Blog Archives
Exactly How Many Calories are There in Styrofoam?
Our bulldog, Wonderbutt, seems a bit put out lately – possibly because we have been restricting his food intake the last couple of weeks. Note that I said, “food intake”. If you know anything about the history of Wonderbutt, you won’t be surprised to learn that his intake of everything but food has not decreased at all. You can see from the widget on the left that he has miraculously made it almost a year without devouring our new living room furniture – but I’m not sure his self-control will last much longer.
It’s hard to explain to a dog why you are feeding him less, and that binging on beds with no nutritional value is not a healthy habit.
Guns May Not Kill People, but Scissors and Sidewalks are Out of Control
I pretty much have the same two main goals every day: don’t embarrass myself, and try to keep breathing.
You might think that, since I’m not suffering from a fatal illness (that I know of – but I still have thousands of internet diagnoses to comb through), that the latter one would not be that hard.
But I have three strikes against me – my depression, my forgetfulness, and my clumsiness.
I usually get up every morning, and my first thought is, “On a scale of 1-10, how much do I NOT want to be alive today?” If it’s over a 5 for more than a couple of days, I call the doctor. Usually, though,it hovers around a 3, in which case I resolve to make a concentrated effort for the next 24 hours not to kill myself. On “Three” Days, it’s easy to avoid killing myself on purpose, but an accidental death is always a distinct possibility.
Last week, for example, I was walking out the back door of our school one morning, on my way to my portable classroom. For absolutely no reason at all, other than a little mist in the air, I suddenly skied down the handicap ramp, did about a 5 minute dance that included a twirl and the splits, and fell. (It was truly a John- Travolta-Stayin’ Alive-Performance.) Hard. On my knee.
All in all, the experience was somewhat of a success. As you can tell, I did not kill myself. I didn’t even break any bones or, more importantly, the iPad that was in my purse. In addition, it was so early in the morning that only one person witnessed this amazing feat – and she was a substitute. (Notice that I am not including the school security cameras as a witness because I am holding out the hope that people have better things to do than to watch them every minute.)
For the next 4 days, I wore pants so my husband would not see my gravel-encrusted knee. He already knows I’m a klutz, but I keep thinking if he goes more than a couple of months without being directly reminded of this, he might replace my “Klutz” label with that of “Stunningly Efficient Wife.”
No matter. On the 4th day following my stunning performance, my husband was holding our golden retriever while I was kneeling (on my traitorous left knee) behind her, trying not to cry out in pain. My intention was to cut off a particularly nasty mat of hair conveniently located on her rear end. As I pushed the tip of the scissors through the mat, trying to find the other side so I would not slice off her skin, I managed to plunge the blade deep into one of my fingers.
Bloody, but not exactly deadly. Yay me. I missed stabbing myself in the jugular.
Since I’d already reverted to the “O Days Without an Incident” billboard in my husband’s eyes, I went ahead and confessed to my knee injury while I was at it.
It’s going to be pretty ironic if I conquer this whole depression thing, and I end up killing myself anyway…
Can I Make My Hair Stylist My Primary Physician? If So, Will Coloring My Hair Double My Co-Pay?
“Have you had your thyroid checked lately?”
“No, why?”
“Well, you just seem to be losing more hair than usual.”
This slightly disturbing dialogue occurred between my hair stylist’s sister and me as she was washing my hair. I don’t think she realized that she was pouring gasoline on a hypochondriac’s fire.
It didn’t help when my hair stylist, himself, said, “Oh yes, we had a client who had thyroid problems. But instead of losing her hair, she lost her eyebrows.”
I think you can predict what I did when I went home.
It says a lot about my husband’s understanding of me when he said nothing after walking in on me in the bathroom with my nose pressed to the mirror, trying to look for evidence of any missing eyebrow hair.
The truth is, I have been thinking of getting my thyroid checked. It was checked 3 years ago, but my sister, Crash, had already planted the idea in my head a couple of weeks ago that I should make another go at it, and I am a firm believer that one medical test is never enough. Especially when it comes out negative. I’m not paranoid (much), but it seems to me that there are a lot things that can go wrong between the draining of my blood in one office building and the examination of it in some anonymous warehouse under a microscope. Just check out the “Non-Fat Yogurt” episode of Seinfeld, and you’ll be paranoid, moderately suspicious too.
What I’m trying to figure out, though, is how I can get my doctor to just order the tests without me having to go in and explain my rationale for needing them. Because I already paid my hair stylist $150. I don’t see why I need to add a $20 co-pay to the mix.
“Hello? Yes, I wanted to see if Dr. Jimmy can order some thyroid tests for me? No, I don’t need to meet with him first. My hair stylist’s sister already diagnosed me. Plus, I did the internet checklist. Really, the blood tests are just a formality. If Dr. Jimmy wants, we can skip those, too, and he can just start giving me the drugs.”
Yes, I’m sure that would work.
People Who Eat Food From a Farmers Market Are Ignorant
Don’t hate on me yet. I know the title looks bad, but bear with me.
So, I was eating lunch today, and eavesdropping on conversations, like I usually do. One of the women began to proselytize about how much better it is to eat fresh food than something from a supermarket. Her rationale was that, with supermarket food, “you don’t know where it’s been.”
And I thought, “Well, you kind of know more about where it’s been than you do with food from a farmers market. I mean, you pretty much have just the word of the farmer that he hasn’t painted arsenic on it or anything. I’m not saying you should buy all of your food from a grocery store, but if your main reason for buying your zucchini from someone on the side of the road is that you think you can count on the goodness of people’s hearts not to poison your purchase by growing it in something other than pristine conditions, then you might want to rethink that. ”
But I didn’t say it. That is what this blog is for – whatimeant2say, but didn’t. This way, I don’t get fired from my job or shot at (this is Texas, after all).
A few minutes later, the same woman launched into a diatribe about anti-depressants.
“Well, I just don’t believe in them,” she said. “I think people just use them so they don’t have to deal with whatever is making them depressed. I mean, look at me, [insert details about her life that were very traumatic] and I didn’t take anti-depressants. Get over it.”
Oh boy.
Wow. I can’t even type whatimeant2say because so many sentences crawled into my brain at the same time I think I almost blacked out.
Here is the long and short of it:
Not everyone who is depressed needs to take anti-depressants. But some people do. Like me.
Not every farmer’s market sells food that kills people. But sometimes they do. Like this one.
And not every person who eats food from a farmers market is ignorant. But some are. Like you. *
*(Not you, the person reading this; you, the person who likes to make sweeping generalizations on topics about which she is not an expert. I know you are not that person. So, don’t hate on me.)
Of course, I’m the person who thinks terrorists are poisoning our food. But just some terrorists. And some food. Some people, namely the author of this blog, like to be judicious when they jump to conclusions.
You (sweeping generalization person) should try it some time.
Let’s Try This Again
I am very disappointed in you guys. And, you should not interpret this as any kind of projection of the disappointment in myself that I might be feeling due to the fact that my computer crashed this weekend and I hadn’t backed it up yet.
I just took a gander at my 2012 resolutions for all of you, and you have sadly fallen short on your goals.
The fact that, according to my trusty Googleometer, Toddlers and Tiaras just started a new season shows a blatant defiance of at least three of the resolutions I laid out for you guys. Since I have not read about any recent adult human zoo exhibitions, I guess I can only assume that you have so many samples to choose from, that you cannot decide who would be the best person to stick inside an enclosure.
I am happy to see that you followed my directive to not vote for Donald Trump. Thanks for throwing me that little bone, at least.
I guess no doctors read my blog, as the resolution to see your patients on time does not seem to have been adhered to, according to my sources. And you didn’t cure cancer. As that was really the only goal directly related to saving people’s lives, and technically only had to be accomplished by one person to satisfy the demand, I have to say I am really bummed that that one got no traction.
In retrospect, I guess you could say that I probably overreached a bit with last year’s list. So, this year, I’m just going to give you one thing to do. Well, actually two.
I’m rolling over the cancer curing command. And even though I am erasing the rest of last year’s list, I would like to gently suggest that it will probably be a little more difficult to accomplish this if you are wasting your time watching Toddlers and Tiaras.
Número two-o is to back up your computer. And this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just lost my favorite recipe for Nestlé chocolate chip cookies as related to me by Phoebe Buffay when my own computer committed Hari Kari a couple of days ago.
The truth is, if you discover the cure for cancer, and your computer crashes and you have no backup, you’re going to be pretty upset with yourself.
Or so I would imagine.
PS – I can’t figure out how to caption pictures using my iPad WordPress app. And this was one of the few pictures in my photo library I could include. So, I’m sorry that it has nothing to do with my post. But I’m working with a handicap here, so I hope you will cut me some slack. Even though I didn’t cut you any.