Last Days
These last days are harder than I thought they would be. And tomorrow is It. I worked with all my oldest work buddies today, we laughed and cried together. My office mate the last two weeks was the nurse who showed me the ropes and trained me to do clinical lead on the rehab unit. She hasn’t recovered from chemotherapy. It’s her second breast cancer rodeo. I’m terrified she will die before her grandson’s are young men.
Another helpful parenting tip from June
Thank goodness school starts tomorrow. Beav has been out of school since December 20th and well before that his room had reached the point of: “Dude, I think a small animal died in hear a week ago. But we may never find it because the enemy spy organization left such a mess when they tossed it looking for that micro fiche.”
But how do you discipline an 18 year old who is old enough to tip strippers, vote or march off to war? I’ve been through this conundrum before and there isn’t an easy answer. Fortunately, I’m imaginative and have an inner Evil Genius I can access out of desperation. I devised the perfect punishment and was a little disappointed I didn’t get to use it because the kid finally “cleaned” his room. (At least it didn’t look like it was the scene from a Bourne film) I guess in a few weeks I’ll get to say these words:
“Son, if you don’t clean your room, you have to drive me to Nordstroms and sit quietly with me while I try on–what seems like–every pair of shoes in my size.”
Brilliant, eh?
Feel free to use this consequence if you need to.
From The Way Back Machine: mmmm yummy shoe…
Luckily I’ve managed to keep my foot out of my mouth at this year’s parties. Not so much a couple of years ago.
The other night at my favorite event of the year–a friend’s Boxing Day pot luck–I did one of my best jobs putting my foot not only in my mouth but all the way down my throat and into my right lung. I was having a perfectly nice conversation with a couple of people and we were talking urban gardening and compost and a little of this and a little of that and one thing led to another and this woman who I then noticed was one of those strident aging hippy types that puts my teeth on edge because everything they have done is so vitally important; and they have done so much to improve life on this planet. People like this make me want to turn my head and pantomime a finger down my throat. We were discussing a lovely hand ground bread. Ms. A is standing next to me engaged in another conversation but something caught her attention and she leans in and said something like: “Ohhhh how Waldorfian of you.”
Is was at this point I slipped my shoe off.
“Ah you know Waldorf” Strident Poncho clad woman remarked.
I had my shoe in my hand near my chin. A had turned back to her conversation leaving me to fuck this up all on my own.
“Twenty years ago Me and A were professional Mommies and so we made the decision of the appropriate preschool resemble a bloody pulpy horse’s carcass.”
Poncho Hippy eyebrows flew into her salt and pepper hairline just above her forehead easily about three inches higher than they normally rest as she let out a rehearsed chuckle:
“How dear of you! What did you think of Waldorf?”
I’m surprised I could say the following clearly, what with my Clark mary jane lodged firmly between my teeth. My shoe was so tasty I didn’t notice her firmly set jaw as she spoiled for a fight defending the Waldorfian way of life.
“My gut feeling was this wasn’t a good fit for my son and I was completely right. There was this guy in the neighborhood had this whole shtick about gathering the children in a circle so they could make dirt and sing songs about making dirt. He did it in a baby voice, too. It was terribly funny at the time.”
But not so funny this time.
Thank God I didn’t go on with a guffaw and giggle about the riff A performed at a musical performance when we noted a sullen little girl in a whimsical outfit sitting with parents in badly hand knit accessories. And how we were shushed for laughing after I leaned in and whispered: “Waldorf” and she replied in a hurt little girl voice: “But mommy I just want to go home and weave.”
I was settling into my shoe and didn’t pay terribly close attention as Hippy Poncho Woman laughed nervously and offered up a story of having all her Waldorf children in for the holidays and how their friends from school came over and weren’t they all just the most creative and clever bunch of young adults. And I couldn’t hear her further defense of this Austrian model founded on the premise of the Whole Child with interdisciplinary approaches paying special attention to developmental milestones because the chewing was loud in my ears. The Shoe Ambrosia also lowered any filters I had for diplomacy.
“Yeah but not learning to read until eight or nine and only discovering then your child has a learning disability puts them at huge disadvantage when you have to send them off to mainstream public school because Waldorf can not meet their ‘special needs‘. It’s tricky business if your child has learning disabilities.”
The conversation was declared over when she tossed off in an even and practiced tone: “It’s always so enjoyable to make fun of things we don’t understand.”
I didn’t realize Passive-Aggression was one of the Milestones taught at The Denver Waldorf school.
Fortunately, I kept my foot out of my mouth the rest of the evening and I think I even managed to NOT insult anyone else.
From The Way Back Machine: Need a little Christmas
I’m enjoying my Christmas music but I’m not saying if I’m jumping around the living room with a candle ring on my head.
Thanks to the miracle of middle 20th Century medicine, I woke up this morning feeling like a human and this song immediately came to mind as I contemplated the things I want to accomplish before we celebrate our Christmas on the 27th. Be warned, you should probably just read the blog and not look at the video. Nothing happens in the video, except blinking lights which may or may not induce seizure in those with a low epileptic threshold.
But I had to include it for today’s little story because it is my second favorite Christmas song. It was one of our many Christmas albums but not the ones we bought at the Firestone when we lived in Conroe, Texas. Isn’t that silly? A tire company putting out albums of Christmas songs and carols by contemporary artists. “Contemporary” meaning singers like Robert Goulet, Steve and Edie, Andy Williams and his murderess wife Claudine Longet, and always Johnny Mathis. Johnny Mathis was my secret love with I was ten. I discovered in my early twenties that my mother’s decade earlier proclamation–after my true love confession–I could never marry Johnny was not driven by racism but because he was gay. For ten years, I thought it was the race thing and I harbored a secret shame my mother was a racist. So what’s the bigger tragedy here that I somehow missed the fact Johnny Mathis was a big old queen? (the girl sweater he wore on his Christmas album should have given it away) Or I thought my mother was a racist?
Discuss.
BUT LOOK AWAY FROM THE LIGHTS!
Anyhow, I love this song and I remember when I was given permission to gently play albums on the stereo how careful I had to be to not bounce the needle or I would hear a big “SCREEECHHH” through the speakers followed by a shouted admonishment from somewhere else in the house. This was one of the songs I liked to play this song over and over again and dance to it.
Have I mentioned my mother would turn our home into a Winter Wonderland and every surface in the house was covered with a Christmas themed decoration? It was like the Sears decorating department had moved into our house between November 28th-ish and January 2nd. Did I also mention I wasn’t supposed to touch anything? Do you know how hard that is for an eight year old who needs props for her musical dance numbers?
Anyhow, I would put the Firestone Family Christmas album on and bounce the needle from song to song while dancing around the house. “Winter Wonderland” was a Follies type number, usually with a table wreath balanced precariously on my head. “Let It Snow” was an ice stating performance in the “marble” foyer. “Do You Hear What I Hear” was an interpretive ballet that would have either delighted Isadora Duncan or horrified her depending on how much opium she had ingested. But “We Need A Little Christmas” was a boisterous number that featured me flying around the house like an ADHD kid who cheeked her meds and found plowed through the fudge stash. In between the flying around, pulling together Christmas, I would act out the words complete with finger wagging as an effort to admonish my invisible audience to get their Christmas on that very minute and drag show worthy lip syncing when the chirpy singer says: “it hasn’t snowed a flake!”
No wonder my mother had to lay down for a nap every afternoon.
From The Way Back Machine: Road Trip
I had so much fun on my solo trip in the midwest I talked TG into a weekend in Kansas! Some people spend the weekend in Monaco but we went to Kansas.
It’s summer vacation in my world and summer means road trips. I haven’t taken a real road trip in years. I’ve driven to New Mexico and Texas but I haven’t taken one of those cross country trips in over a decade. I’m thinking this summer might be the time to load up the MINI van and drive East just to see what I can see. Penciling it into the schedule is going to be tricky: between Oldest Friend coming for a visit, the Denver County Fair, and that pesky job; I’m already closely booked but I could manage something just after Beav’s birthday in August.
I want to see this place again. It’s the prefect roadside attraction. The house is haunted and the cafe in Lucas is to die for. If I made this trip in late August I would be treated to the sunflowers at full bloom.
I want to meander through little towns in Iowa. The last time I drove through the Midwest, it was a forced march to the Twin Cities and Iowa was a blur in the middle of the night. I have this vision of quiet little towns, green sweeps of lawn in front of picturesque houses all of which have a mandatory front porch and swing.
I want to see the vast fields in southern Minnesota and maybe take another nap in the deep silence of a very hot afternoon. I pulled the Mitz over, opened all the doors and slept for about an hour in the back of the truck. It was peaceful, hot and almost otherworldly when I awakened to the golden light of late afternoon near wheat fields.
I want to swing further to the east and experience Wisconsin, maybe stopping in Pepin where there is no doubt a tribute to Laura Ingalls. Wisconsin sounds like it would be forests which give way to endless cornfields (I’ve never seen them, just heard rumors of them). I want to compare the towns of rural Indiana to rural Iowa and to see if there is a difference between here or there. I will loop my way south of Chicago to avoid the traffic and congestion as to not spoil my palate for Indiana.
I want to drive down Ohio, into Appalachia. I’ve never been to Ohio before. I want to hear fire and brimstone preachers on crackly AM radio deep in the night. I’ve been across highway 81 through the Appalachian mountains to Gettysburg Pennsylvania. That was the first road trip I took as an “adult” and saw the landscape unwind from the front seat rather than the backseat of the family car. From Pennsylvania we went across to New Jersey, New York and Atlantic City. I was just old enough to gamble and drink and I felt like such an adult. What a long trip, I’m so happy I flew home.
I want to push my way back through Pennsylvania and into upstate New York so I can stop and sit in the cool shade of a friend’s yard in her little town. A town I imagine to have a square and a cafe where we can sit and spy on the old guys who gossip more than the high school girls hanging out in the park just down the road. Maybe she will take me to a minor league ballgame while I’m there.
I want to drive along the western edge of Maine where there are only blue roads. I’ve only been to Kennebunkport for a day when I was sixteen. What I remember most was how the fog made the huge homes along the shore all look like Manderly in Rebecca. I longed to stop and explore each one of those huge family houses. They were always completely silent, the only sounds were my footfall and the ticking of an ancient clock.
I want to turn the car around at Presque Isle which isn’t an island but a tiny dot on the map near the Canadian border. The people there would look suspiciously at my dusty blue van with its green and white license plates and they would politely ask if were from “these parts”. I imagine this little place to be carved out of the forest, literally a wide spot in the road.
I want to meander my way down the eastern seaboard making a right turn at Connecticut so I could graze the edges of western Pennsylvania; stopping at farm stores and stands for Shoo Fly Pies, brooms and preserves. When I reach Baltimore–the place that is a pleasant mix of Southern and Eastern sensibility–I would find blue highways to drop into North Carolina to see how their BBQ sauces stand up against “Howdy” (my dad’s sauce).
I want to drive the full length of Tennessee like we did when I was really young and I spent more than a day asking if we were “someplace else”. Texas was the only state I had been to which took longer than a day to cross and Tennessee seemed endless to my eight year old imagination.
I want to swing down into Mississippi and drive the old roads where you can catch traces of a terrible past that should provoke shame and a heartfelt apology. I want to see the wet heat shimmer off little highway 16 just outside of Midnight. Midnight will be worth seeing just for the poetry of the name. Once upon a time in Montana I discovered a place called Rivulet and to Ward’s credit we went hours off our track to Canada to find a place with the name of the path left by a raindrop. Rivulet was gone, the forest had hidden any traces of a town or settlement. The ferns were thick and the ground loamy. It would have been a sweet place for a town. I wonder what happened to it.
I want to drive through Louisiana, a place I’ve never been and a place which doesn’t register anywhere on the map of places I want to see before I die. I imagine it as endless boggy low country and oil refineries. I want to be wrong about this and instead charmed by the people, the music and food and feeling like cost for such a nice surprise is braving the cross town traffic in Houston after where I10 turns into one huge highway in a mass of other huge highways. The interchanges had “cute” names when I was a little girl. I wonder if I10 was part of the Spaghetti Bowl. I remember being disappointed the day we were in the spaghetti bowl and it wasn’t actual spaghetti.
I want to drive across South Texas. Hug my dad and my stepmother’s neck before I push west for a peek at Marfa, a place which fascinates me because it has popped up from a simple idea and one gallery. Marfa is the symbol of our marvelous century: where your office can be held in a laptop computer. You can live and work anywhere. Even if anywhere is a one-horse town in the middle of the Texas desert.
I want to make my way up the interior of New Mexico avoiding a certain hypnosis which settles in on the last days of a trip. But this hypnosis is inevitable in southern New Mexico which in some ways is more “magical” than northern New Mexico. I know someone who swears he witnessed Falcon Gods marching across the mesas outside of Bayoud on 180. The farthest south of Albuquerque is Truth or Consequences. One would think I would plan an entire trip around this deeply existential name but I have been there. I will admit when we drove through there I was waiting for something magnificent and being a nine year old and impatient with the backseat and an older sister I could not find beauty in the strip shopping center and a cheesy sign welcoming me. I was expecting someone to stop our car and ask us questions but I shuddered to think what the consequences would be in that tiny town plopped in the middle of a mesa. Probably more water skiing in an lake the temperature of water from the ‘frig; and I had already suffered through that. Perhaps if I had been pressed and the truth was revealed I could go back to the lake and feel the power and the speed of the boat as it streamed through the glassy water surrounded by otherworldly rock formations.
I want to stop for a green chili lunch at the Shed in Santa Fe; a cocktail and local music at The Taos Inn before the last part of the trip the familiar part of the trip transpires. The familiar part is the worst part. I hate the last few hundred miles of a long trip. I can’t find language to describe my impatience with those last miles. It just is.
I want to zoom through southern Colorado to shrug off my impatience and remember the reason I dislike the Colorado Springs Trinidad corridor is because it’s the last few hundred miles before home. I will have to battle to stay awake and fight disorientation because five days before I was surrounded by molten blacktop just outside of Midnight, Mississippi a few miles north of Yazoo City.
Pesky job interfers with my vacation plans for the summer.
From The Way Back Machine: Everyone’s Got One
My bucket list
I had one of those Bad Days at work yesterday things happened that wouldn’t have happened if people just did their damn jobs properly, punctually and efficiently…grumble…moan…whine…grumble…
But enough of me in Battle Axe mode because complaining about it won’t help or fix it or change anything other than maybe increase the stress related pains in my neck and shoulders. I would much rather write about something fun and trite like our bucket list. One of my friends thinks the whole Bucket List thing is morbid and sad but to me it’s a positive and hopeful thing having a bucket list. The Girl had equal input on this list:
Places to see
Phuket Thailand
Miami Florida
Key West
Hollywood California
South of France
Barcelona Spain
Rhodes Greece
Corfu Greece
Athens Greece
Florence Italy
India (the southern coasts east and west plus Taj Mahal and the Kahjuraho temples)
Merida Mexico
Oaxaca Mexico
Oamaru New Zealand
(note the many places by the water last summer me and TG decided all vacations must include water because that‘s what we love the most)
Things to do and experience
Live outside of the US
Visit Oldest Friend in her faraway home
Rent a house for a month or more in Southern France
Swim with manatees (this might happen sooner rather than later)
Write a mushy sappy romance novel
Just write for a living
Full moon party on a beach somewhere in the world
Elephant trek
Volunteer at an elephant refuge for a couple of days
See the aurora borealis
I think we can fit all this in. I’m sure of it.
From The Way Back Machine: Weather Whining
My annual Old Man Winter whine from way back
“Minnesota Snowy Road” jmagnus at creativecommons.com
I’m cold and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of wearing my big Irish sweaters, turtle necks and long pants. I wouldn’t mind if I could just wear jeans and a light weight cardigan but this constant bundling up is wearing me the hell out. I’m tired of looking like Ellen Degeneres’s not so talented little sister. I want to look girly and cute ALL YEAR ROUND not just four months out of the year. If I wanted a wardrobe of Sorels and flannel I would live in Portland. Right? I haven’t bothered to Google our weather stats because I’m afraid to find out it really isn’t any colder this year and all I’m suffering from is a diminished tolerance for winter. The Girl is tired of it too. And she’s from almost Canada where its cold and wet plus she went to college in Chicago. That takes serious weather tolerance. I have friends who live across western Canada and their temperature reports from Edmonton (-15 F) and Regina (-25F with high winds!) leave me quivering and weeping in a corner. On the bright side: it’s almost five pm and there is still light in the west plus it was in the forty’s today which makes it probably the warmest day in about a month. (don’t tell me I’m wrong and actually it was 40 a week ago Thursday because you’ll just harsh my weather whine) I thought I was getting a respite this week in Texas but it’s actually going to be colder there on Friday than it will be here. What. The. Hell? I have to lug my stupid sweaters and a big coat with me to Texas? Fortunately, relief is on the way and in twenty-nine days I’ll be thawing out on a beach. I picture us getting off the airplane and slowly melting –like Frosty the Snowman–until there wasn‘t anything but a pile of wet wool, fleece and polypro. Two years ago, one of the caretakers where we stay was helping us with our luggage and I had my big ass puffy down jacket looped under my duffle bag straps. He pointed at it, looking at me like it was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen. It turns out he didn’t realize it was cold enough where we live to warrant a down jacket because his employers live much further north and don’t bring such things with them. Probably because they are accustomed to the cold.
Whatever. I’m not nor will I ever be.
Drastic times call for drastic measures and God bless the Internets. In fact, I think finding the Akumal beach cam was an act of God because it happened by shear chance. And such serendipity has saved our sanity. Or has it? Because now I’m obsessed. And horrors of horrors, I popped on to the beach and to my dismay, the camera had been moved and was directed not out towards the water but straight down so some delinquent or Frat Rat could write in the sand: “Hi Mom from the Mayan Rivera”. Well isn’t that sweet but I don’t give a flying F through a rolling donut about “Mom” , I need to see some dappled, gentle ebbing water and half dressed people basking in the sun! People who get to take off their Irish and expose their pale sickly white winter skin to the glorious rays of the dangerous and deadly sun. Bastards, moving the camera like that. I goaded The Girl into emailing the Akumal restaurant where the web cam lives to explain the paramount importance of fixing the camera as an effort to maintain our sanity over the next 696 hours before we are basking in the sun and writing messages to people in the sand. They fixed it.
The web cam madness doesn’t stop at Akumal. Nope. I visit Castaway Island (NOT the one at Disney Land) and watch the very lucky (and wealthy–because ho boy it’s spendy to just get there from Auckland!) sun worshippers. After dark at my house, I can visit Phuket and watch a live stream of the Indian Ocean from a beach. I considered emailing that hotel to explain the importance of cleaning the salt tang off the lens so I can have a clearer view of the surf and sand. A mic would be nice, too. But then I could just download ocean sounds to go with my viewing. Beach viewing 24/7 at my house.
The Girl will probably come home from work next week and find me splayed out in a lawn chair in the middle of the living room, Mai-Tai in hand, Paulina Rubio blasting as I watch my tiny screen shot of perfect blue water kissing perfect white sand. But I’ll keep a coat over my bathing suit.
I’m not that crazy because it would cost elevendy thousand dollars to heat our house to a balmy 80 degrees.
See ya’ at the beach!
From The Way Back Machine: Ugly Sweater Chronicles
A couple of years ago we had an ugly sweater contest and I’m chuffed to say mine won!
Sunday afternoon as we were leaving the house for our Harry Potter movie outing, Beav pipes up: “So are we gonna have a Christmas tree?”
“Not unless you put it up. Everything is waiting for you to bring upstairs.”
“Wait, do we still have that little tree from The Crackshack?”
“Nope.”
“Guess we aren’t having a tree are we.”
“Yup.”
But just to reassure everyone I’m not a total scrooge, I upcycled this awesome Christmas sweater today for our unit Christmas party tomorrow (yes, there is a tacky sweater contest, I haven’t lost my mind…yet). I’m thinking I’ll wear it Christmas eve just to see if Beav or Wally say anything to me about it.
As I waved and aimed my glue gun at the sweater this evening I remembered one of the first Stepford Knolls Babysitting Co-Op events I attended way back in ’93. Beav was just a bun in the oven and Wally was a busy three year old. It was an evening affair and everyone was dripping in sequins or glitzy/festive/storybook sweaters. (I went the tasteful oversized silk blouse and leggings route, I was preggers) But Whoa!! Hold the phone Nellie! Those sweaters were all vying for both “Most Festive” and “Most Tacky” award. And what I wouldn’t have given to have found just one of those damn sweaters today at the thrift storeS I poked around. There must have been a run of tacky holiday sweaters this year and after the fourth store I got a little obsessed and wandered around parts of town I’ve never seen in my life looking for undiscovered thrift stores. I was about to give up when I found a great cache of sweaters. But before my score, I was so desperate, I almost called one of the members of the Stepford Knolls Housewife Cabal to see if she still had her sweater with the crewel stitched Christmas tree lights (the old school big ones) festooning the neck of the sweater which was just so jolly and sweet you almost forgot to look at the Christmas tree scene emblazoned across her chest and the piles of toys decorating the back. I wish I could remember the back more clearly but I’ll be in my advanced stages of dementia before I forget that seizure inducing sweater front. The ornaments on the tree were outlined in sequins and there was GENUINE GOLD thread as garland looping its way from branch to branch. Under the tree were gaily (in the cheerful sense of the word; no gay person in their right mind would wear this sweater unless it was to a Tacky Sweater party) wrapped presents with three dimensional bows on the tops of the packages with–you guessed it–SEQUINS!!! I’m surprised it wasn’t wired for light and sound. Which frankly, looking back on it, if you had pressed her right sleeve it would have been cool if the barking dog version of “Jingle Bells” had started playing and the star at the top of the tree had lit up and blinked. That sweater was just so precious I wanted to puke on it.
Somehow for so many reasons, I don’t think this cabal member would be happy to hear from me: “Hey, It’s June, Remember me?!! How in the Hell are you??? I’m the one who left her husband and is gay…yeah…me. Anyhow, Remember that ridiculously tacky sweater you had…ok one of the ridiculously tacky sweaters you had. . .”
That Christmas party was also the first time I had encountered the whole steal your neighbor’s present gift exchange. Oh. My. God. A couple of the women who blathered on about what good Christians they were every other day of the year were not very Christlike at this party. Their sweaters might have exuded the spirit of Jesus and the gift of the Son but their behavior was a little on the side of Lucifer the fallen angel. In fact, two of the Cabal had such a heated exchange over a bowl from Target they were still not speaking to each other at the Poolside Big Ass Drinking Festival the following July. I’m surprised there weren’t restraining orders
Department of First World Problems Take 3,255,999
Our very la-tee-dah espresso maker blew a gasket the day we returned from our trip. It started spewing and dripping extraordinarily hot coffee on our hands which made the delicious brown wake up juice experience a double whammy; having 102 degree water spit at your hand just before dawn wakes you up almost as thoroughly as the caffeine. As the resident spaz, I assumed it was spewing on me because I didn’t apply the coffee grounds thingy appropriately. But when I heard the exclamations of early morning pain emoting from TG, I knew something was wrong because MacGyver The Girl knows her way around gadgets and doesn’t accidently eff them up. Sure, she has been known to break a window throwing rocks at a rabbit. . .
Two weeks later, the gasket still hasn’t arrived. I have to suffer through with the Krups drip coffee maker. What the Hell? Where’s the gasket? Sure sure people have lost their homes, prized possessions and priceless family heirlooms in the Frankenstorm. But until their fancy Italian coffee maker has blown a gasket leaving at the mercy of the low rent Krups coffee pot they don’t know the real loss of having to stand next to a coffee pot that slowly s-l-o-w-l-y dripsdripsdripsdrips when the cute little Italian number sits quietly in her corner of the kitchen waiting for her simple little $1.49 gasket.
Hi Honey I’m Home!
Finally.
Finally my scattered brain can manage to sit down and compose a coherent thought. At least a list of thoughts.
I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the idea I was in India a couple of weeks ago. I came home to a full plate of work, a dusty house, Christmas begging to be taking care of, and a kid with senioritis. Who can blame him, he got into the college of his choice with a swell financial package, and he would have to kill a man to lose his entrance. But that would mean he had the motivation to actually get out of bed and do something. So nah…he’s not going to kill a man. Beav will make it college despite his half-assed attendance the last two weeks. Hell they still let me into college and my attendance record was worse than Wally’s (this is an achievement)
So much happened while I was on the subcontinent, too! There was a big hurricane. I had no idea how terrible it was until well after it happened. The only way I knew anything about it was Mr. Singh our adorable taxi driver read part of the newspaper article to me in the Delhi paper. I rode in the front seat of the car and discovered we had a lot in common: sons the same ages and both of us are 51. I wanted to talk BeeGees with him but that would have gotten in the way of seeing the sites.
We re-elected Barack Obama, too. I have mixed feelings about this. Not because I’m a big fan of Romney but because Obama is not Mrs. Clinton. She should be president. So every time someone else is elected president I’m going to be sad until she is in the White House and we can watch Bill in all his first husband hijinks.
My state stayed blue and made marijuana legal. I received fifteen dollars worth of text messages telling me pot was legal. I find this hilarious because I’m not a big fan of pot because it isn’t a big fan of me. Fortunately, the corporation sent me an email explaining that despite the legality, it was not permissible to use THC at work.
Email missives like that beg for responses like this:
“Thank you for clarifying the policy for using marijuana while on duty at the hospital. It’s helpful to know mind-altering substances are not permitted while I am on duty in the role of Registered Nurse. I do have one question: Does this mean keeping a bottle of vodka in my desk drawer is out of the question? Finally, could you please advise me when the inservice explaining exactly how to don and doff pants is taking place. I’m finding I need help in this area of my life.”
Meanwhile, in the department of Klassy, three days before we left for India, I was eating lunch at work with Fern and an elderly overlay on my second molar popped off. Fortunately, Fern has a strong stomach and didn’t blanch when I spit it out in my hand and said: “Oh look it’s the top of my tooth!” At least, I didn’t fall off my bike and break my arm. If you run into me in a couple of weeks I’ll show you my new iPhone because it’s in my mouth and looks just like a molar.
Finally, we travel ten thousand miles, eat our weight in questionable food (but oh my God it was tasty) and what happens? The Girl ends up with food poisoning from the Thai place a half a mile from our front door. Fantastic.
It put “Eat, Pray, Barf” in an entirely new light.
Watch this space. I’ll be back. And I’ll be offering helpful links to other places where you can read about our adventures.