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. 

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.

Crash bang run

Squirrels and mutts and the occasional drug dealer I can handle. Measly annoyances. Gargantuan Lexus sedans? No.

Running, Saturday morning, as usual. I went up around the north end of the Island, stopped to have a word with the neighborhood beat cop who was parked on the side-street in the shade reading the newspaper--
"You catch the perp who burgled my house yet?"
"Nope."
"Argh. Well, nice day, eh?"
"Yes indeed."
Scurried across the highway to circle through Glen Afton, the rich-folk neighborhood, and stopped to have a word with one of the locals over there who used to own the house next door to me (yes, I will stop for anything). As I chugged up to him I noticed that he was sort of dragging his leg and holding his arm funny, like maybe he'd had a stroke or something--
"Say, they're selling your old house again."
"Yeah?"
"Yup."
"Well..."
But the screeching tires and sounds of car on car on roadside objects interrupted my runner's tranquility, and my finely-tuned runner's leg muscles took over and ran me up into his yard and around the back of the nearest tree.

OK, yes, it was 20 yards away, but I swear it sounded like a train wreck, coming right at me. I sheepishly looked out from behind my tree-barricade at the handicapped guy down by the highway, and we made our way over to the drivers. The weirdest damn things happen to me when I'm running.

Shut the barn door!

when you add up the direct costs, i didn't really lose all that much--$1000 cash money, one pair diamond earrings, one diamond engagement ring, one gold wedding band, and one white gold amethyst ring. The bad guy can keep it all. Wedding band? boo fucking hoo. Diamond engagement ring? Well, it was a symbol of sorts--a symbol of how deeply fucked my marriage was from day 1. I hated that ring. Diamond earrings? Diamond crumbs, maybe half a sneeze between the two.

The amethyst ring, however, was important. My Great Aunt Sarah and i share the same birth stone, amethyst. She gave me the ring when i graduated from high school, and she in turn had received it from her grandmother (i think it was grandmother--i need to check this, also want to see if it goes back again) when she graduated from high school.  At any rate this goes well back in the em family matriarchy.

Trenton police dept advised me to check all the local pawn shops, and i've made the rounds twice. Every time i see a purple stone my heart jumps, but no luck yet. plan on another swing through tomorrow. i want my ring back you bastards, and i won't rest till i get it. be forewarned.

i've jolted awake in the middle of the night only 19 time since the robbery
. . . "huh? wha . . . wha was tha?"
instantly listening with all my might, heart thumping away at late-night's amplification of things ambient. And i've moved with all em haste to shore up the security gaps in em manor. shortly, those guys in the armored trucks will arrive and install motion detectors and sirens and secure all the doors and windows. 

now would someone help me corral all those horses? 

   

people are rude

i scraped myself off the ceiling for like the 5th time today. it's becoming a regular thing--me, quietly going about my business. Rude person, obliviously buzzsawing through my tranquility.

i wanted to pay the man and get my car, freshly lubed and oiled in record time, and get on the road. but the man was nowhere to be seen. so i stood at the cashier's window, alone in the waiting area except for the ghettoized lumberjack who sat in one of the chairs and heaped vulgarities into his cell phone.

i waited for the man to see me through the window and come collect my money, but he was jiffily lubing away, so finally, i stepped away from the cashier's window and opened the door leading to the car bays get his attention. Two feet. I stepped two feet away from the cashier's window, and as i turned back to the window with the cashier in tow, i bumped my back into my lumberjack friend, who had bellied up to the counter in a jiffy, while i got the cashier. He rewarded my effort with a glare and blared loudly into his phone about "how f%^$#ing slow is Jiffy Lube" anyway?

i think i suffer from line rage. whereas i know i suffer from road rage.

This just in--my shift key won't work on any letters in the top row--the qwerty guys, and the iou's. so annoying.   

Snarl

I had to chain myself to my cage. I'm in danger of tearing into someone. Unleash me and I will do some serious harm. Rivers of blood will flow down my street. Step away from the cage. 

You are a first degree moron. A loud-mouthed vulgar infantile hillbilly who lacks self control common sense common decency and a simple knowledge of right and wrong. 

Never again, under any circumstances, show my 11-year-old daughter the centerfold in your Hustler magazine.

Never again, UNDER. ANY. CIRCUMSTANCES. explain blow jobs to my 11-year-old daughter.

Don't you DARE try to tell me that you were simply "bein' honest and answerin' her questions" when my 11-year-old daughter asked her silly 11-year-old-girl questions about sex while you got on your Friday night drunk. She's 11, but she knows a drunken senseless imbecile when she sees one.

And you foul motherfucking 42-year-old scumbag piece of shit, don't you EVER try to insinuate that my 11-year-old daughter was trying to seduce you with her provocative talk.   

What in the world is the matter with you?? Get THE FUCK away from me before I tear you limb from limb. You stupid sick fuck.  

Strictly look but don't touch

I bought a bike on Friday--

Pertty cool, eh? I love bikes, but I haven’t ridden much lately because I can’t tolerate leaning down with all my weight on my wrists, as you do with most bikes. But with this bike, the saddle is low slung and the pedals are shifted forward, so you’re almost in a reclining position when you ride--very comfortable.

As .rz and I rolled along the canal path on Saturday afternoon near Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, a swirling in the water caught our attention--a big sea otter was lollygagging around in the Delaware and Raritan Canal square in the center of Trenton, NJ! It twirled gracefully just below the surface of the water, and every once in a while a great big paddle of a clawed hand would emerge and then submerge as it twirled some more. But then we noticed long jagged ridges along its back—no, definitely not a sea otter. Its gigantic triangle-shaped head broke the surface and was about the size of a Rotweiller’s head. Then in slow succession: head, hand, tail, long jagged back ridges, head, hand, tail, long jagged back ridges. Two big, bad Jurassic Park-looking love-struck snapping turtles were making the beast with two backs. We watched for quite some time while they performed their incredible dance together in the murky water of the DnR canal. Very cool.