Two Views

I was in NYC last weekend; the top pic is a view from my lawyer's office. I made it sepia for that old-fashioned look. The bottom pic is another view of NYC. Tough guy who's not afraid to show his gentle side, with a teddy bear in his backpack. Awww.

Score One More, for K

Backstory: Like any normal married couple, my brother J and sister-in-law K occasionally get into little "discussions", and one person is usually "right"; not that they keep score or anything.

The other day, J bought a kazoo. K asked if it was a bubble wand. He told her it wasn't, it was a musical instrument. He demonstrated how to use it.

K wouldn't let it go. "Isn't that for bubbles?" she kept asking. J and I just laughed, and he buzzed the kazoo again. K made a face and said, "It's for bubbles."

The next day, J and I were at the 99 cent store, and I came upon the toy in the picture on the left. Look at the pink object to the right of the bubbles. Kazoo, or bubble maker? I took the picture to show K.

"Look", I said, "A bubble maker. See what it looks like?" It took her a couple of seconds for it to register. Then she said, "You mean I was right?? YEAH!!!" and she did the famous K is right pose. Try it when you really want to make a point. One arm straight in the air, other hand clenched in a fist, eyes closed, and shout, "YEAH!"

Gloating never looked so cute.

Today at School

Today at the playground, as we were lining up to go back to school, Marco announced that his other sandal was in the sandbox. Buried. I told Rosie to go on and take the other kids back, and I'd stay with Marco to find it.

Marco didn't remember where exactly he had buried it, and you couldn't tell that anything was buried; it all looked just like regular untouched sand. I felt like an archaeologist, and wanted to divide the sandbox into quadrants. I just kept digging in one spot after another until finally, I hit pay dirt (as it were), and unearthed the sandal. I told his mother to stop being so creative with him.

Later on, a bunch of us were out in the school's courtyard. I brought out the sidewalk chalk, and they drew all over the back of the door and the walls. One kid asked, "Can we draw on the sandbox covers?" I was in a good mood. "Sure!" "On the fence?" "Yeah!" "On the boat?" "Why not? Go crazy!" I said. With a gleeful expression, Matthew piped, "This is the biggest day of our life!"

Results

The results of my MRI are in. I have...dun dun DUN...

CHONDROMALACIA PATELLA!

Which means the cartilage in my kneecap has thinned. What to do? Keep doing what I've been doing in PT. Stretching, exercising, and yoga. And not walking on my knees at work, which I've been doing for the past 20 years. And not curling up in my chair. And no squats at the gym. When I go back to the gym. Which I plan to, next month.

At least I don't need surgery.

4 year-old graffiti

Unprompted, Owen asked me how to spell "I love Alex". I wrote it down so he could copy it.

The next day, I came across the piece of paper. Seems someone loves Alexa, too!

MRI Fun, part two

...and then the fun began.

Somewhere in the background there was this swishing noise. I imagined a gigantic washing machine. It went swish, swish, swish, very rhythmically. It was sort of comforting.

Unlike the actual sounds of the MRI machine. First it was as if OL was in the back pressing a really big doorbell from the 1950's. It buzzed: ENH, ENH, ENH! Then came the jackhammer, a little faster: gsh gsh gsh gsh gsh! Then silence. Then the doorbell again, then a new sound. It went like this over and over for about 30 minutes, I'd say. I wasn't watching the countdown clock. I went into daydream mode, and since that's my favorite pastime, I found that the minutes flew by.

Then they were done. I contemplated asking the assistant if she would push me all the way into the machine so I could see what it felt like, but she seemed to be in a hurry to get me out of there so she could claim her next victim, I mean, patient. I walked out as a man walked in.

I went to the locker to retrieve my bag, and noticed that they forgot to give me the key. I had to go back and inturrupt them to ask for it. The assistant said, "Oh, which one is yours?" I didn't know, I wasn't the one who had the key; OL was. She just gave me one, and I tried it, but it didn't work. Then I looked at the tag, which said, M, and #2. I went back and told the assistant I thought the M stood for Male, locker 2. I was W #1. "Oh, she flustered, "I didn't even look at that, ha ha!"

Great. I had just trusted these two women to look into the recesses of my knee and who knows what else, and they couldn't even figure out one key out of two. Did they do the MRI correctly, or were all those different sounds their trial and error session?

EHN, EHN, EHN!
OL: No, that's not right. Try that button.
gsh, gsh, gsh, gsh!
Assistant: That sounds better. Right? Right? Priscilla, wake up!
OL: What? Oh, right, where were we? EHN, EHN, EHN...

I got no information about how I was supposed to find out my results. Guess I'll put a call into my doctor. And hope it wasn't all a bad dream.

My my my...MRI

I finally went and got my MRI. My friend Leslie had told me not to wear any jewelry because the magnets were so strong they might get ripped out. In preparation, I wore yoga pants, a tee shirt, no watch, and I cut my nails, just to be extra safe.

The MRI was last Sunday, which I thought was pretty weird in the first place. When I arrived, it looked like a ghost town. I had to ring security to let me in, and when I went to the desk, there weren't any other patients waiting. I had to fill out this two-sided form that asked yes or no questions, such as:

Do you have a pacemaker? NO
Do you have internal shrapnel? NO
Do you have a penile implant? NO

I am not making this up, those were some of the questions. Then I came to:

Do you have tattoos?

YES! Finally, I got to answer yes to a question! I asked the woman why that question was asked, and she said in case there was part of a needle in you, they need to know. Oh god.

I finished the form and waited to be taken to the machine. After a few minutes, a woman came out to take me. She was a petite older woman with short hair, and she walked with a limp, as if one leg was shorter than the other. She also had an accent; almost British, but softer. I decided she was from South Africa.

She put my purse in a locker and brought me over to the machine, aided by a younger woman. I took off my shoes and lay down, with the knee being MRI-ed in a sort of brace. Older lady gave me ear plugs, because it was going to be loud. She pressed a button that made me slide forward...not quite all the way in, whew! I went in up to my chest. OL gave me a pump to squeeze in case I "didn't want to continue", and told me I could see the countdown numbers on the machine. I could also see a sign that said something about a beam, and don't stare into the beam. I decided to close my eyes to be safe. OL said I'd be in there for 20-30 minutes.

And then the fun began...

Sleepy in Brookline

I finally figured out why it is that I've been napping so much!

I haven't worked out since the end of April, and I think that's what's done it. They say that working out gives you more energy, and I never understood that, but now I do. I do one or two activities and am ready to lay down. Steve and I haven't been able to work out a schedule this month, and with my bum knee, we were taking it easy anyway. I'll save some dough, find out the results of my MRI (that's another post in itself), and start up again next month.

And then zip around and leave the napping for Saturdays!
I'm looking forward to having more spring in my step. Till then, enjoy the tee shirt one of my kids was wearing the other day. It's from Japan. Want to see more amusing examples of English? Check out Engrish.com.

Tip of the Day

Dear Readers,

The advice I am about to give you may change your life. Here goes.

Say there's a stomach virus going around, and you happen to get it. Say you stay home for a day, alternating sleeping and visiting the porcelain throne.

Say you're really good, avoid food for awhile, and then only eat bananas, bread, and applesauce for two whole days.

Here comes the advice: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT make your first real meal a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich from Starbucks. Even if you're really craving it. Your ass will explode.

If this does happen to you, remedy it by immediately taking a nap with your cat.

Follow these words of wisdom, and your sphincter will thank you.
Have a nice day.

40 and Fabu...zzzzzzzzz

Since I turned 40 I've been sleeping a lot. Not to escape, necessarily, but I think this is what happens when one gets older. I'm not kidding. In the past six days, I have taken a nap every single day, something I used to reserve only for weekends. I'm not too worried about it. It sure beats a spare tire around the waist or aches and pains. Cuts down on blogging time, however.

I've decided to make a list of highlights of my birthday bash, for easy reading for you, and easy writing for me. If you didn't make it to the soiree, here's what you missed:

* Me, wearing a dress, high heels, and makeup, hair in an updo, greeting my guests Grace Kelly style, in a faux fur wrap I got at the Gap a couple of years ago.

* A yoga studio transformed into a glittering dance club, complete with disco ball hanging from an industrial chain.

* Heather, disco dancing diva on the dance floor. Heather was the talk of the party, because she got right on the dance floor and dirty danced with me and whoever came into her line of fire. The best part about Heather was that I didn't even know her; she was a college friend of some friends of mine, and tagged along with some others to the party. Heather, you were a hit!

* Dancing, dancing, dancing! There were a core of about four people, including myself, who were on the dance floor section of the room the entire night. Others came and went, and everyone boogied when I hit them with the "dance scepter". iPod playlist + stereo = instant club!!

* A speech session, which brought everyone to tears.

* Delicious food, which I didn't eat enough of. Amazing cupcakes and cookies, which I did eat enough of.

* The party favor--a custom made CD of the nights' selected hits.

Thanks to everyone who helped make my 40th my best birthday ever!!!

Mascara Mayhem

It's been a week since my birthday bash and I'm just now catching up on my sleep. I took a nap when I got home from work yesterday and I took a nap today. I have so much to do: write thank you notes, blog, continue cleaning the place...

I'll start with my eyes.

I had my hair done, dress on, lipstick done...all I had to do was the mascara. Oy, the mascara. I hadn't put mascara on my eyelashes in probably 20 years. I stood in CVS looking at all the different types; who knew there were hundreds to choose from? I could go for the standard pink and green package that had remained the same for decades. I tried to remember the catch phrases from recent commercials: what did they say about "easy, breezy, Covergirl"? Should I get lengthening, volumizing, strengthening (???). What color? Very black, brown, violet???

I decided to get the one with the rubberized lash brush, because I had seen on TV somewhere that women got clumpy eyelashes not because of the formula, but because of the brush. After debating back and forth on how stupid it seemed to get one, I also got an eyelash curler. I have never worn mascara without curling my eyelashes first. It sounds soooo ridiculous, but I did it.

I was in a rush to get ready. I carefully curled my lashes, then took out the mascara. I put the brush to my eyelash, and...

(insert sound of scratching record needle here)

the fucking brush was so rubbery that it bent and I mascara-ed by face and hand! Nice work, birthday girl. I had to be really really careful with my application, something they don't tell you on TV. As a result, I didn't put on as much mascara as I could have, but it definitely made a difference. Like heels, mascara is a stupid invention, but looks good on. I also listened to my friend Patricia, who told me to get foundation. I powdered my face a little. Okay, it looked good. Damn it!

As I was applying the greasy eye makeup remover that night, I wondered how women wore makeup every single day. NO THANK YOU! But I might bust out the mascara and red lipstick next time I go out to dinner.