It’s surprising how a simple virus can change your body in just a few days.
When I concern myself with my weight at all, I look at it through the lens of the combat sports weight class system. I just prefer to view my body as a tool, as in, what can my body do for me? Could I defend myself using my own body? From this perspective, I dropped from the Jr. Bantam class to Jr. Flyweight within a week, just from being sick. What’s more, I’ve been eating normally for five days now, and I’m still in Jr. Fly. Is this just my new weight class? Should I start re-imagining my fantasy opponents?
But returning to the questions What can my body do for me? Could I defend myself using my own body? I’ve got my goals set for 2015: I want to make my body stronger, and I want it to be better-versed on the ground. I’ll try to find a place in my schedule for some kind of strength-training, as well as for some basic submission training and practice. I feel like I need to work on the basics. Also, getting stronger will get me my lost poundage back, I’m sure.
Callaghan’s been mapping out his training goals for 2015, too. I’d known that he was borderline obsessed with the whole process, but I didn’t realize to what extent until we were at the movie theatre a couple of weeks ago. Actually, it was on my birthday. We were standing in the lobby when I noticed that he was distracted as I was talking to him.
“Sorry,” he said when he noticed me noticing. “I was mesmerized.” Naturally, I turned to look at the object of his attention. The only thing I saw was this promotional display:
It took a few seconds.
“SpongeBob?”
“His physique,” Callaghan explained.
I looked at the display again. Then I started laughing. Then I started taking pictures. Because Callaghan was too “mesmerized” by SpongeBob SquarePants to pay attention to what I’d been saying, and come on, how many people can say that about their partners? My husband wasn’t listening to me because he was mesmerized by SpongeBob’s physique.
Later, downloading the pics onto my laptop, something caught my eye as I flipped through them. I looked closer, and suddenly, it all make sense! There it was in all its glory… Callaghan’s biggest gym pet peeve:
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SKIP LEG DAY, SPONGEBOB.
Callaghan must have been looking at the proportion of SpongeBob’s legs – especially his calves – to the rest of his body!
I was gleeful with my discovery. I went back to him with the pics.
“Were you mesmerized by SpongeBob’s non-existent calves?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Or were you just mesmerized by his ripped upper body?”
“I was mesmerized by his non-existent calves. Actually, no, I was mesmerized by his ripped upper body. I didn’t even see his calves!”
Okay, well. Whatever. All I have to say is, once again, my partner is weirder than yours.
And SpongeBob SquarePants is now the official poster child for not skipping leg day… especially calves!
You want to know what mesmerized me over the holidays? Iggy Azalea performing “Fancy” with Charli XCX on New Year’s Eve:
This is not the post I’d planned. This was supposed to be my 2014 Favorites post, but it turns out it takes energy and strength to put such lists together, neither of which I’ve had at all for the last two days… so instead, I’ll tell you the weird little story behind that.
19 years ago, in 1996, the Super Bowl was hosted here in the Valley. All of Phoenix metro prepared for the arrival of the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who were set to play in Arizona State University’s Sun Devil Stadium, and the requisite chaos ensued. Super Bowl fever is a thing in and of itself, so you can imagine that Super Bowl fever in the hosting city is madness. Sun Devil Stadium holds almost 70,000 people, and ticketholders flooded into the Valley from elsewhere to fill it up for the annual championship football game. Exciting times, right?
I was a senior at Arizona State, carrying a full course load and working 20 hours a week in the foreign languages department, so I pretty much lived on campus.
At some point during that last week of January, I started to feel sick with nausea that ebbed in and out for days, getting progressively worse. I visited the student health clinic on campus twice. They said I had an ear infection, though I had no pain in my ear, and they sent me off with stuff for the nausea. Finally, I woke up one morning and headed to my 17th-century British literature professor’s office for his early office hours. Our class was scheduled to take an exam that day, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I went to his office, told him I was sick, and asked if I could take the exam early. (I still remember the expression of trepidation-bordering-on-disgust on his face as he regarded my sick ass sitting there in his office for an hour!)
I finished the exam, went to the language lab, told them I was sick and wouldn’t be able to work my hours that day, and left. Soon after I got home, all of proverbial hell broke loose.
I’ll spare you the graphic detail and skip ahead to the part where my friend came to my apartment almost six hours later to take me to the Emergency Room. When we arrived, the triage nurse took my vitals and said, “I don’t understand how you can still be conscious” before installing me in a bed. Wow! How to avoid waiting for hours to be seen in the ER: arrive severely dehydrated!
Bits of the night surfaced and wavered before me between periods of oblivion. At some point, my boyfriend arrived. I remember him watching me and remarking, “When you do get sick, you REALLY get sick.”
Truly, I had never been so sick with infectious disease. I had an I.V. drip for hydration, another with anti-nausea meds, a third one with a painkiller (for the lower back pain resulting from dehydration) and a catheter. The situation was described to me as my stomach was drawing the water out of my muscles and that’s what I was throwing up, which was a ghastly notion, but I was more intrigued by something I overheard as I drifted in and out of consciousness. A doctor and a nurse were standing over me, talking, unaware that I could hear them. One of them said, “Yep. This is how they all end up.” This is how they all end up. The words sounded sinister. I found out later that they’d been talking about what the medical community was calling “the Super Bowl flu,” an epidemiological phenomenon. When thousands of people visit an area at the same time – as in Super Bowl week – the local germ pool gets infiltrated with foreign germs to which the locals have no immunity, and the locals get sick. Phoenix residents were getting clobbered by this vicious stomach virus, with many of us landing in the ER. I was a Super Bowl statistic.
Toward noon the next day, the crisis was over. I was feeling slightly better from all the treatment, and I wanted to go home. “You’re not going anywhere until you pee,” said the matter-of-fact nurse in her matter-of-fact nurse way. “We need to see you pee!” But I couldn’t. They kept me there until I could, and then it took a whole week of bed rest at home to completely recover.
That was in 1996, and that was the last time I had the stomach flu… until two days ago, when my blissfully long run of avoiding the dreaded throwing-up virus came to an end. Again, I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it flattened me pretty good. Yesterday morning, I wanted to work on my 2014 Favorites post for today. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop next to me, and I literally did not have the strength to pick it up and set it on my lap. Flattened.
Out of curiosity, I stepped on the scale this morning. I don’t often weigh myself, but I know the general weight that I maintain, and by my estimation, the scale showed nearly six pounds less. I either lost over five pounds in the last two days, or I’d started out weighing less than I’d thought I did. I wouldn’t be surprised if I did weigh what I thought I did and lost almost six pounds, though, considering the efficiency with which my body evacuated itself of everything I’d consumed in the last week.
Why is this all of this significant, you might ask? Well, THE SUPER BOWL IS COMING BACK TO PHOENIX THIS MONTH. Coincidence? I think not. I think the next time the Super Bowl comes to the Valley, I should lay in a stash of supplies and barricade myself inside the house for the entire month of January.
I’m feeling better now. I’ve been sleeping a lot. Though plenty dramatic, this time was not as severe as last time. My temperature is back to normal, my headache is mostly gone, my lower back pain is subsiding and I’m recovering some energy, but I’m still weak. I’m taking today to start eating again and regain some strength so I can return to work tomorrow.
Also, my gym bag is packed for Body Combat tomorrow night. Yesterday, I was so lacking in energy I thought for sure I’d miss Wednesday’s class, too, but now I’m jumping out of my skin because I missed last night!
Maybe you woke up this morning thinking to yourself, Self, I wish to read something totally random and maybe even bordering on TMI about someone. Well, in case you did, I’m here to oblige.
I think many of us have an odd hair, right? You know the one. It’s that hair you find springing out from some inexplicable part of your body, that one hair that makes no sense. It doesn’t seem to fit there. It’s either totally isolated from other hairs, or it’s a one of these things is not like the others kind of things.
I remember when, as a child, I was watching one of my Aunties doing her makeup when I caught the unexpected sight of a single hair sprouting from the back of her shoulder. When I asked her about it, she said, That’s my special hair. I won’t pluck it. I thought I heard something in her voice suggestive of the unspoken belief that the hair was good luck.
Well, at some point in the last few years, I discovered that I, too, have an odd hair. Mine is on my left leg, just above and to the left of my kneecap. What makes it especially odd is that it’s the only hair on my legs, which is probably the only reason I noticed it. It’s lone. I’m not sure what’s more unusual… the hair itself, or the fact that I otherwise don’t have any leg hair at all.
(I did have a little leg hair when I was younger, but even then, the hair pattern was extremely sparse – there were large areas on both sides that were totally hairless – and the hairs were thin. I could get away without shaving, and that was just on my lower legs. I never had hair follicles that produced hair on my thighs. Now, I just have this One. Lone. Hair.)
I’m indifferent to the hair until I notice it in the shower, and then my thoughts are consumed with what to do. I always think, I should pluck it. It’s incongruous. Then I remember my Aunt saying that she wouldn’t pluck her “special” hair, and I reconsider. Now I’ve gotten to thinking of naming the hair, because if I’m going to hang onto it, it might as well have a name to go with the identity it’s earned just by being a weird thing in a weird place.
My left knee, complete with a bruise under it (typical). I drew a helpful arrow pointing to the Lone Hair, since the hair refused to be photographed. If you look really close, you can see it.
At first, I thought of giving the hair a standard name, like Tabitha, Elsbeth, Ramona or Leigh. But the more I look at it, the more I think it looks like a Harvey Keitel. I know. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. The hair just looks like a Harvey Keitel, or maybe it’s the sound of those syllables that seems so appropriate. Whatever the case, Callaghan agrees. Harvey Keitel, it is!
This is my birthday month. In eleven days, I’ll be one year older, and the spambots are on it. Yesterday I was innocently sifting through the detritus piled up in my non-personal personal email account (aka my designated spam email account), which I only check maybe once a week if that, when I found this generous offer from “Senior Helpline”:
First of all, WTF. Senior Helpline? Seriously? Since when does being 46 qualify you as a senior? Secondly, WTF again @ get paid to live in your house.
This infuriates me; I’ve seen firsthand how con artists take advantage of the elderly, targeting them with scams tailored to their perceived sensibilities and vulnerabilities. It’s unconscionable. I’m thinking of a certain octogenarian… who happened to be a WWII vet… who spent the last days of his life waiting for the mail for his sweepstakes winnings. He’d write checks to the crooks and then wait to receive his prize, day after day, sitting by the window, watching for the mailman and occasionally railing in rage if the mailman was late, or if he didn’t have the prize in hand.
I also got this email offer for burial life insurance:
Yes. It seems that with this birthday, I’m graduating from “Meet Senior Singles Near You!” spam, and now, the spambots figure I’m so old, I’m ready for the grave. Like 46 is the new 96.
I tried to complain about it to Callaghan on the phone at lunch yesterday, but he was too distracted by his own travails to respond. As if anything could be more distracting than get ready to keel over because you’re old emails.
“I got spam offering me burial life insurance,” I told him. “For as little as $5.5/month.”
He had no comment.
“I took this very scientifically accurate test online and it calculated my fitness age to be 22. You would think that they’d know that, if they know everything else about me.”
“Hahaha!”
“I’m glad you’re amused. I also got an email from ‘Senior Helpline’ saying that I can get paid to live in my own house.”
But he was actually thinking about the burial life insurance email.
“What’s it going to be when you’re actually old? Is it going to be something like get your burial in space?”
I thought about it.
“You know… that would be really cool… get cremated and have your ashes thrown into space so you can really become one with the Universe.”
Excuse me while I go yell at someone to get off my lawn.
1). Notice that the elevator has a name, as evidenced by his name tag:
(HELLO my name is) OTIS
2). Christmas is less than two weeks away, and all the Christmas carols are on repeat all over the place. Think of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and replace “Rudoph” and “reindeer” with “Otis” and “elevator.”
Otis the elevator
Had a very shiny nose,
And if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glows.
All of the elevators
Used to laugh and call him names;
They never let poor Otis
Join in elevator games.
3). When boarding an elevator full of people, imagine that they’re infected with a lethal airborne virus and challenge yourself to hold your breath until you exit. Do it until you feel like your head’s going to explode or you reach your stop, whichever comes first.
4). When you’re waiting for the elevator and someone else gets impatient and starts pounding on the arrow button repeatedly, rather than wincing while imaging the elevator’s revenge (malfunctioning with all of you inside, of course), imagine installing a whoopie cushion noise-maker behind the button so it makes farting sounds when she pounds it.
5). When you’re in the elevator with someone taller than you, envision shooting in for a take-down. The element of surprise is on your side.
6). If you really need to distract yourself, turn your mind to something even more disturbing than the elevator, such as this informative nature video by zefrank1:
Duck TMI, I know. What has been seen cannot be unseen, I know. Blame it on Otis.
Well. This was bound to happen sooner or later, I suppose.
Here in Phoenix metro this week, someone found “666” swirled with frosting onto her child’s dinosaur birthday cake. Not just any birthday cake, either. The demonic cake was a COSTCO cake. See? I was right… Costco is evil. My Costco-induced panic attacks are NOT due to Costco being a chaotic warehouse of a special kind of too much of a good thing is a bad thing hell in which you’re supposed to be able to find what you’re looking for, frothing over with the ricocheting energy of hundreds of human-shaped mice let loose in a gigantic maze with rows and rows of towering boxes and crates and a million little pieces of cheese laying around everywhere, throwing the mice into confusion as they can’t decide which one to grab first so the pattern within the movement of the masses is schizophrenic as some of the mice wander aimlessly in a retail overload induced state of zombification while others dart hither and thither with varying degrees of harrowing spontaneity as they’re driven by impulse triggered by the things their eyeballs hone in on and ultimately their shopping carts collide like bumper cars and things get knocked over, and since it’s a warehouse, all the sounds in the entire place are amplified and bounce off of each other. Oh, no… the cause of my panic attacks in Costco is clearly written on this ominous cake expelled from the bowels of their bakery last weekend.
This is the Costco dino cake design selected by the child’s grandmother.
The devil is in the details.
Might I add that the Costco in question is the Superstition Springs one, which is near the Superstition Mountains, and we all know that the Superstitions are haunted. I mean, of course the demonic cake came from that location. Maybe an evil spirit flew down from the Superstitions to embed itself into this cake. And maybe if you play the music in that Costco backwards, you’d hear demonic whisperings commanding you to buy everything in sight.
Needless to say, the child’s mother was aghast at the 666 “hidden message” (what a clever visual pun of Satan’s, hiding the sign of the beast in a cartoonish beast’s cake-frosting legs) and took action just as quickly as the person who discovered the Virgin Mary emblazoned on a grilled cheese sandwich. This cake incident is actually unsurprising… if you believe in God, then you believe in the devil, and from this logic it follows that if the Virgin Mary is going to appear on a grilled cheese sandwich, then sooner or later, Satan is going to appear on a birthday cake.
Anyway, the news source carrying the article seems to be a Christian outfit out of the Midwest (judging by the listing of news items in the sidebar, and by the announcer’s accent… broadcast journalists at national stations use non-regional diction); I couldn’t find a hint of this demonic dinosaur cake item in the Arizona Republic/AZCenteral.com or the East Valley Tribune or any other Arizona publication. I’m not sure why Yahoo News decided to pluck this article from the Examiner and insert it into its news feed that day, but they did, and that is how it came to my attention.
On that note, I’m off to get ready for work. Happy Friday, All!
There’s been an ongoing drama rattling quietly behind the closed doors of our domestic life these last few weeks, rattling like strings of dried-out teeth from an old skeleton. I would tell you all about it, except that it must remain hush-hush (for privacy reasons, I’m not allowed to talk about it).
Yes, a moratorium has been placed on all public discussion of said drama, but I can say that I’ve arrived at a conclusion based on all related events. I didn’t just casually arrive at this conclusion, either… I was forcibly propelled to it by simple logic. Sorry. I’m being vague, I know, and it seems unfair that I can tell you the punch-line as long as you don’t know the joke. But I do want to share the punch-line, because I’m resigned to the reality of it, and this has been no small feat.
The only possible answer to the gigantic WTF that’s engulfed the last few weeks is… Callaghan was an evil dentist in a past life.
Supporting my theory is the fact of Callaghan’s sinister antique dentist cabinet, which still lurks at the back of la bergerie on the property in France. The dentist cabinet. I wrote elaborately about it, as some of you may remember:
…it occurred to us to peek inside the beat-up old antique metal dentist cabinet that Callaghan accidentally got from a dentist office in Antibes. (Yes, by accident. It’s long story.)
NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE.
I’d always thought there was something creepy about this dentist cabinet. The cabinet’s wide, shallow drawers had come filled with all sorts of little instruments and drills – dentistry’s accoutrements of bygone times – that Callaghan had removed for use on various projects. It could be, we thought, that the missing screws had made their way into those empty drawers at some point. Ghostly, pain-inflicting screws, I couldn’t help but think. I peered over Callaghan’s shoulder with a bit of trepidation; it wouldn’t have surprised me if the dentist cabinet turned out to hold supernatural properties, transforming everyday objects into tiny medieval torture instruments. Contents of its drawers were not to be trusted.
The first thing you’ll notice when reading this excerpt (other than the fact that I clearly had more time to write back then) is that this mysterious dentist cabinet came to reside with Callaghan “by accident.” To which I now say, knowing what I know from these past few weeks, that there are no accidents. That dentist cabinet deliberately came home to Callaghan, who, in his present iteration of being, hasn’t been able to brush the remnants of his past evil dentist-hood off his aura. “Paybacks are a bitch,” my friends. This is karma.
Poor Callaghan. At least now that we know the root of the problem, we know that what he needs is a shaman, not a dentist, as someone astutely pointed out. Yes, others, too, have noted that the only explanation for the epic f*ckery we’ve experienced recently has to be that he was an evil dentist in a past life; that’s how absurdly obvious it is!
(Note to self: Google “shamans who specialize in past-life sadistic dentistry of the medieval persuasion.” That should get us somewhere.
HELLo! This image-centric post is brought to you by one of America’s favorite holidays, Halloween, which is TODAY. Yay!!
This is just to say Happy Halloween, and here are a couple of pictures I took of creepy sights around town, and here’s another one of Zombie Callaghan, and here’s one of our jack o-lantern (not in that order), and hey, here are a couple of pics of the cake I made last night – the cake that I’m bringing to our Halloween potluck at work today, because I love my co-workers so much!
As for this evening? After celebrating Halloween pretty much all month, Callaghan and I are going to enjoy a low-key night at home. We’re going to watch this week’s episode of American Horror Story and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. THAT IS THE PLAN, STAN, and we’re sticking with it. =)
Let’s start with home…
We decided to go with a fake jack o’lantern this year.
Then to the Melonhead Foundation’s Drag Bingo charity bash!
Remember when I was escorted to Drag Bingo by a jovial French zombie?
I don’t exactly have coulrophobia (a pathological fear of clowns), but still…
Earlier in the month, I spotted a random clown tucked into a hallway near the entrance of a Wal-Mart.
And in our neighborhood, this house always catches my every-horror-tuned eye…
The sequel to the sequel to the sequel of “The Amityville Horror” is going to be called “The Tempe Horror.” It’s the windows under the peaked roof that do it.
And for work today, I made this cake, a tradition I’ve done for Halloween potlucks for years:
The return of the litter box cake, just for my co-workers!
Wednesday night after Body Combat class, I met Callaghan out on the floor, as per usual. [Side note: have I mentioned that I’m doing Body Combat class three times a week now, since our gym changed its group fitness schedule and replaced Wednesday night Boot Camp with another Body Combat? I love the extra Body Combat, of course, and the instructor is excellent, but “Find another way to get someone to kick my ass with a varied workout combining strength-training, compound exercises, plyometrics and cardio on a weekly basis during a day/time slot that works with my existing schedule” has since been a lingering, problematic item on my “To Do” list. I had relied completely on that weekly Boot Camp class for strength training, and one thing I’d especially appreciated was that the class was different every time. No two Boot Camp classes were the same, so your body never knew what was coming, and therefore, it couldn’t plateau. Plus, that instructor was excellent, as well.]
[Additional side note: Word did not recognize the word “plyometrics” when I keyed it in just now. This, I believe, points to a deplorable deficit in our system somewhere. I mean, what does it say about us as a society when Word doesn’t recognize “plyometrics,” other than the obvious conclusion that the people who develop that software must not work out?]
[Another additional side note: due to a recurring rib injury I was nursing at the time, I wasn’t even able to attend the last two Boot Camp classes, so I didn’t know it was going away until it was gone. I was still attending Body Combat because there I could power through the pain to the best of my ability and simply avoid the weight-bearing (push-ups) part at the end, but there was no point in attempting Boot Camp class at all with that injury.]
Anyway, so I met up with Callaghan – he lifts weights while I’m in class on Wednesday evenings – and as we walked out through the parking lot, he suddenly remembered he had something to tell me.
“Oh I talked to John tonight!” he blurted.
“John? John who?” I was thinking, John? Jean? Who is he talking about?
“JOHN, the Beautiful Calves Man,” he answered, leaving a silent “duh!” hanging at the end.
“Oh.”
“He told me that he’s a massage therapist,” he informed me.
“So are you going to get a massage from him?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Actually, I’m going to ask him if I can massage his calves.”
We laughed at his joke. But I had to follow up.
“To see if they’re real?”
“I’m sure they’re real,” he replied. “Why would he put so much work into his body and then get fake calves?”
I went online last night in search of a video about calf implants, figuring I should educate myself. This was the first one I found:
So clearly, there’s a niche of jokes about calf implants out there. In a weird way, though, the video gives me additional impetus to find time for another gym session each week. I’ll have to give this challenge some serious consideration.
I’d insisted that I’d never write this blog post. I swore it to the point where it became an inside joke, but alas, it has come to pass… I’m writing about a lawnmower, and it’s Callaghan’s fault. He wins.
You see, ever since we moved into this house at the end of August, Callaghan and I have been debating what to do about our front and back lawns. Once we decided to keep the grass, we had to shift our focus to the issue of obtaining a lawnmower, and the never-ending lawnmower discussion ensued. New or used? Off the shelf or online? Online retailer or Craigslist or eBay or Amazon? Manual, thermal engine or electric motor? If electric, corded or cordless?
Riveting.
We’ve talked about lawnmowers more in the last month than I’d ever thought about lawnmowers in my entire life, so when the discussion finally ended and Callaghan suggested, “Why don’t you write a blog post about the lawnmower?” I could only hem and haw a little, like, “Um… yeeeah, maybe I could write about the lawnmower,” then conclude with a confession, “No… no. I really have nothing to say about the lawnmower.” I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or rain on his lawnmower parade, but honestly, he might as well have suggested that I write about a feline rectal thermometer. That would be another thing you’d purchase only because you absolutely need it, and you need it in order to perform a particular task, and that task is unpleasant. Yard work of any kind is my Number One most loathed house-related chore. I blame the Army for this. If I didn’t rake so many billions of leaves during peacetime in Germany, I might be more tolerant now. Anyway.
The end of the discussion was uneventful. Callaghan picked me up for lunch one day last week and announced, “Our lawnmower will arrive on the 30th!” There was no prelude, and a prelude wasn’t necessary, since the lawnmower conversation had been an ongoing thing for weeks. He forged ahead with the technical details.
“It has a Briggs and Stratton engine,” he said with a slight shade of resignation in his voice, “But it was the best lawnmower for the best price I could find.”
I knew he’d been hoping for a good deal on a lawnmower with a Honda engine. Lengthy debates with his Dad and many hours of online research had led him to the conclusion that a Honda engine was the way to go, and this was the part that turned the whole lawnmower thing into a valuable learning experience for me. The world of Honda had suddenly expanded to the realm of lawnmowers. Callaghan’s Dad proclaimed that the Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engines are the absolute worst, and he cautioned him against buying one.
But Callaghan arrived at his educated decision to get a lawnmower that happened to be powered by Briggs and Stratton, and then he ordered it and eagerly tracked the progress of the lawnmower’s shipping progress. On Friday, he reported that the lawnmower had arrived.
“It’s here! We got it!” Unmitigated glee. I was happy for him.
“You mean it’s here at the house?”
“No, it’s here in Phoenix. But it says that they won’t deliver it until Monday. I’m calling them to ask if we can pick it up.”
On the phone, he learned that the lawnmower was stashed somewhere in the back of a semi, so it would be impossible to get it before Monday. We ended up cancelling the yard sale we’d been planning for Sunday. The front lawn was a jungle and not at all fit for a yard sale. Plus, an aggressive storm system was moving in quickly, and we didn’t know how long that would last. (It turned out to be a good thing that we cancelled, too, because the sprinklers came on automatically at 8:00am on Sunday morning. That would have been an unfortunate occurrence during a yard sale, slap-stick comic relief notwithstanding. We’re still figuring out the sprinkler system.)
Finally, Monday arrived. “Today, we’re getting our lawnmower!” Callaghan sang as we got ready for breakfast. This was yesterday. And indeed, the lawnmower made it to our doorstep in the middle of the afternoon. It was like UPS had delivered the Holy Grail.
Callaghan texted me:
A little while later, he messaged me a picture:
By the way, could someone explain why lawnmowers are often red? No, on second thought, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
“You should totally write a blog post about this lawnmower,” Callaghan said, later, for the nth time.
“No,” I said, also for the nth time.
“Genesis thought it was a worthy subject!”
It took me a second.
“Genesis? As in, Phil Collins?” I thought he was joking.
“YES! He says, ‘Me, I’m a lawnmower.’”
“No way! Hahaha!!”
But he seemed to be serious. Later, my curiosity drove me into the bowels of the interwebs, where some things should stay deeply, deeply buried, like these lyrics from the old Genesis song “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” (first of all, WTF @ that title?!):
When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench,
I can always hear them talk.
Me, I’m just a lawnmower – you can tell me by the way I walk.
I am so not making this up:
I just can’t… I’m sorry, Genesis lawnmower song fans. I just don’t think this lawnmower thing works. And I apologize to the rest of you, too. What has been seen cannot be unseen, I know.
You know what does work perfectly, though? Take the Judas Priest song “Breaking the Law” and replace the lyrics “breaking the law” with “mowing the lawn.” There are some parodies already floating around out there – more than one person thought of it before I did – but seriously, it’s not even necessary to re-write the whole song! You can just replace those three little words and leave the rest of the song exactly the same. It’s brilliant:
There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside it’s so frustrating as I drift from town to town
Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
So much for the golden future, I can’t even start
I’ve had every promise broken, there’s anger in my heart
You don’t know what it’s like, you don’t have a clue
If you did you’d find yourselves doing the same thing too
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn!
You don’t know what it’s like
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn
Mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn
If you’re not familiar with this song, you can listen to it here:
Can’t you just hear him chanting, mowing the lawn, mowing the lawn?
Anyway, I should totally play this for Callaghan while he’s out mowing the lawn for the first time. We’re both Judas Priest/Rob Halford fans, so it’ll work on several levels. For now, though, I’m lawnmowered out.
It was a dark and stormy night bright day two months ago when Salazar vanished. In case you didn’t know, Salazar is the identical twin brother of Umberto. I clearly remember posting this picture of the forlorn Umberto to my instagram:
The twin donkeys were close, and Salazar’s disappearance was an utter calamity. Umberto has been devastated, and I, myself, having gotten used to their company after working a good part of the summer in otherwise near-solitude, have also been missing Salazar.
As people began milling around the workplace more toward the end of summer, I’d occasionally ask after Salazar. No one seemed to have a clue as to his whereabouts. In fact, for reasons I can’t fathom, no one seemed to even take me seriously.
Salazar remains missing to this day. Meanwhile, this notice has been affixed to our prominent yellow pegboard:
It was there when I got to work yesterday morning. I walked past it all day, and I couldn’t help but think, If that pegboard is now functioning as a message board,I ought to add a notice of my own.
A missing adapter in need of his medication can’t be the only hapless thing to deserve a “Missing” notice on a gigantic bright yellow pegboard that one encounters immediately when entering our space. Surely, Umberto deserves to have a flyer made to help find his brother.
As luck would have it, le graphiste extraordinaire was up to the task last night. Thanks to Callaghan, I shall be bringing this notice with me to work this morning:
But here’s the twist: Callaghan also found that he happens to have the very same kind of adapter as advertised in Cooper’s “Missing” notice. (These things happen when you’re unpacking after a move. Random things turn up in odd places.) He found it with Ronnie James, who was sitting at the table with a look of expectation and a mysterious vibe about him.
HAI. I CAN HAZ UR ADAPTER.
The result of which, of course, is this second notice that I’m bringing with me to work today:
And that, my friends, is why it’s always a good idea to lock up your stuff if your desk is out in the open. This is really more of a cautionary tale than a tale of woe. You’re welcome.
I’ve been more scarce than usual online these last two weeks, and I haven’t been sleeping as much as I should. This has less to do with the rooster named Moe next door and more to do with the fact that I’m semi-obsessed with unpacking the whole house within a ridiculous (self-imposed) time-frame.
One consequence of not getting enough sleep is a tendency to see things, as in, to look at something and see something else. I’ve been taking quite a few second and third looks lately, checking to see if what I’m seeing is really what I’m seeing.
The other day, I stepped outside and saw this:
Callaghan fiddling with the backyard sprinklers.
After I realized that Callaghan was trying to troubleshoot a broken sprinkler, I went to grab my phone. He was so intent on figuring out the problem that he wasn’t aware that I was taking pictures as he adjusted the stream of water. He thought I was just being weird, laughing for no reason. (I can’t imagine why he’d think that.)
He didn’t get why I was laughing…
Then there was the time I spotted a questionable box in a jewelry store, tucked away behind the counter. This was on Friday afternoon, when I finally – finally! – had an opportunity to take my watch in to get the battery replaced. (I cannot tell you what an immense relief it was to address this issue. My watch had been dead for almost two weeks, and it was maddening to reflexively glance at my wrist fifty times a day only to see “5:20” every time.)
So I’m standing there and my eyes wander behind the counter, and this is what I see on the floor behind the sales representative:
Alarming discovery in the jewelry store.
…a box containing a puppy in 14 pieces, “country of origin CHINA.”
The jewelry store lady didn’t see the humor in it, but how was I supposed to know that a jewelry store was using stuffed animals for promotional (or whatever) purposes, especially when there were no stuffed animals in sight?
Then there’s this:
This trio of characters is the first thing I see when I walk into work every day.
This scene changes every day, sometimes several times a day. I never know what I’m going to see when I walk in.
On Friday, I wrote about the heartwarming qualities of a well-maintained, staffed Laundromat. It’s entirely coincidental that this morning’s post is also about a laundry space. On Saturday, before I’d decided what to write about for today, Callaghan and I stood in our new laundry room at home talking about the most important feature of that room, which is, of course, that it makes me think of the laundry room in the horror film Halloween. Because we all know that no laundry room is complete without the mental image of a masked killer standing outside of it, watching as you blithely go about the business of doing your laundry.
That original Halloween from 1978? Stands out in my memory as being the movie that sparked my interest in the horror genre, which has long since been one of my favorite film genres. I find the laundry room scene in that movie to be a wonderful scene, especially because it arrives at that moment.
You know that moment. It’s the moment in a cheesy horror movie wherein the tension gathers itself into a jagged-edged ball with frayed, stripped wires poking out all over the place before it begins its bouncing, chaotic journey downhill, picking up speed and snagging everything along the way until it slams to a halt with everyone (except that one, token survivor) dead at the end. (Long aside: It’s fun if the survivor is the one person that you’d predicted would escape. Sometimes, a horror movie starts and some characters have DEAD written all over them from the very beginning, right? We like to make predictions within the first 15 minutes. “He’s dead.” “She’ll be the first to go.” “That person’s going to be the one who stays alive.” It’s actually the most satisfying when we’re wrong, though, because being wrong means that the movie wasn’t as predictable as we’d thought it would be.)
Taken out of context, this scene from Halloween isn’t particularly creepy, but it’s brilliant in its place (no gore here):
I honestly don’t know why this came to mind on Saturday. Our laundry room isn’t especially creepy. Maybe it’s because the start of the fall semester means that fall is near, which, in turn, signals the approach of Halloween, bringing to mind the movie Halloween. Whatever the case, Callaghan and I had the chance to discuss the matter gravely.
“This reminds me of the laundry room scene in Halloween,” I said as we stood in the laundry room. It was empty. The washer and dryer were to be delivered later that day.
“What scene?”
“Remember that scene? The girl is babysitting, she goes out to the laundry room – it’s night – and the killer is there, creeping around outside. This is like that laundry room.”
We were having this conversation because our laundry room is only accessible from the backyard. It’s connected to the main house, but you can’t walk through. The only other time I’d seen a laundry room like that was in Halloween.
Our laundry room at night, not creepy at all under the patio’s two bright lights.
“In this laundry room,” Callaghan said as he looked around, “the only place for the killer to hide is behind the door. So you enter it by kicking the door in really hard… and then there’s no more killer!” With his French accent, he pronounced it “keeler.”
But the killer would be wilier than that, I thought. I could picture how it would happen. The killer would crouch around the corner, or, if the patio lights were out, in the inside corner of the patio.
The laundry room in the dark.
I’m not really concerned, though. The laundry room is spacious, but it’s narrow, and other than the one on the door, there are no windows. That means that I would have the advantage.
All of this makes me think of American Horror Story: Freak Show with increasing anticipation. We can’t wait for the return of Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulsen, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Even Peters, Emma Roberts, et al! October 8… only a month away!
As recently as eight months ago, my elevator phobia – a spin-off of my claustrophobia – kept me out of elevators at all costs. Now, because of my job, I take the elevator every day, numerous times a day. This marks a great personal victory for me, even though I still always choose the stairs whenever possible.
So, as a somewhat recovered elevator phobic, I thought I’d put together this handy Elevator Phobic’s Guide to Taking the Elevator, in case it can be of use to anyone.
1). When the elevator arrives and the doors open, look inside first to check for sewer roaches before getting in. You just never know, and the last thing you need is for your recently-somewhat-alleviated phobia (elevators) to be revived by a clash with your one remaining phobia (roaches).
Being weird in the elevator to show you my “I see a roach” face. Derp.
2). Always have your cell phone with you before stepping into the elevator. Make sure it’s charged.
3). If there are other people in the elevator with you, quickly check them out to evaluate whether or not you could take them in a fight if you had to (which I do automatically all the time, anyway, no matter where I am… it’s a reflex). If you do find yourself in a situation that necessitates self-defense tactics, the elevator would be a convenient place to be if you’re like me and you fight best on the inside because you have short limbs.
4). If you’re unsure about the integrity of the elevator, bring a bottle of water in with you. It never hurts to keep a protein bar or nuts with you, either.
5). If the elevator arrives and neither the “up” nor the “down” signal lights are lit, err on the side of caution and don’t get on. Wait for the next one. An undecided elevator is an elevator that might decide to get stuck in the middle somewhere.
6). Mentally listen to Steven Tyler singing “Love in an Elevator” while you’re in the elevator. It will bring some levity to the situation.
7). Minimize your time in the elevator as much as possible. I almost always take the elevator partially, up from the second floor and down to the second floor, rather than ground floor to ground floor. Between the ground floor and the second floor, I use the public stairs.
8). Arm yourself with knowledge by studying the control panel in the elevator as soon as you step in (well, after you size up anyone who may be in there already. Priorities, you know). That way, in the event of a stoppage, you’ll be more likely to able to find the appropriate buttons even while you’re in a panic.
9). Valium, or something similar. Just… whatever it is, have it with you. Frankly, if I could, I’d harpoon myself with whale tranquilizer if I got stuck in an elevator alone. I would just want to be out.
10). If there are other people in the elevator, amuse yourself by trying to figure out which person would be the devil, à la M. Night Shyamalan’s delightful film Devil.
My weekend started on a serrated-edged note of dark humor when, during a business meeting at a restaurant, my dinner companion and I snorted over a particular menu item:
Free-range rabbit on the menu.
As you can see from this photo of the menu, the restaurant offers rabbit with the assertion that the rabbits are “free-range.” Fantastic! Happy little bunnies hopping hither and thither over a grassy knoll.
But then we read that the rabbits are “slow-roasted” and “hand-pulled.” Hand-pulled? We exclaimed in unison. My visual instantly went from happy little bunnies to torn-apart bunnies. The menu’s brief description concludes with a touch of poetic, seductive frill, the “black trumpet mushrooms, thyme, Pecorino” part elegantly cloaking the macabre “slow roasted hand pulled” part. Perhaps they thought that starting with the nationality of the rabbit would smooth the way for the rest of the description… better these misfortunes befall a Canadian rabbit than an American one, though the dish is Croatian, not Canadian.
Coniglio Pljukanci: “Canadian free range & slow roasted hand pulled rabbit…”
Following this template, Callaghan and I – ever on the look-out for ways to amuse ourselves – later came up with a list of menu items featuring animals humanely kept before their inevitable demise:
Boeuf Bourguinon: “French grass-fed cow, guillotined, braised and immersed in a Burgundy wine sauce…”
Jaegar Schnitzel: “German open pen pig surrounded by barnyard friends, then bled out through the throat and filleted…”
Lamb Stew: “New Zealand petting zoo lamb executed by firing squad, cut into chunks…”
Kobe Beef: “Japanese cow tucked in at night with a bedtime story, then slaughtered & grilled…”
There’s probably something slightly wrong with us for having so much fun with this, but in my defense I was more reminded of Dr. Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay “A Modest Proposal,” in which he advocates the killing and eating of babies and children as a way to alleviate the poverty problem in 18th-century Ireland:
A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
He had many ideas, in fact, and applied a great deal of thought to the matter:
Excerpt from Dr. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” (Eighteenth-Century English Literature, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1969)
On that note, I’m going to go put something together for lunch today. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, anyone?
The other night, Callaghan and I were sitting next to each other on the loveseat when he picked up my hand and lifted it to his lips.
“Mmm, I love your skin and your temperature,” he said, kissing my wrist.
“My temperature? Haha! That’s a new one!”
“See? Original.”
He didn’t start laughing with me, and that threw me off. He was unusually mild, oddly emotionless with his statement. He kissed my forearm up and down, and I was reminded of a cartoon character – Foghorn Leghorn, maybe? – eating corn on the cob, like a typewriter. Sexy! I stifled a giggle.
“Mmm. Good temperature. I’ll keep you,” he murmured dramatically. His words and actions were comical, but his demeanor was serious.
Well that was strange, I thought, looking after his form as it walked off and turned the corner into the hallway.
A little while later, he passed by me where I was still sitting on the loveseat. He paused, picked up my foot, and kissed it.
“Yes. You’re the right temperature,” he said, releasing my foot and continuing on his way to the kitchen. His tone was definite, as if confirming to himself the veracity of his earlier assessment. His tone almost had an air of scientific assessment.
At that point, I had to wonder:
–Not only is Callaghan not into feet, but he just barely tolerates them. Feet are not one of his erogenous zones.
—Ergo, singling out my foot for a kiss is something that would be classified as a distinctly un-Callaghan-like act.
My mind immediately went to:
—OMG he’s been abducted by aliens.
–Or, he IS an alien… an alien from a planet where the standard of beauty is temperature-based. The aliens gauge a human’s temperature by pressing their lips to his/her extremities, thus measuring attractiveness.
–Who or what is this person-like thing, and what did it do with my husband? Why is it assessing my temperature?
–WHAT IS IT PLANNING TO DO WITH ME?
I was just confused because this soft-spoken Callaghan was not the Callaghan I knew. So neutral as to be matter-of-fact in the blandest of ways? Not the Callaghan I knew. The Callaghan I knew was loud, boisterous, growly and silly.
One thing’s for sure: if it was just him being in a weird mood, he certainly does get points for originality. Of the various sorts of compliments I’ve received in my life, my temperature hasn’t been one of them.
I passed the alien magnet test with the allure of the incomparable temperature of my extremities.
This is how I must look to an alien, what with my temperature all hanging out everywhere, you know.
HEY! I just thought of something… in the film Edge of Tomorrow, the aliens were in Paris, FRANCE. **SPOILER ALERT** The master alien was found hiding beneath the Louvre, which happens to be Callaghan’s favorite place on earth. Now it’s all starting to make sense….
Heading into summer, I can feel my impatience gathering like sand in a dust devil as the new season of American Horror Story comes into focus. The near-future horizon of television is looking sharper, but not less dark… we can’t wait to see the latest iteration of creator Ryan Murphy and crew’s twisted anthology series. There have been three seasons thus far, each interpreting “dark and perverse” in its own unique, brilliant way.
First, we had Murder House.
Then, we had Asylum.
After that, it was Coven.
Now, this fall, we’re in for a….
…which will take place at a spooky carnival in the 1950’s. You know that it’s going to set a new standard in the realm of terrifying clowns.
This is going to be Jessica Lange’s last season, and rumor has it that she’s been practicing her German accent for it. Who’s excited? I AM.
Since we’re on the subject of evil clowns, here’s some Insane Clown Posse for your morning:
“The Great Milenko.” Yes.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if Ryan Murphy were to use some of ICP’s music in his new season? The underrated band could finally get the wider audience they deserve with exposure in AHS: Freak Show. You don’t have to be a juggalo to enjoy ICP.
To avoid naming names of people, places or institutions, I invite you to imagine the following scenario:
You work at a place where brilliant, creative people – artist-musician-dancer-engineer crossbreeds – make cool things.
So you’re on your way to work one day, and when you get to your destination street, you see a bunch of cops and emergency vehicles crowded around the upcoming intersection. You think nothing of it. This is America. A clusterf*ck of cops and emergency vehicles is not an unusual sight.
You get upstairs to your meeting. Most everyone’s already there, except for the person leading the meeting. Then he calls someone in the room to say that he’s been delayed a few minutes, go ahead and get the meeting started.
He finally enters the room, replete with casual yet apologetic haste. He’s late, he explains, because he’d encountered an “incident” on his way in that “involved one of our people,” so he stopped and talked to the detectives to help sort it all out.
Uh….
It turns out that “one of our people” had left his cool-thing-in-progress on the street momentarily, but in that moment (of course), a passer-by found it. Police cars, fire engines and bomb squads arrived. In the end, the authoritative involvement included two cities. The intersection remained closed off for several hours, diverting traffic. News reporters entered the fray. Also, implementing communications safety procedures developed in the aftermath of tragedies at several universities in the nation, university officials alerted the entire community of students, faculty and staff on their cell phones, cautioning everyone to stay inside until an “all clear” was issued.
All because our guy’s project – a kind of animated sculpture resembling a round device with lights and flexible parts and whatnot, I don’t know exactly what – had been left in a box next to a parking meter, an unfortunate happenstance. What are the odds? And what are the odds that the exact person who could un-kerfuffle the whole thing happened to stroll through that intersection on his way to our meeting?
If you can imagine all this, you’ll know I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have an exceptionally un-boring job, as far as office jobs go. (It’s especially impossible to be bored when you go home to another creative genius.)
And on that note, I’m off to get ready for the day, which begins with taking Callaghan’s father to the airport. We’d capped off his visit from France with a side-trip to California to spend time with my parents over the holiday (Memorial Day) weekend. Our month of hosting house-guests has wound down to an end! It was fun, but I have to admit, it’s good to get back to a routine. I like routines.
Most of us have heard of the “11:11 phenomenon.” What does it mean to keep seeing “11:11” everywhere?
I came to my own conclusion about it rather dramatically, but it’s simple. I decided that the purported meaning of 11:11, if there is one, doesn’t matter… because for me, the only significance of 11:11 is that it’s just plain weird when you start seeing it repeatedly. I don’t feel the need to venture past that superficial level, and I wouldn’t normally even think to blog about it if it wasn’t for the bizarre set of days – five, to be exact – that just passed.
In the five-day period, my eyes happened to land on digital clock displays at exactly at 11:11 every day, sometimes more than once a day. When I say “happened to,” I mean, I wasn’t looking at the clock already, and I wasn’t thinking about the time. My eyes just naturally gravitated toward the clock exactly when the time read “11:11.” (Twice in that period, I saw 1:11, as well; I also saw, twice, 2:22. One of the 2:22s was the change on my receipt at Trader Joe’s, so I was a few days into the repeating digits bonanza and already sensitive to them.)
Like this.
The weirdest of my recent 11:11 sightings occurred in California on Saturday night. What happened on Saturday night was actually beyond your normal, garden-variety weird, and I’m going to tell you about it.
It happened when Callaghan and I were lying in bed in my childhood bedroom in San Jose. The nighttime darkness in that room is complete, thanks to the window covering. We’d been in bed for about 20 minutes when a small, bright light suddenly flashed on in the darkness. Imagine it – total darkness, and then, blink! Illumination. We lifted our heads and looked around. The light was coming from the far corner of the room.
It was coming from my phone, which was lying on the dresser.
“That’s weird! Why would my phone just light up like that all of a sudden?” I asked. It had made no sound. Callaghan was already getting out of bed to investigate.
“OH MY GOD,” he said when he got there. He held up the phone and came over with its screen facing me. I looked.
11:11.
The screen of my cell phone actually lit up, which I’ve never seen it do spontaneously, at exactly 11:11.
11:11 couldn’t draw more blatant attention to itself if it burst into the room clashing pots and pans together while kicking a metal garbage can against the wall. It clearly wanted to be seen.
Callaghan has the exact same phone, and his settings and mine are set the same way. HIS phone didn’t light up. Only mine did. Why? It made me wonder in spite of my generally non-superstitious self.
And I’d thought the previous day had been weird when my eyes landed on 11:11 twice during our road trip! The first time occurred as we were driving out of Arizona, and it happened again when we crossed the California border into the next time zone, causing a second 11:11 to appear an hour later. (This was two days before daylight savings moved California forward to the same time as Arizona. Arizona refuses to observe daylight savings… another bonus of living in Arizona, if you ask me.)
The weirdness of my eyes being drawn to the clock at 11:11 twice in 60 minutes in two different time zones didn’t even compare to my phone eerily, silently, inexplicably lighting up in the dark, across the room, at 11:11. But it was the reason why Callaghan was so startled when he got up to look at my phone. When the double time zone 11:11 sightings occurred, I’d been incredulous enough to tell him about the proliferation of 11:11 everywhere in my vision field recently. He was aware.
Anyway, that was apparently 11:11’s grand finale in this chapter of let’s mess with Kristi’s mind! – because I haven’t seen it again since. The five days* of 11:11 (and 1:11, and 2:22) ended there, in the quiet dark of my childhood bedroom in San Jose.
—–
*I’m disregarding the fact that five is my lucky number. Coincidence, right?
That Asian-Looking Chick 