Duty Free – A Canadian tale
We were returning to New Jersey from the Bahamas via Toronto, Canada. (If you want to know why, just ask Miss South Carolina:
At the Toronto airport, which is very orderly and well, Canadian, we went into the duty-free shop (mostly because DH spied Cadbury chocolate inside). So in an attempt to look sophisticated and worldly (while wiping the melted Cadbury off the face of my snaggle toothed DH with the oil-stained rag I use to disinfect public toilets prior to sitting down), I perused the alcohol.
I was disappointed to discover there was no Boone’s Farm or Three-Buck Chuck (a Trader Joe’s specialty). But then I saw a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream Liqueur. That’s a brand I LOVE. I often pour a little over ice into my Flintstone’s jelly glass to celebrate a Friday night. With a box of Cracker Jacks and a pretzel or two, it’s the perfect beginning to an elegant weekend.
It was priced at $28.50. The problem was, we had no idea how much such a bottle should cost, the last one having been gifted to us, oh, maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Alcohol lasts a long time in our home (we’re too afraid to mix psychotropic drugs – our primary mind-altering means of relaxation – with liquor). Would buying it in a duty-free shop really save us money big time? Despite my ignorance about the cost of liquor, it seemed a bit too expensive to me.
Then, having a thought, I punched DH in the side. “I bet these are 28 Canadian dollars!” I said financially. “Isn’t the U.S. dollar favorable vs. the Canadian dollar these days?” I continued. I was on a roll. Maybe the bottle cost, like $4 American.
“Um, I’m not sure,” he replied (this is the man who has been investing our hard-earned dollars for the past 25 years).
Neither was I. So we soothed our sorry financial-ignoramus asses with some more Cadbury’s. Aye?
The Prince and the Colonoscopy
You know how difficult it is to find a birthday gift for a man of a “certain age?” So I was thrilled when DH mentioned, in advance of his recent birthday, that he was interested in an e-reader.
Okay, he didn’t exactly say he was “interested.” He kind of grunted in that xy chromosome kind of way indicating he wasn’t opposed…or else he had a piece of ground round stuck in his craw. I chose to interpret it as the former, because 1) having a birthday “plan” would make life very easy for me 2) I could look forward to saying cool things like “My husband’s reading Darwin on his e-reader” and 3) I could spirit it away when he was having the car’s oil changed and download Fifty Shades of Grey. Go me. WINNING!
But I also snuck in another “bonus gift” for his birthday pleasure. I scheduled a colonoscopy for my honey.
My prince is six years late for his recommended first colonoscopy. Needless to say, he abhors medical procedures – particularly those that require his presence in the bathroom for 9 straight hours (ANOTHER reason that Nook is going to come in handy – he just better wash his hands…). I mean, we did redo the bathroom a couple of years back, with subway tile and all, but still.
And he’s never ever been “put under” either. So when we went to the doctor today for his pre-colonoscopy appointment and the doctor explained the procedure, including the light sedation he’d be subjected to (which I “helpfully” and lovingly explained was analogous to the ‘Michael Jackson drug’) my honey turned a most flattering shade of green.
But it wasn’t MY fault that he mentioned an occasional bout of indigestion (“difficulty swallowing”). That won him an EXTRA procedure called an endoscopy. A two-for-one during which the doctor will be going up AND down, all under the spell of the same MJ juice (THAT was the doctor’s terminology – we’re quite the pair).
I’m so excited. I can’t wait for July 24th.
Gift of love? Or revenge for the pencil holder and Jane Fonda exercise tape he presented me with for my 36th birthday?
You be the judge.
The Body of Work Guide to Selecting a Physician
In recognition of the fact that it’s extremely difficult to identify a good doctor today – not because they’re not out there but because 1) playing “Eeny Meenie Miny Mo!” with your insurance plan’s list of approved providers has never been empirically proven to improve medical outcomes and 2) the “look for a Jewish surname” (as I do) m.o. may not sit well with everyone – I am providing you – my loyal readers – with a guide to choosing a physician. Follow these 10, 8, 4 easy steps and you, too, will soon have a healthy coccyx and a realistic-looking chin implant.
- If the doctor looks like the gent in the photo above, sign on the dotted line…even if he’s out-of-network. You can be sure he has skilled hands.
- Check out the magazines in the waiting room. Personally, I am turned off by offices which only stock Car and Driver and Kidney Today. If there’s not a People Magazine in sight, keep looking. A good Kardashian fix during your 1.5 hour wait is essential for putting your upcoming heart-lung transplant into perspective.
- Do not affiliate yourself with a doctor who is him/herself affiliated with a hospital with the word “Memorial” in its name. No disrespect to Morristown Memorial, a hospital I know and love, but which had the foresight to rename itself “Morristown Medical Center.” As a comic I once saw so aptly put it (and this is not MY joke), if facing a major medical crisis, I want to be treated at the “Zippedy Do Da Medical Center,” not at New Jersey Memorial or Our Lady of Sorrows. Maybe it’s because I’ve got a depressive personality, but there’s only so far I can spin a name like that.
- If the first thing the receptionist asks you – without lifting up her head to address you – is “What insurance do you have?” head for the hills and vote Democratic.
Mohan talked me down off the ledge – Part 1
I was sitting at work, innocently typing on my laptop (since I’m an intern, I don’t have a hospital-issued computer, but use my own) when all of a sudden the synapses started to misfire (not mine – for once – but the computer’s). I first noticed it when I tried to type in my password (no, I won’t share it with you) and “she” told me that it was incorrect. I tried again, to the same effect. And again. And again. I looked down to watch myself typing and noticed that every time I held down the “shift” key (the first character of my password is a capital letter – that’s all I’m sayin’) two characters (two ASTERISKS because my password is hidden) appeared.
Isn't it amazing that I can type in the search terms "Recalcitrant computer" and come up with a whole slew of pictures?
That was the first clue that something was wrong. I removed one of the characters – I couldn’t tell which one because again, they were ASTERISKS) and typed the rest of the password. Again, no dice…and no “entree” to my computer.
So I did what any born-in-the-1950s computer user does when faced with such a situation – I pulled the plug (the computer’s, not mine) and removed the battery. Waited 15 seconds (maybe 13 or 14, because I’m impatient that way). Isn’t that supposed to fix everything? Reinserted the battery, plugged that baby back in, booted her up and typed in my password.
My laptop might as well have lit up in movie marquee lights: TOUGH #&$& JOAN (that’s my name) – YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED IN! I AM NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHY, BUT THAT’S LIFE. SUCK IT UP AND GO BACK TO THE IBM SELECTRIX (WITH CORRECTION TAPE) THAT MADE YOU SO HAPPY BACK IN THE 70s AND 80s.
That’s when my heart rate started to climb and my body broke out in hives. Never mind my movie-star good looks, my loving family, my comfortable money pit home…because without my computer, I AM NOTHING. My computer contains my school life, my work life, my social life. If it had a refrigerator embedded, I’d never emerge.
But then I had an idea. I clicked on Thing 2′s icon (password-less) and accessed his Word program. There I typed in my password (in REAL letters, not asterisks). Let’s say that my password is “Newt- 2012! (It’s NOT – but go with me on this on!). Here is what she typed (or is it “keyboarded?”:
xyNewt210121.
This is not a political statement. Because I started to type other characters – and they were equally as weird as the concept of voting for Newt Gingrich for president. For example, I typed an “s” and got “sa.” I hit “Function F8″ and my CD-ROM drive popped out. (I was distraught – the CD-ROM drive doesn’t even WORK, so I couldn’t just slip in a Barry Manilow CD to calm me down).
In disgust – and muttering the Serenity Prayer (“God grant me the serenity to avoid picking up the laptop and slamming it down on the heart-lung machine passing by”) – I gave up. I’d deal with this when I got home (i.e., hand it over to my mainframe-computing husband).
But that…. that was before I met Mohan.
TO BE CONTINUED…..
Spring forward
The switch to Daylight Savings Time sucks if you are an Assistant Room Service Manager at a high-end hotel OR the parent of a young child. I’ve been both.
By the time 2 a.m. on the designated Sunday morning (and it’s never the same Sunday morning) rolls around, parents of young children have already spent a grueling six months carefully calibrating their young ‘uns sleep patterns. This means either 1) no nap, therefore permitting said child to go to conk out early or 2) a nap not a second longer than what is required to keep your infant/toddler from disintegrating into a Hannibel Lechter-type mood by dinnertime, but still short enough that he/she is yawning and reaching for blanky by 8:30 p.m.
But at the beginning of Daylight Savings Time 9:30 p.m. DST is still 8:30 p.m. in Toddler Time, which conflicts with Mad Men starting at 9. So there’s at least half an hour when the baby won’t go down and your whole body is aching for Jon Hamm you just can’t wait to learn more from a sociological perspective about the competitive nature of the business world in light of the emergent roles of women in the 1960s advertising world. So you listen to the (not yet tired) baby wail in her crib. Fortunately, she’s not too loud after a couple of Gibson Martinis.
If you’re a hotel room service manager, as I was for a glorious 8 months back in 1981, you will always remember watching the phones light up endlessly with guests anxious for their morning coffee ($6.00/pot) and eggs (don’t ask – this was a luxury hotel). But low and behold! There’s not one actor waiter available to fill an order, because every… single… one…of..them had forgotten forgot to spring his alarm clock forward.
I’m one of the few (my mother being the other one) who enjoys the autumnal return to Eastern Daylight time. I love closing the curtains against the dark and cocooning my family in the warm embrace of home, Jon Hamm and I making coffee, eggs and Martinis for ourselves, after we’ve put the kids to bed..
Fruit salad
Interstate Route 78 runs east to west, west to east, cutting a swath through a mountainous portion of the state. It’s a commuter’s dream – or a nightmare depending upon when in the commuting cycle you hit it. Connecting suburban towns with the pharmaceutical, technical, financial and reality tv empires other behemoths that support our people and form the backbone of our state, Route 78 is affectionately known as “that %&*$#^ parking lot.”
I usually hit it at nightmare time (because that’s how I roll), joining thousands of other commuters driving over-sized gas guzzlers that we don’t need…and can’t afford. Because “need” is a relative term here in New Jersey. Montana may be Big Sky Country, but New Jersey is Big Mall Country.
It’s a beautiful ride in the fall, when the leaves are are preening in golds, reds, yellows and dusty mauves, and a bit of winter white and burnt sienna – a whole lotta heaven in the Garden State. By winter, when the leaves have dropped from their vernal perches, we can see for miles and miles. Each exit is a little bit of nostalgia for me. There’s Exit 43, off of which is the medical practice where I had my post 50th birthday colonoscopy. Exit 41 is where I almost hit a deer, its cloven hoof making a satisfying “thwaft!” as it glanced off my side view mirror into the path of the semi behind me.
[New Jersey is a state full of surprises, perhaps none more so than what was contained in a little magazine called Weird NJ. I purchased it for Thing 2 at Barnes and Noble at his behest, thrilled at his interest in reading something lengthier than the instructional "Push" sign on the door at the local 7-11. Purportedly a tome crammed full of stories of haunted houses and bottomless bogs in this great state, I was shocked to receive a call from his elementary school principal informing me she had confiscated the magazine because it contained advertisements for questionable items illustrated with scantily clad women. At least he's reading, I told the principal. Surprise, surprise.]
This is a true story.
But there was no greater surprise than what I spied halfway up – or was it halfway down? – the sloping side of the mountain along Route 78 a few months back. Caught in the denuded brush of a tree above the shale and siltstone spreading down towards the highway was a Jamaican banana (similar to the one seen in this picture on the right).
I know not where it came from. I know not whether the banana was climbing up or down. I know not what it wanted or how it came to take a wrong turn from Jamaica.
But I do know that when I passed by today… it was gone.
Medical marijuana and the modern mom
References to medical marijuana keep finding their way into my inbox. It scares me, for sure, and I swear, Officer Sir, it’s not mine and I don’t know how it got there. My boyfriend and I were just watching Hoarders on tv and all of a sudden, here was this email marked “’High’ importance.” I hope you’ll let me off with a stern warning. I wanna go to cosmetology school and all and I’d hate for this misunderstanding to put a crimp in my Netflix queue. I mean, ruin my future.
I don’t really need or want medical marijuana (though I do thank those who have my best interests in mind), but it always gives me a good giggle to see these suggestions there. Cause even if it’s legal in this great state of New Jersey, I am, far and away, the straightest arrow in the quiver. The mere thought of me applying, eating, drinking, tokin’, smokin’ a rafter, razor, reefer is enough to send this Jewish girl to Catholic school where the nuns can rap my knuckles with their rulers and tell me not to wear shiny patent leather shoes (apologies to the shoemakers and proponents of the metric system).
I can cite a thousand reasons why medical marijuana has no potential as my personal elixir, like peanut M&Ms and stale Cheetos. The first has to do with the danger of handing me a lit match. History bears out that this is NOT a wise move. Last summer, in an attempt to make my work area cozy and “mine,” I tried to light a scented candle on my desk. But before you could say, “Keep away from draperies” the paper towel I used to record my secret calculations was all ablaze and I had to rush my rapidly melting market research to the sink, where I dosed it in New Jersey water. Since then I’ve kept my desk clean of all decorative accoutrements, including pens, pencils and staplers…and work.
Then there’s the smoking part. In 1983, someone passed me a marijuana cigarette at a party. (I remember this very clearly because I haven’t been invited to a party since). I put it in my mouth, and, not knowing how to proceed, promptly started to floss between my molars. I felt no pain, but later that week my dentist did ask me for my pesto recipe.
This is the first time I’ve ever admitted this.
Ultimately, I just can’t justify the risk of my kids finding out about my marijuana use, even if it is for health reasons. There’s just NO WAY for me to undo the damage that will inevitably result when the kids look at me with astonishment, shame and pity in their eyes and say, “Mom, you’re holding it wrong.”
%$^## My Mechanic Says
“Again? ”
“You did what?”
“Yep.”
“That’ll be $865.75. I didn’t charge you for changing out the lugnuts.”
“Lugnuts? They’re used to secure the wheels on your vehicle.”
“Yeah – my wife did that too.”
“You just change out the oil on schedule and that baby will last you 200,000 miles. Guaranteed.”
“I’ve NEVER seen that before.”
“The guys from Triple A don’t know nuthin’.”
“We opened ‘er up and couldn’t find anything.”
“Well, it looks like you lost your piston. You know how piston rings provide a sliding seal between the outer edge of the piston and the inner edge of the cylinder?”
“Ask your husband to call me.”
“No, we’re not open on Saturdays anymore.”
“If it were me, no, I wouldn’t.”
“You dropped it off WHEN?”
“Your oxygen sensor is sending a false reading to your ECM.”
“It wasn’t a tack; I think it was someone’s nose ring.”
Pimp My Head
Much as I expected, I’ll be needing (like a hole in my head) a short regimen of prophylactic chemotherapy – a sort of dessert course to my main surgical meal. This is not the worst thing in the world (last night’s Republican debate and the ground round/pasta/tomato soup “dinner” I made took that honor).
I actually fell on the floor and kissed my oncologist’s feet when, in response to my question as to whether this particular cocktail would “cause me to gain weight,” he replied, “Not if you don’t eat too much.” I can do that. Okay, I really can’t do that, but it’s nice to pretend that I can.
Do not confuse prophylactic chemotherapy with that other type of prophylactic, condoms or French letters. While both derive from the Greek “prophylaxis” (προφυλάσσω), meaning to guard or prevent beforehand,“ believe me, their intent is very different. After all, the idea behind the chemo is to prevent any more cancer from popping up, while the idea behind the condoms is to prevent any more Things 1 or 2 from popping up. The prospect of the latter is absolutely terrifying.
If previous experience is any guide, the chemo won’t cause me much in the way of side effects. But one thing is almost for certain – I will lose my hair – temporarily. And while that puts me in good company with most of my male friends in their 30s, 40s, 50 and above (i.e., you), it’s not a look that suits me. While the rest of me may be lovely in that nymph-like Leslie Caron in ‘An American in Paris’ sense, (I know this is true because both my grandmother AND Gene Kelly told me so), my head is not one of my best features. That distinction belongs to my small intestine.
So I’ll need to pimp out my head. And that’s where YOU come in. Since you, my friends, are the ones who have to look at me (or at least you would if you invited me to any parties or out to dinner or… oh, never mind), I thought you might want some input into the looks I’m considering.
I’m open to suggestions. DH says he’d like to wake up in the morning next to a redhead. I told him that since Lucille Ball has been dead for over 20 years, he’s stuck with me.
Here’s what I look like now.
And here are some of the looks I’m considering. Which is your favorite? Let me know. Otay?
My puter is a beatch
I have a Passive-Aggressive computer, not a Dell or an Apple. I know this because she looks nice, but habitually stabs me in the back just when I need to look up a crucial yet elusive fact, like the winter price of oranges in Sewell, Alaska or the name of a talented Kardashian.
This is what she does when she’s feeling ornery:
- Upon start up, she divides my screen into four equivalent “mini-screens.” What I see are four perfect replicas of my desktop, in the upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right quadrants of my laptop. With type so small I can’t even find the “shut down” button.
- Restores all of my deleted emails, stacking them up in my inbox, without my even asking her to. This happens every two to four weeks, without any forewarning. Sometimes she provide multiple copies of each email. I currently have over than 5,000 formerly deleted emails in my inbox, waiting for me to do a mass purge. This is time-consuming and dangerous, because among those thousands of emails, I might inadvertently delete one I had wanted to keep, like the one from the kind African prince offering a portion of his riches if I share my credit card info with him.
- Makes my cursor jump all other the screen, inserting random letters ian plractes thely don’t belwpeng. (I suspect this may be related to the fact that my keys are sticky with wine and bat guano, but maybe not).
Mind you, there are times when my computer works very well. She smiles and preens whenever the Geek Squaders come by (at $100 an hour). Sometimes she doesn’t even buffer, and I can watch a movie without interruption.
But when I want to go tit for tat in my most retaliatory passive-aggressive manner? I simply remove her battery. That shuts her up.
