Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

These kids today

When I was a kid, I went to a doctor who looked like a grandfather and nodded and maybe said "hmmmm," during your exam.

Now anytime I go to the doctor, the doctor is a kid who says "ewww."

This morning I got out of the shower and noticed that I had a rash. That made me a little nervous, what with the sore throat and fever, so I went in for a strep test.

The rapid test came back negative, but when the doctor looked down my throat, he said "ewww!" right away. Apparently the ewwwy look plus the rash trumped the empirical strep test, and he sent me home with Augmentin.

Normally I don't like to contribute to misuse of antibiotics, but presumably the doctor knows what he's looking at (even if he is 12 years old) and if it looks bacterial instead of viral, let's go for it. I need to be at work on Monday (I have a "deliverable," and everybody else who knows how to deliver it is vacationing west of the Mississippi right now), plus I feel like crap and would like that to change.

So c'mon, Augmentin, let's kick some streptococcal tail.

So it goes

Best-laid scheme for tonight: Pizza, beer, and the Terps in the Emerald Bowl.

How it gang aft a-gley: Last night I began a sore throat that feels like I've been swallowing glass shards with a caustic soda chaser. At work today my skin got prickly like I was wearing Brillo long johns. On the way home I started shivering...you supply the simile; I don't feel well.

I'm going to put on another layer or four of fleece and go to bed. Play hard, boys, there's a sick little girl back in Maryland who wants to wake up tomorrow and see that you've kicked Beaver tail.

Breathe out

The stuff I worried myself sick over was all fine, of course. And even with an emergency vet trip (but not, thankfully, a trip to the emergency vet, which costs three times as much) we got everything that needed to be done done.

It doesn't look like much here, but trust me, the view was beautiful.

I hope everyone else had a lovely holiday, too.

You know what would make Christmas really special?

If it only came every four years, like the Olympics.

Surrender

So after that quick little whiney post I figured I'd better get started on the to-do list, seeing as how I need to get at least page 1 of 10 knocked out tonight.

Item #1, my contribution for tomorrow's pot luck.

I was about to fold x into the bowl where I had mixed y and z when something told me Nic, taste that first.

Thank you, guardian angel, for saving me from giving the office food poisoning for Christmas.

But now I had to go back out to the grocery store. And you know, you'd think that the carrot cake my friend made and the triple-chocolate chip cookies from my sister would be enough to satisfy a cranky, stressed, hormonal woman such as myself...but no. You know what I want? You know what I need?

I showed restraint. I could have bought the wheel the size of monster truck tire.

Update:

Should have gone with the big brie. I put together my dad's present tonight, an electronic thing I got at a big box store several weeks ago. I thought I should go ahead and install the batteries, so he can play with it right away. Of course it doesn't work worth shit, and of course I can't find the receipt. I expect going back to the store regardless of the receipt situation is going to be a joy one way or the other, because by now I'm sure the Barbarians and the Vandals have joined in on the big box store sacking I witnessed last night.

I plugged in my cell phone to charge, and it froze. I can't figure out how to control-alt-delete it. I probably don't want to talk to anyone anyway, or more likely, nobody wants to talk to me. That's not a complaint, it's a suggestion.

I'm out of clean spoons.

I might just go to bed. Last night I had a dream where I witnessed a murder, though, so I'm not that excited about sleeping. A coma might serve me better.

The references to brie are not a hint, no, not at all

I was in training all day today. It was actually pretty cool, because it was all picayune regulation, and I love picayune regulation, except I flunked the freaking test at the end.

It was true/false, and I over-thought and talked myself out of every right answer except one.

The instructor still certified me. Consider that, next time you are feeling safe because your safety is in the hands of someone who is certified.

I can't eat, at least not without great pain, because my mouth is full of aphthae (harmless canker sores). According to the Mayo Clinic, "stress or tissue injury may cause the eruption of canker sores." According to the Mayo Clinic, you do not treat them by eating lots of brie.

So because I was out all day, I have 427 e-mails in my in-box. I just read through them, and would dearly love to respond:

• No.

• No.

• No.

• No.

• Absolutely not.

• F--- you.

I won't, because I can't afford brie if I'm unemployed.

Overheard at Target

As I came around the end of an aisle at Target (which looks like it's been sacked by the Visigoths, by the way) I heard this:

Child: What is it?
Mother: Caramel Hershey's Kisses.
Child: I don't know if she likes them.
Mother: Ah, who cares. (pause) It's the thought that counts.

Sucker

Doing all of my Christmas shopping two weeks ago was a grand idea...every e-mail I got today promised 10% off everything plus free shipping, Christmas delivery guaranteed.

Ah, well. I would be stressed and depressed if I tried to wait til the absolute last second, wouldn't I?

My eye twitch is back. Even though I know it is a harmless blepharospasm, I still had to look it up on Google again, just in case it's gone from a harmless response to stress and fatigue to a symptom of Ebola, or in case the treatment has gone from rest to eating lots of brie.

No such luck on the brie thing.

This week is not going to allow me much rest and relaxation, so I'm just hoping the other eye doesn't start to twitch too. Although if it did, perhaps I wouldn't have to check my cursing so much. because people would just assume I had Tourette's syndrome.

One thing is keeping me going: the possibility of a green Christmas. I'm making sacrifices to the Heat Miser, because if the weather is even remotely reasonable, I can finally go hiking on Christmas morning. (Santa even said so.)

Don't I feel like a jerk

Singer-Songwriter Dan Fogelberg Dies

I actually do like Dan Fogelberg (and I don't think he'd have minded that I considered Same Old Lang Syne from the point of view of a different character; writers do that sort of thing all the time). Still, I wish I hadn't just made fun of him.

I really like Part of the Plan; I think that is my favorite of his songs. Great chorus:

Love when you can
Cry when you have to
Be who you must
That's a part of the plan
Await your arrival with simple survival
And one day we'll all understand
One day we'll all understand
One day we'll all understand

The Mitchell Report

If they had waited til 5 p.m. to release the Mitchell Report, my afternoon would have been a bit more productive.

My first reaction...if you are going to do something illegal, should you be making payment with a personal check?

'80's night

Tonight is "'80's Night" at Verizon. I heard something during Monday's Caps game about dressing up in '80's fashions*.

Too bad I won't be at the game. I could have worn either of these gen-u-ine vintage shirts from the '80's:

*I remember what I wore in the '80's: jeans, t-shirts, hiking boots, and when I dressed up, khaki slacks and a button-down oxford. Want to peak into my closet now? Whattya know! Apparently, I transcend fashion.

The Song Remains the Same

I'm pretty sure I haven't paid attention to Rolling Stone since about 1990, but I noticed it in the grocery store this weekend.

Oh my.

Well, not everybody can age like Roger Daltrey, I guess.

I remember at a party in college, hearing a guy opine "Led Zeppelin is really a band for the ages."

Somebody else answered "Yes, 13 to 17."

That reminds me, another party, just a few months ago, they had a band composed of kids that go to school with the host's daughter. The lead singer, I heard one of the mothers say, is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah.

They were not at all bad. They played Zeppelin, AC/DC, Queen (and Nirvana, which I thought was a little incongruous at first, then I realized, music from before you were born is music from before you were born, and the distinction between 1970 and 1990 might not be so important.)

When I was a kid, my parents still wanted me to turn that crap down or take it outside, which I thought was part of the appeal of rock & roll. It loses some of the rebellion when mom is rockin' out to her 12-year-old band camp grad singing Fat Bottomed Girls.

Update: From the reviews I saw, apparently it doesn't matter that the guys look like they are 60, they can still play...

My electric bill is high enough just powering the heater

This is what solar Christmas lights look like when the solar panels are covered with snow for most of the day.

Which, really, is pretty impressive. I was convinced we got absolutely no sun today.

(Interesting thing about these lights. There are three colors, red, green, and blue, but the blue apparently requires the most power. They fade out by about 8:00, then the green goes out, but in the morning I can still see dim red.)

Other Anecdote of the Other Jar

I've never really understood Wallace Stevens' Anecdote of the Jar, at least not in a way I can articulate. (There is a reason English was only my minor.)

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

I thought of it on Saturday, when I found this on my hike:

I can't articulate it, but I can illustrate it.

I want I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I thought it might help cheer me up a little to listen to the Christmas carol station on the way home from work tonight.

What do I hear?

Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Lang Syne.

You know the one:

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stole behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve.

Man, that is not a happy song. And just because it takes place on Christmas Eve, does that make it a Christmas song?

We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn't find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car.

You know what has always bothered me about this song? The architect, the one she married who kept her warm and safe and dry, but she didn't say she loved the man 'cause she didn't like to lie. Poor bastard. I always picture him pacing around the kitchen, telling the kids "Mommy ran up to the grocery store for some tater tots..." as he cranes his neck looking out the window, worrying about the fact that it's snowing and she's been gone for two hours, hoping nothing horrible has happened. So when she shows up, finally, with the damn vegetables already thawed, smelling like beer, how's he going to feel?

Ok, maybe he's a jerk, but the warm, safe, and dry thing doesn't really imply that. If she had sense, she'd have picked up the six pack and taken Dan home to meet the family. "Hey, guys! Remember I told you I used to date that singer they play on the Lite Rock station we hear at the dentist's office? Look, here he is!"

No, instead she risks drinking and driving in bad weather, potentially ruining Christmas for innocent people. I'm not sure what Dan saw in her in the first place.

How many shopping days?

On Saturday, knowing full well that I have but three weeks to get everything done for Christmas (really only three weeks; our family celebrations begin the 22nd), I bundled up and spent the day hiking.

Unless anybody wants old railroad spikes for Christmas, it was not productive.

(And coal! That would be funny, wouldn't it? Coal. Actually, I didn't take the railroad spikes or the coal...although clearly not a part of the original natural landscape, the old railroad is historic, and I wasn't sure it was ethical to take any of it. I did pick up beer cans, though. One was a Stroh's...do they even make that any more? It might be as historic as an old railroad spike.)

I feel bad about this, but I have no enthusiasm for gift giving this year. I feel completely uninspired.

And all I want for Christmas is permission to go tromping through the woods instead of the mall.