I wanted to point out how ignorant of reality you (by which I mean me) can be when you form your impressions based solely on what the media presents to you and not on any real life experience or first-hand knowledge.

And just because I brought it up and you cannot argue with an absolute classic:



xoxo

Friday, August 5, 2011

salem farmers market and updates

So. The summer that I was working for those evil criminal massage bastards who stole our money I used to, on occasion, go through Copley Square when they were having the big farmers' market there on Tuesdays. Usually I could not buy anything as I was on my way to work or some compulsory meeting for which I was not getting paid despite my commuting costs thus incurred. But the following summers, once I started seeing Marcy, I was again often in Copley on a Tuesday afternoon and could partake of the many lovely and often organic veggies.

Well, it came to my attention last summer that they were having a farmers' market on Thursday afternoons in Salem. I meant to check it out, but that never happened. Yesterday however I wandered down there after work. I would highly recommend it. I got tomatoes and cucumbers and tiny yellow potatoes (D's been wistfully wondering if I'd ever make mashed potatoes again, heh) and these double chocolate chocolate chip brownies. All very delicious. There were many other things to check out: live lobsters, the When Pigs Fly bread people, local honey, etc. I will be back.

Meanwhile certain things have gotten resolved or at least partially resolved with all my stressful phone calling and emailing. Let's see. MassHealth Disability Determination did indeed get the medical records from Eliot Community Human Services. (I'm so frustrated with them, I'ma just not redact their name like I usually would, so there.) However as of yesterday morning at 11 am when I spoke to the receptionist at Disability Determination, he was still going to be required to go to the evaluation in Cambridge scheduled for tomorrow, as they still did not have enough information. I started questioning the receptionist re this--she would have characterized it as arguing, I am sure--and she asked whether I would like to speak to the person who is reviewing D's case, who is named Lisa. Oh, yes, please. I get her voicemail, leave message, hang up and start cancelling my day of patients for Saturday. Lisa calls me back after 3-ish. She tells me that the records from Eliot weren't really comprehensive enough for her to get an idea of D's level, but that she has a call into D's NP/prescriber. Which is stellar. And oh, the appointment for Saturday has been rescheduled for September and we should be getting a letter about that. Let's process this: 4 hours earlier I was told Saturday's appointment was a go *and* if they sent a letter it would have to come today (Friday) or else, if I hadn't talked to her, we'd have gone to Cambridge for nothing tomorrow. As it is, I took a day off work for nothing. However, all frustration with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Eliot Community aside, this woman Lisa seemed very nice and seemed to be insinuating that once she talked to D's clinician, that September appointment will not have to happen.

Meanwhile my passive aggressive email to Nick and CJ with the fake smiley attached got them to my house to mow the grass yesterday bright and early.

And then--and this is actually good customer service--we started having that problem with the stove again that I've literally had happen sporadically for the past 3 years. Sometimes for no apparent reason whatsoever, if I use too many burners at once or preheat the oven too high, it shuts itself off. It does not blow the circuit breaker, but if I wait a moment, go out to the garage and flip the breaker off and on, the power to stove will resume. The alarming thing is that sometimes when this happens, the circuit breaker is warm to the touch. After having it happen last week and making me freak out that we would have an electrical fire, I finally figured out who the nice electrician I had gotten to install my chandelier and my new outlets a couple years ago and emailed him, asking whether he thought it was a wiring or a stove problem. And he very promptly emailed me back later that night, told me he thought it was a stove problem, and why, recommended an appliance repair shop to me in case I needed one, and said of course, if I still wanted him to come take a look, he would. I'm thinking a lot of guys would have, instead of giving me free advice, come out to take a look, charged me for it, then told me it was the stove. (So if you need an electrician on the lower North Shore, lemme know and I'll drop his name.) Then I was able to call the appliance guys (not the ones he recommended, because there's a really well-known reputable place less than a mile from my house) and set up an appointment for Tuesday.

So some of the stuff that has been giving me a stomachache is resolved or at least tabled, and my new equipment at work is *finally* doing what it's supposed to do, and I got my office painted and they didn't screw up anything while they were doing it! We won't talk about all the other stuff that's still a mess. We'll just focus on the small triumphs, 'k?

Hope your Friday is full of small triumphs and good customer service and people who will actually help you when it's their job to do so!

xoxo

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

oh, hai, kids

Happy August. I'm feeling all unsettled, anxious and depressed and paralyzed today. I wish I were one of those famous people with personal assistants such that I could say, "You! Call so and so and get x straightened out!" and "You! Email so and so and get y resolved!" and "You! Tell so and so that z is totally unacceptable and don't take any more excuses." Is having someone to delegate every unpleasant and anxiety-producing task in life to too much to ask for???!!??!!? Please. And, lol.

In other news--and here's how smart I am--I got a pretty bad sunburn on my upper back/shoulders/chest from walking around in a tank top on Sunday. When I go to the beach, I put on SPF 1733. When I go outside not to the beach, I put on nothing. It doesn't matter whether there is sand underfoot or not, Andrea, it's the same fucking sun in the sky. Sigh. 48 years old, college graduate, IQ breaking triple digits, and I still haven't quite figured that out yet.

And let's bitch about Target. I bought a cheapy dress there this weekend. I got it home and could not zip it over my ::ahem:: huge lats (i.e. fat). I returned it for the next size up. Which is too big. Are they trying to fuck with me or what?

And then let's bitch about mother nature. I am pretty sure all the flowers I planted in my backyard are dead or on their way to, while despite Roundup, the weeds on the patio are thriving. If I am destined to kill all plant life I encounter, can't I least kill the shit I *don't* want too? (CJ and Nick seemed to have deserted me, btw, after I expressed a gentle complaint about something. Seriously, I didn't bitch them out or anything. I just said I would rather b than a. Fucking landscapers. That's another email I gotta send. Sigh.)

Now I am going to put on something that is not my bathrobe and go check my mail. Perhaps there is good news in it. More likely there are bills and more aggravation.

Kisses.

xoxo