quick story

That's me, I swear!

It was a quiet evening at home, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday. I was scratching around the Intarnet, and when no one was looking, I did a quick Google on myself (as ya do). And up came a list of work-related kafocta, but the second entry down on the list stood out as definitely not work-related. (And another entry in there revealed my non-blogging alter-ego via bookgroup, so sorry JtH, but I've got to delete that post because I can't fix it.)

You know how Google truncates that stuff? The item on the list showed [insert really complimentary adjectives here]. Update: My wonderful friend and online protector Em3 has pointed out that a simple Google using the exact phrases originally posted here provides another backdoor to my secret identity. Crap. But anyway, please carry on with the post] and I thought OH that is SO me! And I called the kids and my brother and the cat and the bird over to see the glory that is me! Ok, ok, was me.
Sam: "Pfft. That's not you."
Kate: "God mom."
Joey: "Can I have a Yoohoo?"
Brother: "Uh huh, nice."
Cat: "Bird!"
Bird: "Cat!"

But it actually was me, an entry on a blog from someone I had lost touch with from way back in the day--back when you better believe I was smart, funny, well-dressed, and strangest of all, cool. Her post was about losing touch with friends. And ever since I read it, can I just say that I've been feeling as if I was given an extravagant and special gift? And for that, I am very thankful.

Too bright

The new super-duper anti-home-invasion infra-red satellite-equipped security system that i had installed right *after* we got robbed woke me up last night with its incessant beeping. I slipped right into panic mode, as I couldn't recall what I was supposed to do in the event that the system was breached. I slunk like a mongoose down the hallway, hugging the walls all the way, and peered at the control panel in the pitch dark--why can't they illuminate this thing? How am I supposed to tell through which sector I'm being invaded? I stopped peering and stood stock-still and listened with all my might. Nothing. I looked around me, took in the darkness, and wondered who put out all the lights, including my new multi-colored lights that hang in a festive fashion in the stairwell, providing a colorful yet muted disco ambience for your walk to the kitchen in in the middle of the night. I retreated to my bedroom and looked out the windows--black as your hat in all the homes on the street. And so, by the Mighty Powers of Em Deduction, plus the growing presence of large fire trucks filing down the street, I determined that power cable had snapped again, and when I looked out the front window, Lo! there it was, dangling dangerously close to the metal fire hydrant, again.

I plopped back down in my bed and checked my watch--1:30. Within 5 minutes the firemen had the place cordoned off to prevent accidental electrocution. And 5 minutes after that they had the most intensely bright lights set up outside my house to shed some light on the work at hand. In fact, I think they dragged in a dwarf red star to brighten up the night.    

Note to PSE+G: It's time to run new wire for those power cables that carry the 40,000 volts up and down the streets. 

Totally crap runs

Sure, I could blame the lingering effects of the tunamush sandwich, but it's been happening for a long time now. And yesterday was no different.

It's a rare run that doesn't involve, well, the runs. I'm no doctor (altho I am a fiiinnne medical editor) but a person shouldn't be overcome by a mutiny of the bowel on a simple jog, especially when  the bowels have been purged just prior to the run. In response, I've developed ways of coping, including identifying public rest stops along the way that won't turn away a runner in distress, and I plan my routes around them. I hear that this is a somewhat common occurance amongst runners, but no one ever really discusses it, let alone offers solutions that can prevent this crap in the first place. Yes, I mentioned it to my doctor once, but he went flying off in the wrong direction and faster than rat-a-tat fart he had me undergo a sigmoidoscopy. Now there's an unpleasant experience.      

So I manage as best I can. And yesterday, I managed to wedge myself in a stall in the bathroom at the public school on Bellevue Ave--Sam's school. I like to meet Sam when school lets out. She only contorts ever-so-slightly with mortification when she sees my smiling Mom face and the rest of me dressed in multi-layers of running-gear and looking kind of like a hobo.

She's doing pretty good at the school, fitting in in her own way, although she did report a small mistep. The school administration placed her in Computer Basics, and she made no friends when she compulsively answered every one of the teacher's questions to the class--   
Teacher: "OK class, what is this called?" *holds up a keyboard*
Sam: *happily blurting* "A keyboard!!"
Teacher: "And what is this?" *points to the monitor*
Sam: "It's the monitor you dork. Oops, sorry."
Teacher: *shoots Sam a look* "Now who can tell me what this device is called?" *swings a mouse on its cord*
Sam: *lets forehead fall down on desk* a muffled "The mouse" escapes.
So Sam was removed from that class, but other than that, she's doing well!

But I was telling you how I got stuck in the school bathroom. I arrived at her school a bit early, as planned, and asked the security guard who let me in the locked door if it was OK for me to use the bathroom. I slipped quickly through the scarred wooden door with the frosted panes and into the ladies room and was taken aback by the size of the bathroom fixtures--but only for the briefest moment, because I had urgent school business to take care of. So I slid sideways into a stall that was only about a foot wide and lowered myself, and lowered myself, and lowered myself some more, carefully putting my arm on top of the toilet paper dispenser to avoid wedging my shoulders in the cramped stall, until I finally made contact with a tiiiinnny toilet that stood about half a foot off the floor.

Needless to say, I needed this to be fast. For one thing, I was afraid I was going to break that toy toilet and for another, I wanted to avoid an encounter with some poor unsuspecting student. I finished up and just as I was turned around backward to flush, there was a knock on the door. OK, I'm a grown-up people, and I had every right to be in that bathroom doing bathroomly duties, but can I just say I experienced an intense panic at the sound of that knock?

Me: *nervously blurting* "I'll be right out!"
Muffled male voice: "Wa wa-wa wa waa."
And in an instant, my leg was stuck between that teeny toilet and the stall wall, and with my leg stuck like that I couldn't open the stall door more than a few inches because the door opened inward, and I was in a goddamned Lilliputian bathroom, a 1:16 scale model of a real bathroom.   

Another knock followed shortly, and again I piped out in a shakey voice "I'll be right there!!" as I fought like hell with the door, my stuck leg, and the toilet until I was hit with the solution to this weird puzzle--with my free leg I stood up on the toilet seat and shook free the trapped leg, and once I was out of the way on top of the toilet, I could easily open the door. Just in time for the Vice Principal to walk in and see me standing on top of the school's toilet, head and shoulders above the stalls.

Hello! Did I mention I'm a grown-up? Mortification knows no boundaries.       

Candlelight dinner

My new neighbor knocked on my door yesterday afternoon to tell us happy Thanksgiving!! and also that the tree in front of my house was on fire.  A good 50 feet in the air, a large section of it smoldered and smoked, and when the winds gusted, the embers glowed red hot and blew on down the block. Good goddam thing I decided it wouldn't do to try to pretend I wasn't home and instead rousted my snoozing self from the recliner. 

The tree is massive. Planted in 1915 or so, it is now a mighty Ash that towers waaaay above my shrimpy 3-story home. So who flicked a cigarette butt 50 feet in the air and caught the tree on fire? Oh don't be silly. The power cable that ran across the tops of the utility poles out front had evidently been rubbing against the limb of the tree for some time and it became frayed and eventually snapped, firing up the tree and the ground below with 40,000 volts of electricity. And also causing an extended power outage to the southern half of the Island at the height of turkey-cooking time.   

What's Thanksgiving without a visit from my friends at the Trenton Fire Department and PSE+G? I love those guys. But now I need to form a close and personal relationship with the city's tree guys cuz I've got a 75-foot section of Ash leaning out over my house that has been weakend by the red-hot fire that burned halfway through it. 

em the player

Now that I'm bigger than Donald Trump, I thought it was time to step out and hobnob with the city's elite, so on Sat evening I attended the Stop the Wrecking Ball Ball at the Liederkranz Hall on South Clinton Ave.

Hosted by the Trenton Historical Society, the Stop the Wrecking Ball Ball raises money to preserve Trenton's diverse architectural legacy. Due to its current sad state, many interesting buildings in Trenton have been allowed to slowly rot prior to a speedy demolition by real estate developers who want to toss up more office space. Like we need more state office space downtown. Trenton is the state capitol; thus, there's a lot of state offices--80% of the buildings are state offices. The trouble is the state pays no local property tax, so no revenue comes in for services and schools and whatnot. And lord knows all those state worker bees don't want to actually *live* in Trenton. It's too scary. So woebegone Trenton remains woebegone.   

The Liederkranz Hall was a very cool venue. It was originally the clubhouse or whatever for a German singing society; next it became a furniture warehouse and then it was abondoned for some number of years before being resurrected by a public relations firm that's now slumming in Trenton. The cocktail party was on the unrenovated first floor, a large drafty room with rustic brick walls, a worn wood floor, and ceilings too high to see in the gloom. The caterers had set up several hors d'oeurves stations around the room--a shiskabob area, a root vegetable area, and a desserts area. The food was pretty good, but as always I was distracted by the open bar and a big bottle of top-shelf vodka. I topped off my drink about every 10 minutes, for free hee heeee! By the end of the night I was successfully tipsy and surrounded by olde fartes in gowns and tuxedos. The potential-for-serious-trouble quotient was high. And who did I spy among the gowned and cummerbunded? My ex-husband's ex-girlfriend, C, who was evidently working the crowd trying to drum up paying customers for her photography business. My old pal David, who made a very handsome date indeed, deftly steered me in another direction when I decided I needed to shove C down on the floor and liberate her camera. Party pooper.

Hands down best part of the night? The band--The Main Squeeze Orchestra. An all-girl accordian band, they rocked the house with covers of the Beatles, Joy Division, and a spot-on rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. I don't think the gowned and cummerbunded got it, but I refrained from pushing anyone down because they talked through the music.         

Maggots, spider legs, grubs and beetle backs

i was *starving* half to death. i got up at 6:30 a.m. but still managed to miss the fancy breakfast spread that preceded my second full day of lecture after lecture of impenetrable insider speculation on the future of radio-frequency identification tagging of pharmaceutical products--ie, wireless bugs placed somewhere in the packaging of your physician-prescribed medication, eg, your hypertension medicine, your HiV cocktail, your mood stabilizer, or your erectile dysfunction drug. According to industry, the bugs allow the medication to be tracked from manufacturer through wholesaler to distribution centers and from there to hospital or retail pharmacies. And then on to me and you. As they tell it, electronically tracking drugs through the supply chain will lead to substantial cost economies, labor efficiencies, and the big buzz--say it together now--improved medication safety. Nicely done.

it made my hair hurt.  So i left early, before lunch. My return ticket had me on the Amtrak 2:05 out of union Station, Wash DC, but i scatted out of the conference at 11:00, cabbed hard across town, and shucked and jived up to the ticket-exchange counter with one 40-lb suitcase, one 20-lb laptop computer bag, two briefcases filled with 5-lb each of vendor literature, and one 75-lb purse.  i caught the 12:05 baby! :-) but didn't have time to catch that bite to eat. :-(   

so now i'm hungry and faced with a 3-hour train ride where the only food is Amtrak food. What to do, what to do... yup, i toddled 5 cars up to the cafe car, and--i have *no* idea what overtook me--i ordered a tuna sandwich.

it came encased in a robotically-sealed 50-gauge plastic wrapper. the main ingredient--the tuna--was brown, and there were multicolored hunks of whathaveyou throughout. i plowed ahead and chose not to examine the wrapper for an expiration date or for an ingredient list. instead, i bit right in.

my mind involuntarily flashed to the TV show "Fear Factor" with its bugs and vomitus and excrement that the producers force complete morons to eat, and i put the sandwich down. But i was soooo hungry, so i picked it up again. but it was soooo bad, so i put it down again.

i'm still struggling with the upset digestive system.  if i have to, i'll go to the doctor for something. At this point, i don't care who knows.

Groupie em

My neighbor B has some sort of turbo-charger on board. He's got 4 kids, works a challenging job, is president of the school district, and as a side thing, he coproduces concerts at the local cathedral, a Grand Venue if ever there was one. plus he and his partner S are stand-up stand-ins for me, because katie spends about as much time at their house with Naomi as she does at mine.

Anyhoo, point of the post. When he put out an emergency call the other night for overnight hosts for his latest performers, a traditional folk music group from Tsibili, Republic of Georgia, who are touring the states, I was more than happy to provide a few beds. They didn't roll in until midnight or so, but i regathered my slumbering hospitality energies and enjoyed a lovely Stolichnya with the band, Fodor, |gor, and Gregor. Lone foggy observation: when they talk together it all sounds like "ishka bishka dovbro kobrovka." I'm pretty sure they were saying, "ooo, lovely American lady. but where is her big American breasteses?"

Missed diagnosis

There's a reason I’m the medical editor and not the practitioner. I witnessed a medical emergency the other day while I was in Boston. It was at the 8 am opening session. I got there a few minutes late, and it was a full house, but I found a singleton seat about 5 rows from the back of the grand ballroom.

I was paying attention, kind of, and then the noise started up. I scanned the back of the room, and I could only see him over the heads of the audience seated around me--a sea of maybe 1000 health care clinicians.  An old guy, sorta overweight, grey suit and hair, was lurching/hopping/shuffling across the back row in the room while making a sound that I had previously not heard from a human being—a sort of high-pitched barking and wheezing that you might expect from a seal with croup. So, not being interested in the opening didactic, my attention stayed on the back of the room. The guy hopped and honked and HEEEZED! his way along the back row while those around me politely focused on the speaker.

Well-considered medical editor em diagnosis? epileptic fit.  Any minute I expected someone from this overflowing sea of clinicians to step up and give the man a fat shot of Depakote or something. It's my professional opinion that a fat shot of something good can be a big help in most any unpleasant situation.

He humpty-danced himself my way and then pulled upright not far from me, and there I saw a woman clutched below him, and he seemed to be riding her like a cowboy.

How odd. But odder still, no one appeared to be paying any attention to this strange tableau, except me of course, bored em.

Heimlich maneuver successfully accomplished, the patient smiled and hugged the man.

These people are way too calm. Wonder if they're on anything.

mmmm, authentic clam chowder

I flew up to Boston,Massachusetts, this morning in that little crop duster that goes out of Trenton/Mercer Airport. The steward again filled the dual role of steward/pilot, and he did a serviceable job--the ride was swift and smooth but LOUD, as I believe the plane is powered by a gross of Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engines piled somewhere in the bowels of the aircraft.

I knocked out in record time—2-3 minutes after the wheels lifted off the tarmacadam. I am good at sleeping on planes--like a baby in a car seat. In fact, it’s my super power, well, that and folding laundry (I am *exceptional* at folding, especially jeans--you have to yank that sickle-shaped part of the crotch out if you want the pant legs to fall all nice and smooth).

I’m in a bit of pain, however. As my head bobbed contentedly and my jaw slackened, my neck folded in on itself and soon the leading edge of me was no longer my chin, but my larynx, kind of like the neck of a Flamingo.

Oy, only 2 days and 800 miles from the em armamentarium of powerful pain medication.

       

Repairman Day!

em manor was crawling with repairmen last Wed. Guys in tight faded Levis and t-shirts, men in khaki trousers and button-down shirts stitched with the company logos, alpha males wearing leather utility belts all a-dangle with Tools of the Trade and smelling of No. 4711.

·    PSE+G man was on hand to fix the 5-month-old furnace;
·    Sears appliance repair guy came in to investigate the 8-month-old dishwasher that can’t manage to wash mayonnaise off a knife;
·    Comcast cable guy installed the new cable TV box and clicker with All-Access Everything;
·    Brinks dispatched 2 men to shore up the em perimeter with an ultra-high-security system of sirens, lasers, and motion detectors that are monitored by well-trained, capable security officers 24/7; and finally,
·    Electrician man followed up on the furnace when PSE+G man floundered. He poked one button and fired up the em furnace. One button. :-/

I almost felt like cooking a bunch of steaks for lunch.  Well, for a minute or 2.