Because it is extremely difficult to explain the concept of “foot cramp” to a woman who comes out of a bathroom stall at Whole Foods only to find you half-lying on the counter, clutching an unshod foot and moaning in pain, when English is not her first language.
Tuesday Afternoon Randomness
-I think I just found my teacher from the 1976-1977 school year on classmates.com, a year which I will always remember as “Kindergarten: The Year I Learned How To Sign The Entire Alphabet, Which I Can Still Do To This Day, With The Exception Of The Letters ‘p’, ‘q’, and ‘x’.”
-Yesterday I was talking with a friend of mine who had recently gone on a cruise. She told me how she unwittingly was photographed for one of those candid pictures that the cruise lines take and then sell to you, and how she threatened the photographer’s life should she ever actually develop said picture.
“Of course, it was the ‘Fat, Old, and Disabled Cruise’,” said my friend.
“Hm,” I replied. “Was that how they actually billed it?”
-Lately my husband has taken to closing the door when he hangs out in his office at night, because the Cat Genie, while quite awesome, is also quite loud when it goes through its cleaning cycle.
Last night I needed to talk to him, so I knocked on his door, went in, and then stopped dead in my tracks.
Now my husband is pretty much the most trustworthy person I’ve ever known, but even he had a hard time looking innocent when I saw that his browser was open to a website that started off with the words, “How Many Goats?”
Happily it was not that kind of site, but rather a site where you could determine the worth of your dowry, as measured by the number of goats a prospective spouse would have to cough up in order to marry you. (9, in case you were wondering)
The War On Inappropriate Poo
Welcome to what life in the Ryan household has been like for the last ten months. Because, despite having what is quite possibly the world’s most expensive litter box, Tigger’s preferred venue has continued to be the guest bathroom tub, which is located RIGHT NEXT TO the world’s most expensive litter box. Just to make sure we get the message.
This war has been marked by various, distinct stages, starting with
Phase One: Denial
This phase was characterized by the excessive use of phrases like, “Well, it could be worse,” and, “At least it’s easy to clean up,” and “Well, if we take this spot away from him, then he’ll just go somewhere else,” along with a sharp decline in outside visitors, so as to better hide the shame of our dirty little secret, plus enabling us to continue laboring under the delusion that everything was just fine, if a little smelly.
Phase Two: We Start To Get Really Pissed Off
Characterized by: Big talk that went nowhere.
Phase Three: Where We Think We Are So Smart
Characterized By: Long strips of blue painter’s tape strung horizontally across the opening to the tub.
Secret Weapon: The tape was placed sticky side out.
Success: Lasted 24 hours, until the need to poo in the tub outweighed Tigger’s fear of the sticky.
Phase Four: Where We Think We Have Plugged The Hole In The Previous System
Characterized By: Strips of tape strung vertically on top of the tape strung horizontally.
Success: See Phase Three results.
Phase Five: Where We Are Losing The Battles, As Well As The War
Characterized By: the inability to believe that, despite our combined eleven years of post-secondary education, we continue to be outsmarted by a f^$@ing cat, as well as the inability to find a baby gate that could meet our tub-protecting needs.
Phase Six: Where We Regroup
Characterized By: Lots and lots of swearing.
Phase Seven: Armageddon
The Monday After Vacation
Number of days I’ve lived in this house
and driven up and down the driveway:
3,666
Number of days we’ve owned three cars:
3,021
Number of days I’ve successfully backed
out of the driveway without
smashing into the third car:
3,020
Having a very understanding husband
who told me not to worry, and that it
would be okay:
Priceless.
“Husband”: A Technical Definition
Someone to whom you can make the following, urgent request, even if they’re in the middle of an important business meeting involving people scattered across 3 different countries:
“Hi, it’s me. I’m calling because I need you to tell me that just because the active, throbbing joint pain of the last 3 days seems to be gone for the moment, that does NOT mean that it is time for me to get dressed and drive 15 miles up the highway to the bookstore, simply because they just emailed me a coupon for 30% off of one item.”
Just Taking The Wind Right Out Of My Sails
Last week I went to see my sleep doctor to update him on my progress with my CPAP machine. I have a new air delivery system called a “nasal pillow”, which is much better than my mask. It doesn’t hurt the bridge of my nose, it doesn’t make my face break out, and it doesn’t at all make me feel as though I’m inserting two tiny rubber penises into my nose every night. Oh, no wait-it DOES do that. But I digress.
Even though I had to get on 3 different highways and drive to what felt like Alabama to get to his office, I was looking forward to this appointment because I would also get to report progress on my WEIGHT LOSS.
So I got checked in, and the nurse put me in the examination room, and the doctor came in, and we began to chat, and then he asked how things had been going for me, and I got to say, “I joined Weight Watchers and I have lost 18 pounds since February!!”
And do you know what his response was, this health care professional, this man who was supposed to be dedicated to my health and well-being, this man who had told me to lose weight in the first place to see if it helped to relieve my sleep apnea?
“Hm. On purpose?”
On. Purpose.
Then he told me that I was one of, like, less than 1% of people who actually did what he told them to.
Really? Hm. I wonder why that could be?
This Is Kind Of How I Feel Today
Purgatory
Once Again The Ignorance, It Is Bliss
So the other night we received a phone call from our next door neighbor at almost 10:00 at night.
“Do you have any idea why the police are walking around our neighborhood with dogs?” she asked.
We did not know, as a matter of fact, having been blissfully unaware of the presence of law enforcement on our quiet, weekday evening. But as it happens, we do know someone who could probably find out for us.
So we left our friend a voice mail asking, “Um, say, just hypothetically speaking, there were a bunch of police walking around our neighborhood at night with dogs. What might that be about?”
We heard back from our friend today. They haven’t yet found out the details of this specific incident, but they did pass on one little nugget of law enforcement wisdom:
“If the dogs come out, then someone’s getting bitten.”
Lovely.
Reruns, Or, Can’t You Come Up With Something New?
Since we are still in the season of reruns due to the lingering effects of the writer’s strike, it seems only fitting that this weekend will consist of a repeat of this from 5 years ago.
“So the Explorer decided to take these long, lonely nights outside and use them to plot against us. And for two years it watched, and waited, and planned, and then…it struck back at us by filling itself up with The Most Repulsive Odor Ever Smelled By Human Beings.
There truly are not words to describe just how vile this odor was. It was so bad that it was an actual physical presence that surrounded the car and bodily repelled people away from it. No one would go near that car, and on the occasions when we had no choice but to drive it somewhere we were shunned, because we smelled just as bad as the car did.
And the Explorer laughed its maniacal, evil-genius laugh.”
