Miz S

There is evidence to suggest that I have too much time on my hands...

...which is strange because I feel SUPER BUSY.  

Anyway, I made a video for you.

 

The Bread of Affliction

I probably should have posted this last week when it was actually, y'know, PASSOVER, but I got distracted. I plan to do an Easter post right before Memorial Day weekend in case you want to plan ahead.

The best part of Passover this year was that I didn't have a nervous breakdown in the middle of it and go on a crying jag like I did last year. That was so awkward.

Here is a video that a bunch of you have already seen on Facebook. The highlights for me are:

1:58 Edgar Allen Poo disrupts the service with his incessant barking.

2:35 Josh is funny.

2:41 to 3:03  Nate (Evangeline's boyfriend) reads in Hebrew. Dudes, Nate is a Christian, but listen to him kick the ass of that Hebrew passage. Also, if you watch carefully you see Evangeline give a little nod of approval both times when he finishes.

3:15 to 3:30 Josh makes funny faces while he eats the moror (horseradish, straight up).

Scroll on down to the bottom to watch the actual video. It might be interesting for those of you sheltered Christians who have never been to a Seder.

In other news, Josh's scooter is still moping about in the driveway. The frame is bent, so it's basically junk now. No word from the insurance company yet, but I'm sure they will generously make everything all better. Right?

A couple of family members/friends have said things like, "Well, he's not going to get ANOTHER ONE, is he? IT'S SO DANGEROUS."

And I'm all, "Meh."

Everything is dangerous. You take sensible precautions and you live your life.

Later on, dudes. I have errands to run, food to cook, a cake to bake.

 

 

 

The Work Week Ended With A Bang!

No, not THAT kind of a bang, silly. The kind of a bang where one gets an e-mail from one's beloved halfway through the day saying that there was a "scooter mishap" on the way to work, but that he is "fine, really."

This is the second time that a DC taxi has tried to take Josh out. I'm not going to call them taxis anymore. I'm going to start calling them "widowmakers."

As in:

I've had too much to drink. I'll take a widowmaker home.

Or:

I'm going downtown, too. You wanna share a widowmaker?

His e-mail to me included a detailed diagram of the mishap scene, as well as photographs of the damage to the taxi--I mean, widowmaker-- (minimal) and the scooter (extensive).  And a photo of himself to prove that he is "fine, really."

My team-mate, J.A., was impressed with Josh's finesse in breaking the news to his wife that he had narrowly escaped grievous injury.

I include some of those images here for your viewing pleasure.

I tweaked this image by adding the stick figure, but the scale is all wrong. Unless Josh is actually a giant.

How lucky that Josh had the foresight to purchase serious protective motorcycle outerwear a long time ago, and that he always wears it. He sustained a few bruises, but no more than he has after a softball game. His wrist is a little swollen.

His work wife insisted that he apply ice to his wrist, and for that I thank her.

Josh is not at all happy, I'll tell you whut. The man loves, loves, LOVES riding his scooter.

The scooter was towed to our driveway for a hefty sum of money and now sits there, maimed and shrouded.

The part that seemed the worst for me, and that I have guilt about, is that he had to walk home from the Metro station this evening wearing his big clompy motorcycle boots.  I was visiting my parents after work, and it just didn't occur to me that I should cancel because he would need a ride home. He seemed so casual and offhand about the whole thing when I talked to him on the phone.

I mean, he could have gotten a widowmaker at the Metro station, but maybe he was still harboring a grudge. I don't know.

TWO posts in THREE days. And another one in my head.

Paper is not my friend. It turns into stacks so easily, and there is always some crap that I simply don't know what to do with.

For example, there is a piece of paper buried on my desk at this very moment that has something to do with a transfer of stocks or funds or some shit that took place in 1995, and I am not even lying. Somehow I got it in my head that it has important ramifications, possibly tax-related, and that I need to figure out where to put it.  But I'm not sure where, so I just pick it up every now and then and look at it and whimper quietly.

But honestly, I've gotten a lot better over the years, and I KIND OF have my shit together these days. 

On Sunday, Evangeline came over to do her taxes. I told her to bring her important papers, including anything from her health insurance company. She has new health insurance and I wanted to be the controlling mother of a diabetic and make sure everything was being covered properly.

She arrived with a plastic bag that had a surprisingly sparse number of documents in it. I quizzed her.

Me:  Are you sure this is everything the insurance company has ever sent you?

Evangeline: Yes. Well, it's all I found.

Me (slightly confused): It's all you found? What do you mean?

Evangeline: I looked in the place where I keep my papers and this is what I found.

Me: Do you have the papers organized into some sort of system? Like with files?

Evangeline: Yes, of course.

Me: Like what kind of files?

Evangeline: These were in the file marked "Crucial Things."

Me (barely stifling giggles): What other files do you have?

Evangeline: I have one marked "Correspondence" and another one marked "Theater Programs."

This made me laugh soooooooo hard.

Honestly, I would think she would have filed the theater programs in the Crucial Things file, but what do I know?

That apple didn't fall from the tree, did it?

She allowed me to be very controlling and set up a filing system for her, which was sweet.

 

Busy, yes, but also floundering about in my usual haphazard way.

From the car window, on the way to work.

Oh how I long for the days when I complained that I was "too busy" to write a blog post.  I don't know what I am, now.  Busy, yes, but also floundering about in my usual haphazard way.

I'm going to make a quilt! I will bake brownies and go introduce myself to that new family around the corner! I will start running again! I will learn Spanish so I will know when the kids in my class are saying bad words! I will have a bountiful vegetable garden this summer, and also an exquisite perennial bed that will be the envy of my neighbors! I will design and build my own henhouse and become a suburban farmer. I will slather moisturizer on my middle-aged legs every single night so the skin will become magically smooth and youthful! IT'S ALL GOING TO BE SO EXTRAORDINARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reality is dreadfully the opposite, which is always the case with people like me whose enthusiasm is paired with such shocking inefficiency, not too mention the lack of practical skills.

I mean, for chrissake, here it is April 9th and I have done ZIP about our taxes #woe is me.

True, I've been genuinely busy with my parents and my job. But still. Come on.

*     *     *     *     *

I never finished telling you about my referral to the cardiologist HI I'M MIDDLE-AGED.  It was slightly amusing, at least it was to me.  To refresh your memory, my primary-care-physician referred me to a cardiologist because my EKG showed a long somethin' somethin'. QT interval. I prefer to think of it as a "Cutie" interval.

So I snagged an appointment for 4:00pm one day a few weeks ago. A 4:00pm appointment always feels like a big win because then I don't have to take half a day off work, get a sub, etc. But it also means I have to fly out the door at school at 3:30, and my last kid is never gone till 3:20. So, 10 minutes to dash back upstairs, grab my purse, use the restroom, and NOT get entangled in a conversation with a colleague about why Roberto can't read or when we are going to meet about little Amy, etc etc. 

I arrived at the doctor's office on the dot of 4:00, and was taken in to be examined by Dr. S shortly after that.

I expected an old crusty doctor for some reason. Instead I got a damned George Clooney look-alike. Suddenly I became acutely aware that I was  a) slightly sweaty after a long day in first grade, and b) not only had lots of magic marker smears on my hands but had picked at my cuticles and nails until they bled (a very bad habit that has gotten much worse in the last year), and c) I had taken absolutely NO PAINS with my appearance that day, not even a smudge of mascara.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a happily married woman and I understand this was not a date. But still. One has one's pride.  I would expect Josh to feel the same way if he found himself in a paper gown with a doctor who was a dead ringer for Scarlett Johansson. 

"Mr. S., as soon as I finish fixing my hair,  you're going to feel me touch you. Now you're going to feel my finger in your rectum."

There's just nothing good about a handsome, young-ish doctor. It forced me to joke nervously and fiddle with my cell phone and say things like, "I'm tweeting this!"

And when he went through the medical history and asked me questions like, "Any rectal bleeding?" I was all immature and "Gross! No!"

In the end, he pronounced me healthy but wants to follow up with an ultrasound.

I'll schedule that appointment for 4:00 again,  but this time I'll take the entire day off and get a makeover. You feel me?