Jitterbug's Beat

Phooey.

My friend Molly is always finding great things - cash money, awesomely-stocked and completely no-way-to-find-the-owner Ipods... she emailed me today to tell me she found a KATE SPADE purse at the law library!  WOW.  My green-eyed monster is speaking when I say: know what I found?  I found that when I climbed to the top of the stairs on the Morrison Bridge to get home, that the bridge was closed to pedestrians.  And at the top of the stairs? A pile of poo.  And I don't mean dog.  Complete with circling flies.  

I don't find neat things.

OMFG.

So here I am yet again telling you people I'm not on drugs - but I was starting to question my own sanity just now when I saw a commercial for Huggies Jean Diapers that brag "the coolest you'll look while pooping your pants."  Well.  I can tell you there's at least yet one more reason I can add to my why-I'm-glad-I'm-not-a-parent-at-this-moment list.  Does someone think it's a good idea to actually teach kids to poop in jeans?  Well, all right, but I'm warning you, they're not going to fit in in school.

Me and Dee.

What good would be all of my bus lamentations if you couldn't see it HERE for yourself.  Thank you Nate, for introducing me to Dee, just when I thought I was the only one.  

OH and speaking of the bus, one more thing.  Yes, you, you uber-gay-bookbag-wearing (not that there's anything wrong with that) super annoying kid who always has to sit sideways across two seats to talk to your classmate... I will ALWAYS sit next to you.  This means I will ask you to move every.  Single.  Morning.  Keep it up asshole, and one of these days, instead of asking you to move, I may just sit on your lap.  Now there are a lot of guys on the bus who I'm sure would be thrilled with that, but I KNOW you aren't one of them.  Can't wait.  Snoochie boochies, loverboy.

Ladies Only.

Thank god someone finally explained this essential how-to.  Title Nine needs to publish this in their catalog.

The very definition of too much information. Funny, though.

So you may or may not know, I eat a ton of fruits and vegges.  Lots and lots.  Well lately, the spinach salad I have at lunchtime has been really disagreeing with me in a gastro-intestinal way.  Today I made the mistake of also having romaine with it and the internal result was VERY unpleasant.  Now, I’m equipped with Beano and Gas-X at the office, but you know how painful it is to hold that in sometimes?  Well I find that the older I get, the less willing I am to hold those things in.  I’ve started just hoping they don’t make any noise.

 

Lord help me – I’m just not... something enough to be one of those people who just lets it go at random and doesn’t care a fig.  Besides, that's what boyfriends are for.  Me, I still care.  It's just that sometimes I push my butt down into my chair as much as I possibly can and hope nobody walks by.

I shared this with my two dear friends, and here's their most valuable commiseration:

Thing 1:  I educated Thing 2 as to the definition of "crop-dusting" - walking through the office, farting away, leaving a trail of despair behind you, which isn't necessarily traceable back to you as long as you walk fast enough.  These of course need to be silent otherwise you might as well just sit at your desk at let loose.

Thing 2: I usually walk into attorney offices that are momentarily unoccupied.  

Tales of Basement Surgery.

So last month I underwent a "procedure" - they call it a procedure because if they called it what it really is... pulling bits out of your inside for about 20 minutes with sharp instruments and no pain killers ... I don't think anyone would be signing up.  Results from that "procedure" led me into the operating room for a LEEP, where they remove the entire lining of your uterus with electricity because it's starting to tend toward cancerous inhabitation, and they want you to have a fresh start.  The nurses were great - I was a wreck, this being my first actual surgery ever, and even in my 30's, I really wanted my mommy.  I was already a bit of a tearful mess, and then the one nurse - the Butcher of Seville took over to put an IV in my hand... no, missed that vein... in my arm... oops, missed again... let's try the arm again... SERIOUSLY.  And while I cried and tried to look away and not focus on what she was doing, she kept missing, and then saying "OOPS!"  Out loud!  Followed by "Oh, I never miss!"  She did miss.  Three times.  It hurt SO much.  To add insult to injury, she chastised me: "Your hand is ice cold!"  Oh really?  Oh I'm sorry, that's probably because you stuck me too many times and I actually exsanguinated while you were busy trying to find a passable vein you FUCKING MONSTER.  Now stop slapping my arm like a desperate heroin addict.  Oh but wait.  There's more.  Once she finally slid that needle home, I hear this, "I got blood on your gown so we're going to change it."  Before I can even survey the damage (she did get blood EVERYWHERE, but the drop on my gown was barely dime-sized), she's pulling down the neck of my gown (I'll note here that I was tucked in to both a set of sheet and two blankets) which then caught up my IV tube and PULLED it... she proceeded to struggle with my gown, tangling it in the IV tube, and no matter how much I cried, that beast would not get her hands off me.  That, and an nice IRS tax audit - now that's my idea of a good way to start the day.

On a good note - that was the worst of it.  Once the wonderful anesthesiologist hooked me up they wheeled me into surgery - only I was thinking, "Gee, wait, shouldn't we wait for the drugs to..." and that was my last conscious thought - except before that looking at no less than 20 people in the operating room, all getting ready to stare at my crotch - that was mildly disconcerting.  Fortunately I wasn't awake long enough to have qualms.  And as a nice afterthought, I always did want to ride in a wheelchair.  Now lord willing, this will all fade away as just an old amusing story to tell and will have no place in my future.  If it DOES have to happen again, I'll request a nurse other than Psycho Nurse Mengele.

Not again. And so soon...

Another big moment for me this week.  Being so proud of myself for getting back on track with food and exercise, I was rushing out the door of the office ready to go to a class at the gym.  I didn't have much time, nor space, as I was tossing clothes willy-nilly in a tiny bathroom stall.  But I made it - got to the gym, into class, got my step all set up and ready to roll.  The instructor turned on the music and I was about to make one last adjustment - tying the drawstrings of my pants.  Only when I reached for them, there weren't any.  Odd?  Not quite.  They were there, in the front of my pants, which were facing to the rear.  Yup, I put my pants on backwards.  To my credit - they weren't button fly.  

Ahem ... your blonde is showing.

Doggone it, Kelly.  So about three years ago or so, I was watching Bones, which I love, and they had the most wonderful song on the episode - I had to find it.  So after a lot of waiting, finally it was up on the show's website.  The song was "Bring on the Wonder" by ... who I thought was a woman by the name of Susan Enan Feat.  Until yesterday I still was desperately trying to find this song, searching google, searching Itunes, searching Pandora... finally yesterday I found the Bones soundtrack in Itunes and LOW AND BEHOLD, there it was.  The song "Bring on the Wonder" IS by Susan Enan... however the "Feat" was short for "featuring... Sarah McLaughlan.  The damn website cut it off, all those years ago... and all this time I've been looking for a lady named Feat.  Well.

Practice makes ... more practice.

So having a motorcycle, or learning to ride one - it must be like being having a baby.  Ipso facto - someone finds out that you are doing either, and they have an appropriate horror story to match.  I had a friend, who, when she was pregnant, had a prescription pad from her doctor that read "My doctor says I'm not allowed to talk to you," for people who felt that it was imperative that they share their tales of terror.  Lots of folks around my office were super excited when I was learning how to ride a motorcycle.  Then I bought a motorcycle.  Now they've got different songs to sing. 

Naysayers all around!  Sheesh!  Molly said, and I agreed, I should start giving them back a taste of their own medicine.  "Sure, I'm learning to ride my motorcycle.  It's dangerous?  Because your SHOES are untied!  Do you have any idea how dangerours that is?  I knew a whole family once killed by untied shoelaces.  They were running down the stairs, tripped!  And a madman hacked them to pieces." 

My first ride out was a little more than I was ready for.  I was under watchful eye, but there's training, and then there's reality, and sometimes what you know from the book is a little difficult to put into practice in real life.  For example, you must ignore your human instinct, and do not LOOK at something that you do not want to HIT.  Your bike will follow your nose - yeah, it always knows.  However, when you're turning on a 90 degree corner, and there's a car waiting to go straight, and the driver is staring you down and you catch his eye, it's really, really difficult to look away... and as you get closer and closer and closer, the terrified and bewildered look on his pate gets increasingly more animated... and you tell yourself to stop staring as your bike rolls forward to what seems inevitable...  OH and when you have that near miss, make sure you do it in front of a crowded biker bar! 

First thing the guys at the office asked: "Do you have a full face helmet?  'Cause that hides shame really well."

Molly's commentary: "Nothing hides terror like a visor.  Maybe put on a full face of smiling clown makeup."

But much to my delight, I'm almost past the complete and total humiliation stage.  It gets easier and more comfortable every time I get on the bike, and on our last outing, FINALLY I was grinning instead of cursing and getting thumbs-ups instead of raised eyebrows.  Although, those raised eyebrows are hard to make out under all that clown makeup.

And here she is...

Going bananas, going green.

Unless you've been living under a rock, there's a good chance you know about all the hooplah surrounding Earth Day and the general trends all over the place about "going green" - being more earth-conscious.  My office started a group to give us different ideas each month about saving the planet and such and such... or was it the whales?  No, I had it right the first time - the planet.  Anyhoo, the group got off to a rolicking start by "auditing" our trash cans.  Since it's been awhile, my vim and vinegar over this has dissipated somewhat, but I have to say, it was violating and altogether unfriendly.  I know the intentions behind it were good, but what is it they say about that road to hell?  I'm glad I had a trash can full of nasty used kleenex (I'd had a cold)... for them to dig through.  I'm also relieved that I hadn't chosen that day to recycle my porn collection at the office.  Lots of us were reeling after the Great Trashcan Audit of '08, but our next green mission involved groups of us tasked with getting our group to take alternate modes of transportation to work.  There's nothing as entertaining as watching a bunch of somewhat-grown-men's faces when you tell them they need to carpool, take the bus, do anything BUT DRIVE to work. One of the guys said he'd ride in via horseback.  When another complained, he offered to pick him up on the horse, with some hand sanitizer.  His words "Come save the world with me."  I told them they should "borrow" some horses from the mounted police downtown - 'cause they love that.  We had to list our usual method of transportation, what we'd be doing that day, and what extra efforts we'd take.  One of my guys who rode his bike in stopped along the way to hug a tree.  Another one paid a visit to the zoo.  Another didn't shower that morning to conserve water.  Gotta love those boys.  Me?  I ride the damn bus every day, so my extra effort was to think happy thoughts about my fellow passengers and our constant, lousy, ridiculously-overcrowded-every-stupid-day situation.  I left my shiv at home.  Just can't wait to find out what's next.