So Very Lost in Translation

All my mom wanted for xmas, apparently, were wool leg warmers.

• Me: Leg warmers?  Not leggings?  Cuz you described leggings to me, not KNITTED wool tubes for your legs, which, you know, I could have made for you!

• Her: Oh yeah, huh? (Or my translating abilities paraphrase for you.)

This makes me giggle just a little as it was 80 degrees in LA, just a couple days ago, when I found this out.  It's not like she was sitting there freezing at the moment.  But she was trying to decide whether or not to keep the footless tights I hunted down for her all over Seattle, ones almost thick enough to be leggings that would fit her diminutive figure!  (Yey for gift receipts!)

But seriously, were I a religious person, I would swear on a stack of bibles that it was footless tights that she painstakingly described to me (or so I thought).  Including telling me that I used to buy them at UCLA when I was in high school (or so I heard).  That was what cemented it into my head.  They could only be footless tights, or those god awful white waffle-patterned thermal underwear bottoms. (It was an all girls school, warmth beat fashion any day on cold days, even in LA.)  Because when I was in high school leg warmers had gone off the school uniform list.  But she insists that what she had actually said was what that the girls used to go buy across the street at UCLA.  The girls...she worked there for over 27 years.  "Girls" could mean anyone between 1976 to 2003...(sigh.)  I will, of course, give her the benefit of the doubt.  Cuz hey, I get to knit for her!

I've hunted down a pattern and pulled out the only skein of Machine-Washable Cascade 220 wool in a color so not my mom's (dark purple) to test out this pattern.  See, the issues my mom will have with regards to obtaining store bought leg warmers, of course, is that they aren't wool, and (she measured for me) they need to be not much more than 12" long.  Yes, not a misprint, 12.  Standard leg warmers? Acrylic and ~19", or so I found out when I started looking for a twelfth night gift for her.

I'm probably not going to make the deadline, I'm only halfway through the first one, and that's okay.  And if they aren't her style (and definitely) not her color, they are just the right size for my niece.  And if she outgrows them before the next time it's cold enough in LA for them to be used, she can use them as arm warmers or something.  Those are a thing, right?

There was Wrapping Paper and Free-Form Pie...Why do I Feel Hung Over?

There is snow on my windowsill!

And the ugly tree in I can see through my window as I write this, the one they planted int eh "alley" of the building behind mine that makes NO SENSE because it gets maybe an hour of sunlight (during the summer!) a day, is beautiful!

And I want to crush in my own skull if it will make it stop hurting.

Okay, maybe just my nose and around my eyes.

I know I got a wee bit uncomfortable in Tahoe when it would start snowing, why yes, I am a human barometer, I know, but this is ridiculous.  If I'm going to feel this sick from sinus pressure, I might have to start drinking again so that the hung over feeling at least has someplace to call home.

I want to go out and see snowflakes!  They really are pretty in real life and when you don't have to shovel.  Oh my, the shoveling, I don't miss that at ALL.  Or see a miiiiillllion of them as the obstacle between you, and work.  Every. Day.  For a whole season.  Snow on an off day in Seattle?  Rock on!  Let me see the cars slippy sliding and the pretty decorations nature had given us to hid the ick of Seattle City Living!

But first I need to let the meds kick in.  Which sucks!  I am a whiney complainer, I know.  I'm embracing it.

Happy one day of snow, Seattle!  I'd commemorate it with a picture but my head is splitting just looking at the dimmed down computer screen, I'd probably bust a vein going outside to the brightness of the almost white snow and overly reflective cloudy sky...so let's just pretend I did and use our imaginations!  Yeeesss.

A 28 Degree Walk to Work, Of Course I'm Craving Pineapple...

My mom used to say I was a backwards kid.  But for the wrong reason.  She thought it completely bonkers that I ask for ice cream for dessert in winter.

Hello?  I have ice cream for dessert no matter what the thermostat says.

But today, this morning, I walked to work in the coldest weather this year thus far...yes, even colder than the January oh-my-toes-and-fingertips cold.  This is Seattle after all, not the Midwest.  We don't have snow, just frost on the streets.  Mild is as mild does and all that claptrap.  But 28 degrees is still 28 degrees and just a wee bit painful and obviously wintery.  And I craved pineapple so badly I stopped in at Whole Paycheck for some on my way to work.

No, not preggers.  Just desperately missing tropical weather, I think.  It's going to be 82 degrees in Hilo today.  Yep.  Just putting that out there.  If we're lucky we'll see 37 today.  That is just...so...yeah, not tropical.

What I Did This Summer...

It's August 1st.  I know, I know, the inevitable, "how did that happen"wants to be keyed in immediately as  my fingers fly across the keyboard.

And fly they must.  I drop in to make sure my BFF from elementary school knows I'm still alive (waving frantically) but time?  I no have.

My work life is "full."  I am being challenged daily.  I love it.  I'm less and less afraid they will realize they've hired the wrong person...but still.  FULL.  And my brain feels a little melty at the end of the day, often.  Still.

My non-work life has been awesome.

• I've seen Dylan Moran, live!  
• As well as Bill Maher!  (And didn't freak out TOO badly with 2900 people surrounding me...too badly.)
• And been to a couple fancy car places to drool over fancy cars in search of something a friend is/was/has now purchased.
• I got to sit in a Ferrari 328's driver's seat.  This may be the only time I'll do this.  Even off, with keys no where near the ignition, it felt FAST.  Maybe because the engine was still warm?
• I've had more than my share of fancy burgers and yummy fries (or so my jeans are telling me).  
• As well as Fish 'n Chips in West Seattle...having traveled there in a sweet classic car ('65 Mustang that I'll miss dearly - not mine.)
• And I don't want to toot my own horn, but I will....I think I've figured out, based 99% on the link, a very good chocolate ice cream recipe.  It has a lot to do with the actual chocolate, just FYI.  Think Scharfenberger.
• I've knit some hats (no, no pictures) have ALMOST finished the cowl I need for winter (again, picture? HA!)
• Have been to Bainbridge for a mimosa-brunch and YARN SHOPPING...cuz I am hep like that.  Any outing that involves a ferry ride is cool.
• I bought a couch!!!  My first real piece of real furniture from a store (and not my landlady) since moving to Seattle!  Okay...this one doesn't feel real yet, mostly because it still has a month or more to go before it is in my living room.  But the order is there.  Cardinal Red.  Cuz, um, yeah.

I can't recall at this moment if there is more...these are the things that popped out in my 10 minute limit.  Yes, timing myself again.  Before the summer is out I'd like to explore a little more.  We'll see.  The trick here is NOT to get hurt.  And that is hard for me, as well all know.

The Smell of Baking Cookies...

They're sort of experimental.  I needed something to ready me for my evening.  Maybe, maaaaybe, I'll even update this post later with a final picture.

Until then, there is just the smell.  You know, the melting chocolate smell.  Not chips though.  This is my second time using chocolate bars that somehow ended up mine...but not something I'd eat.  Dark Chocolate with Orange?  Not my thing.  Milk Chocolate Hazelnut?  Ehhh.  I am picky I guess.  Give me a just plain dark chocolate, you know 60-70% dark?  Yeah, that's my vice of choice.

I looked up "chocolate bar cookies" with the naivete of someone whose idea of cookies are the round things that fit in my mouth and make me go yum.  Silly rabbit, cookie bars...I knew of their existence, I have yet to dive in.  Probably because cookies already come in serving sizes and though I will stand there and chop chocolate bars by hand instead of zipping them through the Cuisinart, I am kinda lazy.

Also, it's not part of my cookie making routine...if there is one.  It's not exactly a positive thought here, but I will consider myself blessed beyond reckoning if I ever gather around me friends who know what my cookie baking actually means.  I stress bake.  But it's even more than that, it's as close to an identifiable OCD-style routine I have.  If you've stalked me on this blog thus far, you know I'm rather borderline.  Or maybe I'm just kidding myself and am really one that holds papers showing my citizenship in that world. Where was I? Right, the routine.  In my more manic states, it's what talks me off the ledge, as it were.

Read, parse the recipe, measure, read again, measure again, chop, separate, read it one more time, beat together, it isn't hodgepodge stew, this is baking, chemistry required.  Logic to realign my scattered head, magic to sustain my being.

The world will not end if they don't come out.  And sometimes?  I don't even have to get beyond the dough point. (Cookie dough freezes, people, oh yeah.)  And once you have a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe down?  It really is about how I can make chocolate bars and left over coconut...and possibly some powdered butterscotch "chips" that I was not going to use for ice cream again...come together and make someone happy. (Office mates? Happy Friday!)

No idea how these will taste....but the smell...yeah, I needed the smell of baking cookies in my apartment this evening.

Santa Monica Boulevard

Not too long ago I was ear-wormed with Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" song as I was headed off to LA la land to visit my mami.

Due to lack of planning (who me?) and last minute flight sales (yey) I was able to book direct flight round trip tickets for almost nothing (seriously, I got to use my points for the first time in four years for a round trip ticket!  SCORE!) Except...and this is a biggie. My flights were at the crack of dawn, both going and coming.  Okay not the flights themselves, but the wake-up time for the flights.  URGH.

Anywho...so sitting there at Gate 35 in the predawn hours of LA, I realized the extra bit of humor (whether or not intentional I have no idea, my 5AM google-fu brought up NOTHING) regarding the lyric: Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.

Ummmm, last I checked, Santa Monica Blvd runs westish towards the water then kinda disappears in the East around Echo Park.  The sun?  Does not come up over this street in the way my head pictures it...you know, like crossing across it...you know you're picturing something similar.  Or is it just me?  It could very well be.  This was a morning involving a 3:45 AM wake up call.  URGH.

I don't know how you all measure fun, but I did have it.  I spent time with my mom and saw a few friends that I'd either not gotten a chance to see due to emergency room/doctor's visits last time, compression of time that just did not work my way, or some other big bad.

This time around the big bad was/were Jacaranda trees.  Before last year, the last time I was in LA for an extended period of time in May (more than a weekend) I was 18 years old.  Apparently since that time I've developed allergies to Jacaranda trees...or something similarly nature-like.  They were trying to kill me.  Maybe I shouldn't have said they smelled like pee when we walked passed Walt Disney's original house?  Who knows.  All I do know is that the sinus pressure, watery eyes, and ohmygod runny nose was enough to make me wuss on on my last two outings...which made me a little sad, but determined to see these folks in the fall.  You know, when everything that tried to kill me is dying (buahaha!  My revenge!  Or something.)

Me on no sleep = kinda random blogger posts, sorry.  In the same vein, Tom Bihn bags rock!  Except they are not as water tight when you spill your Chai Tea Latte INTO them...cuz you know, you had the flap open so you could pull out your laptop to do veryimportanthings like, um, blog about suns and boulevards, ahem.

This Has All Happened Before...

When I was in college my relationship with coffee went sour that one night, after drinking a pot of it all by myself, that I was not only able to sleep soundly on my notes, but through my alarm and halfway into my Shakespeare Studies Final.

No really.

There is nothing, NOTHING like running to the doorway of the WAY ALREADY in-progress final, stopping short at the door to try to catch your breath, and seeing the arched eyebrow of your professor with the, "You had BETTER have a really good excuse, kid," look on her face.  I mean seriously, it's been 19 years, and I have yet to replicate that feeling in its entirety.  I won't lie, there have been moments that have come close, accelerated heartbeat to the point it might burst (I had to run up to Merrill from Cowell via Cardiac Hill for those UCSC stalkers, I mean readers), hilariously out of breath, with a million and one thoughts racing through my head (NEVER before had anything like this happened to me, ME! OMG I am going to fail my first class, EVER! What a schoolgirl!), and trying really really hard not to cry (amazingly enough? I must have been a much tougher person back then, cuz I didn't, not even after I was told that I could still attempt the exam, but my end time would be the same as everyone else's.)  I might have experienced the individual items on their own (except now I cry), but not yet again all together.

Yeah.

Coffee betrayed my young trusting self and so I dumped it.  Bitter elixir whose taste I actually like.  A lot.  I must, I mean, I happily make coffee flavored ice cream at the drop of a hat!  I don't know what happened to my coffee maker, but very shortly thereafter it was replaced by my rival hot water heating um thingie and my morning ritual became a lovely cup of Earl Grey tea, hot.  (You know I had to say it.)  And an afternoon cuppa.  So intense was my anger, determination, and will power (weeelll, and possibly the increase in cancer stick inhalation may have helped, a lot), that I gave it up without (too) much of an issue.  It was possibly this success (more than the nagging of my then boyfriend) that also may have given me the same drive to start quitting the smoking habit I'd taken to (it took years.  Do as I say and not as I did, as I quote Grandmaster Flash, "Just don't do it.") 

And yeah, I've had a love/hate relationship with the stuff ever since.  Given my druthers I choose tea, not coffee.  Milky, lovely tea.  Earl Grey (hot, hee hee), Darjeeling, Ginger Peach, Mango Ceylon...Tea I will sit and linger over.  Coffee, and I'm thinking of the YEARS when I took it back, I treated rough, I'd pound it down like a shot.  It was not enjoyed, but the item to get me out the door.  Then, once settled in at work, I could have my lovely cup of fragrant tea.  And when the guilt of drinking coffee with poisoned and sugary (but yummy) French Vanilla non-Dairy Creamer finally filled my old UCSC-hippie heart, it wasn't.  It was a little more painful (no cancer sticks to make the process a little less harsh), but thankfully I discovered Chai Tea Lattes.  Don't ask me why, but that just fit the bill nicely.

Something's changing again, though...I can blame the allergies, I can blame my inability to sleep through the night...(I'm thinking I need to try this sleep schedule, it can't hurt at this point as 4 hours a night is just not cutting it). I can maybe also blame my brain  for not being able to stop and chill.  Too many things rolling through it these days, 99% work related.  New job, WAY NEW STRESSES, way new things to learn...and my one lovely cup of tea in the morning...just not working.

The other day I had the revelation that I feel like I've been dumped into a grad school program (with all the learning and constant brain melting I'm experiencing) that I actually never thought I'd sign up for, like, ever.  In fact, that might have been the last time I worked around a four-hour sleep schedule...and it was work.  If I wasn't teaching I was biking to class, or working on lesson plans, or correcting papers.  Sleep happened sometime after 2 AM, and I was at school ready to teach at 7 AM.  And yeah, there might have been coffee around then too, hanging out in the shadows, calling me over, promising me that this time it would be different...

Ugh, coffee, I wish I knew how to quit you.  But at least this time I'm not hiding behind the ultra processed creamer or fancy pants mocha concoctions.  That seems too much like dessert to me now.  Milk, sugar, ground beans, and water.  Mmmm, and now I must go have some...urgh.

How Do I Find More Music with BIG DRUMS as a Back Beat?

Sorry, is my 80s showing?

Oh, and hand clapping.

And - not required but how awesome would it be: a young child chorus a la Pat Benetar's "We Belong?"  Oh come on, even Sigour Ros (or however its spelled) uses that gimmick and he's definitely "current" or so my facebook feeds would let me believe.  For all I know everyone I am "friends" with is as stuck in the 70s/80s as I am.  Which would why we are so friendly!  Um, yeah.

But after reviewing requests for hours at a time all I can think is that big drumbeats that I can swing my legs to (yeah, I'm not in the most ergonomic of sitting positions in my new chair, but dudes! I've got so much clearance I can swing my feet when I get all antsy!!!) keep me from running away screaming.

Except I'd have to change shoes before I took off anywhere.  I'm breaking in a new pair of what I can only describe as grown up versions of my Minnetonka Moccasin boots.  But not Minnetonka because OMG they are so very narrow now that I gave up even trying to fit my duck feet into them.  And not boots! Which means I'll be able to wear them all summer long! (Ahem, once summer gets here...)  I spent way too much money on Clarks "Originals" as they have come up with a version that is just AWESOME and shaped EXACTLY LIKE MY FOOT!  Yes, I did not pay full price, cuz um, yeah, I have baking pans I'd rather spend that money on.  Which is my version of retail therapy, apparently.

And I did. Spend money on way too many springform pans.  But it's all for the good, I think.  There are two (2!) cheesecakes sitting in my fridge as I type this!  Cuz why make one ginormous one when you can make two smaller versions?  I might be getting subliminally influenced by those car insurance commercials, "More is better!"  Which I wish was true about love handles...but we've covered this topic before.  Just a few days ago, actually.  Whatever, because baking really is my therapy, thank goodness I work in an office where people will eat what I make, because I also procured a "tube pan" for an apple cake.

I've had one piece.  Okay, one piece yesterday, one piece today.  It's not like I had ice cream for dinner....oh wait, never mind.

Anyhow, drum beats, hand-clapping, ethereal child chorus...I ask for so little, I know.

Can I Just Freeze My Mom in Carbonite?

Just for a little bit?  I mean, Han was in it for like a year with no side effects, right?

It's a case of everything happening all at once again and I'm just trying to figure out how to isolate things so I can focus and deal and then focus and deal...and then focus, and then deal...ad nauseum...

Cuz seriously?  I just clicked Cntrl+V HARDER to try to make a copy/paste dealy work faster!  I mean,  what's next?  Tapping on the teevee to make the picture clearer?  (Yeah, okay, that would necessitate my actually using the television in my place to watch something over the air instead of netflix/dvds, and that just sounds like something more to focus and deal with...and then my brain 'sploded.)

And just by the by? Titanium glasses frames are great!  You can keep going in to the eye doctor to have them readjusted (ha ha, if time allows) after every single time you fall asleep wearing them because OMG they are so light you forget they are on your face!  Until morning when you find them under your shoulder.  Or embedded into your eyeballs seeing as you decided to sleep ON YOUR FACE and they've certainly left quite an impression!  I know, sexsay!  That plus my purple night guard?  RAWR!

My left eye started twitching yesterday after my first official training in my new work capacity.  It hasn't started driving me batty simply because I just can't let it. (See 'sploding brain above.)  I am the little kid who has been thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool by their sadistic older sibling.  Or maybe the over-tired adult learner of SCUBA who is flailing at her 10 min. threading water test...in shark infested waters...AND YET I am striving to be AAAaaaauuuummmm, calm, collected, not too crazy-giggly when they drop yet another item onto my lap (either work or life related.)  Sorry, is the plastic perma-smile on my face starting to show cracking around the edges?  Maybe near my overly-attached-girlfriend-eyes?  (I promise, I'll cut back on the caffeine next week.)

Knitting is not helping.  At least not anything I'm working on at the moment - a sock, actually, that's the only thing I have right now and I'm at the heel and really?  Why can't heels be easier!!! (That crackling noise?  Just giving my neck a little side stretch you know to unstick my jaw.)  I've taken to baking cookies and/or making ice cream.  And giving them away.  I have succeeded in ditching the 15 lbs my Ralleigh VS Truck accident gave me and my hip just does not need the extra weight back, thankyouverymuch.  No matter how much chocolate sugar cookies taste like there's hardly ANY sugar in them!!!  Cuz really, the salad I've packed for lunch is plenty for me...yup.  (I promise to stop lying to myself next month.)

Ah, much better.  Thank you rant space blogger for letting me have a place to drop this off for now.

Everything will Work Out Right*

*Actual lyrics from "Safety Dance," 'member that one hit wonder?

But before all that...things had to get much, much, MUCH worse.

Last week I came as close as I care to admit to losing my mom.  When you sit there, listening her tell the story of the emergency room incident, knitting frantically and wondering if she realizes what she's saying, incredulous as she states, "And they were all speaking in English around me because they didn't think I could understand them, but I heard the young man, he seemed really far away, but I heard him say clearly, 'We're losing her!' before he swore!"

And it was the swearing she was concerned about.

So after Sr. Sister's funeral, my mom just didn't feel right.  I'd later learn she wasn't feeling right for an ENTIRE WEEK.  But that was after.  She was short of breath, dizzy, and her legs wouldn't work all that well.  It was her heart.  One whole section just kinda stopped working.  It is amazing how much blood the other half was able to pump around cuz the lady was STILL following her normal routine.  All I can hope is to be that strong when I'm her age.

My SIL insisted she go to the doctor to get checked.  While there they went through two blood pressure reading machines insisting they must both be broken because, um yeah, there was no measurable pressure...or heartbeat...well, it was there...30bps or something, and very weak.

So I got the first text when she was getting prepped for an emergency pacemaker operation.  There isn't much you can do 1,140 miles away from "home."  My brother said I could pray.  I started looking for flights to LA instead.  And writing emails requesting time off.  And figuring out how to get to the airport...

I arrived in time to release her from the hospital.  She was in so much pain her face just looked wrong.  Not a stroke, not a heart attack...77 years is simply a long time for a heart to go non-stop, it seems.  But dammit  she was not ready to go.  And that makes me glad.  I'm not ready for her to go either.  She's already said she's determined to look after my nieces four children (my niece is currently 10 and I will not let her make the same "married too young" mistake I made so there are decades to go here, at least).

Being home with her, helping her eat, comb her hair, get dressed?  It was almost too much.  And yet, not enough.  I could not do enough.  I baked banana bread.  Made her macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, anything and everything she felt like having (yep, not exactly the best diet to follow, but you know what?  That was not the point.)  And just when I thought I couldn't take any more?

HR calls.  I finally broke through the assistant ceiling and they're hiring me on in a very promoted position in a neighboring group at work.  To quote "Into the Woods," I'm excited and scared.  I start in a couple weeks and am wow, overwhelmed actually.  Because when it rains, it pours?  And I've hit my quote limit I think.

I'm back in Seattle now.  I'm not calling daily, but am making sure she's okay in every way I can.  She keeps getting stronger and feeling better and the pain is almost all gone and maybe I'll be able to start sleeping again?  Because my desk is COVERED in paper that has to get processed because I'll be moving desks soon and yeah.  My life is very full right now.  I am absolutely not complaining, just pointing it out for posterity's sake...oh, and listening to bad 80's music so I can stay in a positive mindset.  You just can't get too morose listening to Art of Noise (remember them?)

And...back to the game.

Without You...

I can't stop crying this morning.  And it's a combination of me being silly and way too much going on.

Or maybe not so silly, but I do have to wonder how I'm going to react when my parents go or my godmother, or someone who is in my day to day life...

A nun I've known, pretty much all my life (I was three when we met) passed away yesterday.  She was stern and and serious and she expected you do to exactly as she said, and as scared as I could be of her when I was little, and as frustrated and angry as she made me as a teenager, I sit here blubbering over her.  I haven't seen her for more than a decade.  But there was something about her always being there and now not, that is messing with my head.  There was always something to read about her in my high school newsletter - yes, I still get them.  And even more yes, I went to a high school that produces quarterly magazines.

And this realization is making me laugh.  Because if it hadn't been for her, I don't think my mom would have gotten the nerve up to have me even apply.  In so many peoples' eyes she was just "the help."  But not in Sr.'s.  And her children should have just as much a chance to make it in the world as anyones.  And that also boosts my heart (to bursting a little... And I'm also sure the waterworks will follow in just a bit...they're just giving me a chance to breathe, you know, so I can maybe wail a little bit.)

Sr. was my mom's boss for 18 years.  She was my principal.   She was what an adult in power should be and act like.  Those were some pretty big comfortable shoes to fill by subsequent leaders of the school.  I couldn't tell you if they succeeded; when I left I left for good, as it were.

And yet, my one forever-memory of her is what she told my mom when I up-ended my life and got myself on a sailboat to Mexico:  "How exciting."  Which was not what my mom expected to hear at all.  Sr. was proud (!) that I was having my adventures when I was young (in my twenties) and not waiting until later, because, well, what if there aren't any laters?  As I sit here with a battered hip and a messed up posterior tibialis tendon, a slipped disk, and really tired shoulder...NONE of which the sailboat gave me thankyouverymuch, I have to agree.  I don't think I could do the sailboat thing now, much less in my 50s or 60s as my fellow cruisers were.  Not with my battle scars.  (Or do they magically get better after you retire?  That would be awesome.) And it was her, ah, blessing on the matter that made my mom not exactly /like/ what I was doing, but bring her much closer to being okay with having a crazy-pants daughter.

When I opted to move to Tahoe instead of LA, totally okay.  Seattle?  Sounds like a plan.  I think in her head she thinks (and maybe I agree) that I'm still adventuring a little, because she never really got a chance to.   I promise to settle down some day, really.

So thank you Sr.  As mean and horrible as I thought you were (ah those teenaged years), I also loved and respected you so very much for everything you did for my mom, my dad, my brothers, and me.  And though we never moved beyond the Sr.-is-not-a friend relationship (do as your told!) And I KNOW I never hugged you, I will miss you so very much.

And now I need to go cry a little more so I can put on a braver face at work...I have an interview I need to be in a lot better shape for than I am right now.  Oh life, you are nothing if not challenging.

You Know You're In the Big Time if you have a Receptionist

I've officially hit old-fashioned-ville, population, me.

Or is it just me?  It's been several years since I sought a new doctor-type person all on my own...well, with the help of the insurance website to make sure they're part of the fold, as it were, but you know what I mean.  What I've gleaned from my needs and the wonder of this experience:

• Check the address posted against the google.  I joked with my coworker that I didn't want to end up with some back-alley quack...and dude...seriously, google maps? I give you props.  You kept me from signing on to one doc. who's address, you guessed it, apparently was accessed via a back alley.  Seeing as I need to go apres work?  Which means traipsing around Seattle after DARK.  Um, I can be naive, but man oh man, mami did not raise an idiot.
• If the address is in Seattle proper, I should not be dialing long-distance.  Funny thing here?  NOT the same person with the back alley address!
• And this is where I'm sure I'm putting on the old-fashioned/back-in-my-day-airs...if you want me as a patient, you must have a receptionist.  Even if it's you putting on your receptionist hat.  You're with a patient/don't like answering your phone/you really do just have a one-man office?  There are these things called answering services! With real, live people!  Call me (or rather, no, thank you, do not call me), set in my ways, but I will not leave my number on your voicemail, especially when your message is (names changed to protect the inane  "Hi, you've reached Jane, leave me a message and I'll call you back."  Really, Jane?  Cuz I'm calling your personal voicemail?  It harkens back to my dumfounded realization that people use their sexybunny@hotmail addresses on their resumes back when I was temping for HR.  HELLO?  You are trying to get a patient!  At least fake me out by saying I've reached the offices of Fictional Physical Therapy, Inc!

So um, yeah, I'm off to see a Physical Therapist on Monday.  Is my shoulder going to kill me again?  Actually it's doing a lot better.  I won't jinx it and say we are besties, but whatever manipulation + evil injections I put it through this past December and into January, I think I turned a corner!  No one expected me to be 100% cured, but there is a distinct lack of searing pain running from shoulder to finger tips when I find myself writing up the Purchase Order Invoices or inputting Journal Entries.  I ended my agressive treatment the last week or so of January...so far so good.  I'm still working out what my "upkeep" is going to be.  Basically I need to go in once a month....maybe once every 6 weeks, to keep things cracked loose!  To remind my shoulders they are actually NOT connected to my earlobes.  To relieve a little stress in my lower back when my shoulder muscles decide that actually, they are made of rock, not flesh, and are out to torture and possibly maim me.  We cannot all have awesome relationships with our bodies, I am living proof.

So no, PT for my shoulder!  Instead I need to see a man about a foot.  A bit of a twisted foot.  Or maybe it's impact damage...I'll know more Monday afternoon.

On Thursday I went to get my yearly physical done and shock and awe, everything seems to be okay!  Except for the swollen ankle that was perturbing both my doc and me.  I'd kinda stepped funny a couple weeks earlier and the swelling would go down and stay down so long as I iced and elevated, but the pain in my heel was constant.  Then I over did it the day before running all over the office and by Wednesday night felt like the skin from my knee to my ankle was just too tight...when I sat to elevate and put some heat on it, it did not look like my leg.  It looked like my 6'4" version of me's leg.  Especially when compared to my non-swollen one.  I didn't quite freak out, but I'd never been so happy to know I was going to the doctor's the next morning.  By then my calf was a more normal me size, but the ankle?  Pretty puffy.  An x-ray or three later and nothing is broken, but PT was highly recommended, so Friday I spent ALL DAY trying to find someone.  Well, between actually working.  Fourth time's the charm.  Which leads me to one more:

• If my issue is a twisted ankle, or really a twisted ANYTHING that is causing lots and lots of pain, and I explained this first thing, to make sure we were both on the same page, and you don't have an opening in the next few days, please don't waste my time by taking ALL OF MY INFORMATION and then offering me a spot in MARCH.

I know, I am just sooooo picky.

Is it Live, or is it Memorex?

There is currently a very high screeching sound going on somewhere outside my window.  A cross between a rubber hose being run across your more squeaky clean pain of glass...and a demented cat going ballistic in a mano-a-mano style take down (or would that be paw-to-paw...claw-to-claw?  Can you tell it's kinda early for me?).

And truly I can only describe it as above because I cannot, for the life of me, tell if this ghastly screech/squeak is coming from a mammal's throat or not.  As it's not driving any of the animals bizzaro-nutzo, I'm leaning toward "live."

No, I am no animal expert.  But if the noise is so nails-across-the-chalkboard irritating to my ears, it must be stun-educing to those poor animals whose decibel range exceeds our poor excuse for auditory conductivity.  As such, and having been a family member with various generations of dogs living in a city, I should hear howling.  This being Capitol Hill and there being an UNUSUALLY large amount of canines within the vicinity (or maybe it's just a whole lot of poop coming out of one dog and that's the real explanation for the unbelievable amount of sidewalk "obstructions" since the start plastic bag ban), I expect to hear a whole lotta howling to protest any man-made cat-fighting sounds. (Cat vs Seagull maybe?)  This goes above and beyond the loose-timing-belt-on-an-engine noise.  Oh my ears and whiskers, yes.

What's most surprising to me is just how damned loud it is.  I live blocks away from the freeway and the business core, not to mention the astounding amount of bars and restaurants and (of course) coffee shops.  And yet, it is so very quiet here usually that this ailing cat/80s-era Tercel, maybe, is drowning it all out.

Maybe it's the fog-ceiling that is causing it all to bounce back down to the ground and all over our apartment building?  I can buy that.  Sometimes I do wish I'd studied Science or another STEM major and WAS the Nuclear Physicist I imagined myself being when I was a kid.  (I also imagined myself as an Astronaut, a Fireman, a Librarian, a Secretary, a Farmer, a Policeman - briefly, then I realized I'd rather be Bo or Luke Duke as they had much more fun.)  Where was I?  Right. Trying not to lose my mind from the screeching and pull a Numb3rs jag and figure out, using MATH and number theory, just where the hell I should aim the sling-shot* to make it stop!

It's dying down now.  Either the fight has moved on, or the vehicle/person running the halyard line through the un-oiled block has given up (this, at least I know is not the case as there is neither a sailboat nor a flagpole - which has the same parts yet different names for those same parts - anywhere near here.)

The sounds of silence (well, the usual traffic hum and possibly a helicopter) are so very sweet in comparison.

Now, back to the game...

*Note to self, buy a sling-shot.