Search Terms

One of the fun aspects of being a blogger is that I get daily statistics about my readers (like how much you weigh and your favorite color). Included in these statistics is a listing of all the search terms that were used to find my blog or a specific posting. How many social anthropologists are doing their PhD theses on Search Terms: Social Preoccupation with Sex and Made Up Words? Not once, but three times someone has searched for “tiny testicles” which, of course, leads them to the posting about baby Nero Wolfe Kitty’s first exam at the vet. Did someone originally read the post and become enchanted with the words “tiny testicles”? Or is someone out there really concerned with this?

My regular readers know that when the languages of the world have not provided me with just the right word for what I am trying to say I make one up. “Sapianic” is such a word. In context of the post it is very clear that it means “in the manner of homo sapians” and it was just an oversight of English that the word did not yet exist. I am really doing us a favor. Well, today someone searched on that term. Is someone in a race with me to contribute the most to our modern lexicon?

The company name “QVC” is searched a lot and yields a lot since home shopping is (or should I say was) one of my favorite things. All kinds of Buddhist words and concepts are searched. I got a whole bunch of “mediations” which confused me until I realized that someone out there is my equal in bad spelling and was seeking “meditations”.

All this is, of course, making me want to write a post specifically designed to promote search terms. I am going to do some blog reading research looking for words that are bound to be searched. And to make my personal challenge more interesting I will deny myself any blogs about aliens, Iraq, propositioning in the public bathroom, of poor Tammy Faye’s last days. Leona Helmsly is fair game.  Here are some of the words I will use: EVOO, smackdown, poker, fastrack, bull market, fifth amendment, Civil War, Anna Nicole Smith, Tinker Toys, original box, and Lucky Strike.

If you have searched for something fun today and want to share (keep it clean this is a family show) I would enjoy your report. I searched for “defender of Thermopoli” and “Goya etchings”. We are doing research. Really.

What you are missing because you sleep

As my regular readers know, I do not sleep. I exist on three hours a night and a twenty minute lie down during the day. While you are sleeping I am living a whole other life. It is a life without sound and without light. I know my house the way a blind person does — in the pitch black I can negotiate the stairs to the basement, around sharp cornered boxes, over thresholds that are a bit too high. I can find the extra roll of toilet paper that has fallen behind the packages of kleenex in the downstairs vanity. I can pick out a nice banana or pour myself a Coke. Light is for those who don’t need it because it is day time. I go without light as a courtesy to my sleeping family. Even a thin shaft of light peeking under the door will wake my daughter. Our bedroom door which squeeks and has a death rattle when you close it does not wake my husband, but turn on a 25 watt bulb and he is up and none too pleased. I function fine without light. At worst I have the glow of my laptop monitor — a beacon to get me safely to my desk, to writing, to having a rich and productive life.

My nights are soundless too.. I love to lie in bed and watch movies when I can not sleep. Network programmers have a choice of five movies to plug into the 2:50 – 4:30 AM time slot. All other movies have small print in their usage contracts — “This movie is not suitable for viewing between 2:00 – 5:00 AM. Attempting to broadcast this movie will cause it to self-destruct.” I watch my movies on mute so that I do not disturb my sleeping spouse. It does not matter that when he falls asleep with the TV on it is on the channel which becomes Infomercial Network — the network that records its infomercials at a decibel level just short of that which makes dogs rabid. No, I am not vindictive. So I watch without sound. At first I found it difficult to follow the plot without hearing the story. But soon I could read lips pretty well and I disovered that the five late night movies all have the same script. The script’s concordance is something like this: F%$# you as#hole. There are also a handful of  sounds (explosions, bullets ripping through flesh, motorcycle revving) but they are pretty self-evident.

Oh, I have failed to tell you about the five movies. Blade, Blade II, Memoirs of a Geisha, Rocky, and Star Wars: the Hero Whines. The first two are vampire movies and were filmed without discernible dialog in the first place. If you tape a playing card to your table fan you will have just about reproduced all the movie’s special effects sounds and you get a nice cool breeze. Memoirs is about a Japanese Geisha. The script calls for giggling and slapping the face. Mute is fine for those. The plot is not hard to follow: good Geisha, bad Geisha, handsome man she loves, man with bad skin she does not love. Rocky is a movie about a boxer named Sylvester Stallone. The actor (by the same name) plays Sylvester Stallone in a lot of movies. If you have to pick one be sure it is Judge Dredd. The script for Rocky has not yet been written. Since they wanted to complete the filming of Rocky before Sylvester Stallone turned sixty five, they filmed it some years ago in anticipation of the script. It does well on mute as a result. You don’t need sound to get those chills when Rocky wins the fight.

Star Wars is in a sound class by itself. In the movie with sound they show lots of spacecraft exploding in space with huge balls of fire and deafening noise. I assume that my fifth grade science teacher has already written to them about space being a vaaccum (no sound you know). There have been two actors playing those fighter dudes with the Force and a nice laser light. It does make a cool sound when it is turned on. Sometimes I will make that sound really quietly as I watch. Both actors have chosen to make their characters (Luke and the young Darth Vader) whiney. I put them on mute even when everyone is awake.

If you are up late and can’t sleep I suggest you try TV movies on mute. You can send me a text message about how the experience went. But don’t expect an immediate response. I may be in the basement doing laundry.

Where do all the therapists go?

My family does its part in supporting the psychiatric community — we have a psychiatrist, an individual therapist, a family therapist, and two groups (not to mention the pharmacy of meds for bipolar disorder, depression, and a couple of Tylenol PMs thrown in in case something hurts). Huge amounts of money and a great deal of time goes into exploring why bad things happen to good people and why I need to accept the fact that my platinum album is going to have to wait for a different reincarnation.

So you think this family dedication would warrent reciprocal attention. Well, no, this is August and for the entire month we are therapy free. Every person with a professional interest in mental health goes to Nantucket for the month. They leave behind emergency numbers which if you call you hear the following message:  “Stop. Think. Is this really an emergency or are you just being neurotic?” Remembering the doctor’s parting words that sounded an awful lot like a death threat, you hang up and fester in a corner until September 7th at 2:00 PM when you get to spend one hour spitting out a month of angst.

Clearly mental illness has a calendar component — a gene that knows exactly when August first arrives and is able to quiet the demons just enough for you to get through. While you are lining up Prozac on your office desk, your shrink is working his way through a lobster dinner, his sport shirt protected by a plastic bib that reads “Sometimes a lobster is just a lobster.” Ha ha ha, good one. He must have received that one the same year his wife found the socks that say nothing.

If you are a patient you will  not be successful trying to book a room in Nantucket. Shrinks find being stalked quite  irritating and so pay the hotels heavily to put up the no vacancy sign. You will be blocked if you even think about taking the ferry over for the day. The database does a deep dive off your credit card number and discovers you have used it to purchase antipsychotics —- sorry  the ferry is booked solid until after Labor Day.

Well let’s see, my husband lost his job, my daughter married a circus clown, my inheritance it seems has been spent already but I will be receiving a fleet of six limos willed to me by a neighbor. Ok, I can handle this no problem. I will make sure I do not engage in twisted thinking. I will pound my chest to make sure my chakras are in alignment, I will curl and uncurl each  toe indivdually while chanting. It is only a month.

In September when I am reunited with my support system I will try to ignore the fact that they are tan and well rested. I will not waste any of my precious hour sulking. I will come prepared with a bulleted list of the issues I wrestled with on my own. I will be sure to have a ready explanation for why I spent five hours in the emergency room with my teeth locked on to a paramedic’s Dockers cuffs. There will be no need for drama and I will check in the mirror to ensure any foam leaking out from the corners of my rictus smile has dried sufficiently.

Dunk’n Donuts will put away its supply of intravenous iced coffee drips (if there are any left) and return to its regular offerings. The sale of  cigarettes and brandy will plummet. The doctor’s office will hang up the Open sign on the door which was crushed open by the press of people an hour ago. Glazed and smiling faces will politely inquire whether the doc had a nifty time off. And then the sobbing will start. Workers will arrive at the office red eyed, eyes cast down to avoid their also red-eyed colleagues.  Life will return to normal.

The Pink

By day The Pink is a ladies spa. Chatty young men staff the spa, providing massage, pedicure, herbal masks, and talk therapy. The patrons clad in pastel terry cloth robes, their toes pried apart with spacers to preserve the fresh nail lacquer until it dries, drink green tea and munch on delicate crackers. The talk is of shopping, the movies, fashion, and spouses. The ladies are perfect in every way. Their pinkies are crooked up in a gentile salute as they drink their tea.

On Friday nights The Pink is transformed. The pool is filled with champagne. The cabanas, used throughout the week for healing baths and yoga classes, become Trysts, Escapes, and Mad Fun. The spa staff, so caring and attentive all week, dons costume and props to fulfill the week’s party theme. Wild stuff happens at The Pink at night.

Tonight at the spa there is a birthday celebration. The Pink is vibrating with rap songs — with challenge rap honoring the guest of honor. Each rap star steps up and lays out his or her best — each throbbing verse a birthday gift. The guests gasp and applaud. The music is cranked up and the strobe lights glitter. Spartacus and Leonides, having arrived just after lunch, are face down at the edge of the pool, sipping its champage, like zebras at the watering hole. While they sip themselves into Cristal oblivion, the spa ladies sway and stomp as the driving music takes them into their own Party Place.

So much goes on behind the scenes — the decorating, the invitations, the ordering of supplies and planning the menu. Not to mention filling the pool and making sure every dream is answered. The ladies at the spa — you’d think they were just ordinary women, a lot like you or me. But they are not ordinary women. The Pink is a world apart — a Friday night train to an exotic place where the guests create their own destination.

Another Growth Opportunity for Linshaolin: New Appliances

My new dishwasher and clotheswasher were just delivered. I should be beaming, yes? They are lovely, no problem there. Delivered on time, as promised. They are shiney and new. The dishwasher even has stainless steel in front so we are completely up-to-date design wise. However, I will not attempt to use my new kitchen toy, for I have been in the basement staring at the clotheswasher. It’s brief operations guide, torn from its plastic wrap is open to Step One.

I can not figure out how to open the washer door. The manual has a clear picture of the door with a large arrow pointing to a spot on the door. I have carefully examined this spot looking for clues. I have pressed the spot. Pulled the spot. I spoke to the spot in a gentle tone of voice. I threatened the spot. This has yielded nothing. The door remains closed. I am not yet ready to call upon my husband because that would only validate my mother’s opinion that I am a fliberty gibbet. She may have passed on years ago but I am sure she is in Heaven watching me, drying her hands on her apron as she always did just before shaking her head in exaggerated disbelief. “Lin, you are a fliberty gibbet.”

I am like a detective thumping the wall looking for the secret passage pushlock. My face is two inches from the spot. Oh yes, I have checked around the spot too. I have tried prying the door open but not too much. My husband has often told me “not to force it” when he comes upon me struggling with some device created by Satan (most recently a can opener). He knows he will lose a finger if he tries to intercede and help me.

Perhaps I am light headed since I had a small lunch. Maybe I need distance from the problem and when I come back it will be so simple. “Lin, how could you have not seen the words “press here to open”?” I will go to Weight Watchers and when I come back not only will I be thinner, I will be sharp as a tack.

Weight Watchers did not do the trick. I do not consider .2 lbs to be a weight loss. It is a variable that changes depending on whether I am wearing a right-hand ring or not. No weight loss, no epiphany about the door. I remember suddenly that I should always read all the directions through once so that I have a clear scope in mind. I read carefully and make note of some warnings about the lint filter, but no revelations about opening the door came forth.

The door problem is compounded by the fact that this is a front loading clotheswasher.  I have always had top loading before. So I have no experience with varieties of front loading doors, no past history of successfully opening front loading doors to boost my confidence. I busied myself while pondering what to do by peeling away a layer of clear nail polish from my thumb. Slowly, oh so slowly an  idea begins to take shape. I dangle the fragment of nail polish, give it a victory toss in the air and shout Eureka! I run my hands over the surface of the door along the edges — there! I can feel what I can not see. The door is sealed shut with clear friction tape. It peels away most satisfyingly. I press on the spot as designated by the arrow and voila — the door opens. Mom would be proud.

Breakfast

Most mornings I eat a large bowl of Peanut Butter Puffins with skim milk and, if the season is right, blueberries. I make do with bananas if the season is wrong.  Puffins are satisfying — they are crunchy and flavorful. I remind myself that I am enjoying my Puffins as I eat. Unfortunately, Puffins also make good snacks and so some morning I come downstairs to find an empty box sitting next to a third of a Melba Round and some pepper coating someone has scraped off a Genoa salami. The evidence points to the Mr. I become quite sulky when my Puffins are gone.

The no Puffins dilemma forces me to think creatively about breakfast (not as creatively as the Mr. who ate Puffins with Melba Rounds and salami!). I think about some of the really fine breakfasts I have had. This train of thought takes me back on some of my travels to lands where breakfast is an art form and to other countries where it is a punishment for waking up.

I’ll start with the punishment to get it over with. Jolly old England — no wonder their teeth are bad. The cook of the house gets up early to make the toast and to put into stainless steel cooling racks (unbuttered). There is nothing quite like cold  toast. The accompanying dishes are baked beans (luke warm) or oatmeal and hardboiled eggs. The nice thing about hardboiled eggs is that if they are not eaten at breakfast they can be kept for another day (or week) — so handy. The English wash down these yummy items with tea that has been in the starter pot  (like a yeast bread) since the Monarchy was Catholic. The sludge of a nice Earl Grey beats the pants off of a tall hot caramel machiatto.

And now for something nice . . . Let’s visit Copenhagen (which I do often). A hotel breakfast buffet consists of big bowls of yoghurt, small bowls of pickled herring, croissants, chocolate buns, fresh fruit, and at least four choices of Danish pasteries (head directly for the ones filled with almond cream). And this is a land of tall, thin people!  Not far away in Norway the breakfast is hot cereal, buttered toast, a lingonberry jam, and a huge wedge of milk chocolate. My request for refugee status is in process.

Moving south to Portugal you can add on tiny fish that have been smoked. Ham, slices of cheese, and olives. Across the ocean in Latin America you have fried bread with chilis or sweet fried dough or corn bread. My favorite is a corn tortilla with left over chicken, beans, and melted cheese. In Denver you can have an enormous burrito with green chili sauce, sprinkled with cheese and dolloped with sour cream.

Of course, in Paris you must must must start your day with a vat of Cafe Creme, a croissant (if you are lucky the bakery will have run out of plain so you are forced to have a chocolate croissant), strawberry jam, and five cigarettes. In Dublin  your hotel breakfast is a buffet of fried eggs, thick bacon, blood sausage (both black and white varieties), stewed tomato, strong tea, and bitter marmelade. It is best to eat hearty on your breakfast because you will find that lunch consists of egg mayonnaise and no one really wants to eat that. It is not unheard of to down a small Guinness to aid the digestive process.

Back home again, I give up the Puffins once a year at Christmas for eggnog french toast with grade B maple syrup (we all know that B is so much better than bland A). And a couple of times a year I make three minute eggs as a personal challenge (there is an eleven second period in which to retrieve the eggs from their scalding bath — mistime it and your egg is raw or hardboiled). I like three minute eggs because you eat them in an egg cup and that is lots of fun. I wear my napkin like a bib.

My Mom, who grew up on a farm in Kansas, believed that pie was a breakfast food. And those of you who are regular readers will remember that my Dad preferred really sweet cereal with Coca Cola instead of milk and a liberal sprinking of chocolate sprinkles. (And I pay a therapist good money to tell me why I am fat!) People who skip breakfast are taking years off their life and are creating a terrible bad breath situation for themselves. People who eat breakfast at home and then again when they get to their office can expect to gain seventeen pounds this year. People who drink their breakfast need to enter therapy immediately — they can be helped but you should expect a long haul.

Chinese left overs are a wonderful starter for the day as is cold pizza, Syrian bread toasted and then drizzled with butter and sugar and cinnamon or any combination of bread and cheese food.  Tea or coffee are essential to breakfast. Fresh orange juice is more than a “nice to have” and low fat chocolate milk should not be wasted on children. What do you like to eat?

The Alternate Universe

If you are a science-fiction buff then you will have seen plenty of Star Trek and  Star Gate episodes in which the crews find themselves transported to alternate universes. I have felt for some time now that this has actually happened — somehow we got off course and were sucked into a universe that we were not intended to habitate. At first the signs were so subtle that I overlooked them. For instance, a bag of Tootsie Pops now has either only  one or no chocolate pops. Watermelon flavor has been substituted. No one in our dimension would make such a marketing blunder — this is clear evidence of a parallel world. Similarly, I experienced small but significant changes in the contents of my freezer. I would buy Hagen Daas Rocky Roady ice cream on Saturday. On Sunday night I would go to the kitchen to get some and in its place is Rainbow Sherbet. I happen to notice that the sink has in it a coffee mug with a tiny pool of Rocky Road at the bottom and there is a teaspoon with dried chocolate on it. And there are spilled chocolate sprinkles on the counter. I question the family — they deny ever having seen Rocky Road.

I am pretty sure I know when we made this shift in time and space. I was thirty four and pregnant. My girlish waistline was disappearing. I woke up one day and noticed a small child sleeping in a crib. I went to investigate and walked by a full-length mirror. My arms, which had been ripped with lean muscle were now (and there is no gentle way of putting this) flabby and swung like a samba dancer as I walked. I poked my sleeping husband. “Did you know that we have a baby?” I queried.  He rolled over muttering “Very funny, leave me alone.”

Back in the old universe Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were conservatives. In this universe they appear to be moderates if not liberals. In the old universe men who had performance issues lived in hidden, never to be spoken of misery. This universe’s economic base is the sale of over the counter erectile dysfunction pills and pomades. If you don’t have ED then you are just not trying hard enough to promote economic good times. In the old universe you could either burn your bra or watch a TV commercial for bras in which a manniquin torso is clothed in a leotard under the featured bra — heaven forbid that we see dummy flesh. In the old universe TV spouses slept in separate beds and wore  pajamas. They always put on a robe when they got up in the middle of the night to pee. Correction — in the old universe TV characters never peed. In this universe TV spouses still have sex after 14.7 months of marriage and sleep in the nude.

But seriously, I think it is somewhat of a problem that we so quietly shifted into a different universe and nobody seems to notice. In the old dimension if you had nasal congestion you could go to the drug store and buy a nose spray that would produce a serioius rush. In this new dimension if you want a decongestant you have to sign a log book and produce two forms of ID. The small type on the box says “For maximum effectiveness blow your nose; these tablets have been stripped of all active ingredients for your  protection.”

It is alarming how people have fallen right in to the alternate universe’s “culture”. Men used to  support women who stayed at home and cleaned. Things got changed during the quantum shift and now women support men who stay at home. And they hire cleaning ladies to clean. The men work on their at home business franchises that they bought at a combo convention — Jig Saw Convention and Franchise World Expo.

For a long time I was uncertain about my perceptions. I am seeing things I thought. I am paranoid. Then the incontrovertible evidence fell into my lap. Women of all ages were pumping their own gas. Some of them were even leaving the nozzle in the gas tank while they went into the gas station’s Food Shoppe for cigs and lottery tickets. Talk about self confidence! All this is leading up to a warning for you. We will soon be shifted into yet a different alternate universe. How can I tell? Last time I was pumping gas I noticed a woman checking her tire pressure. We are in for a wild and crazy change!

Flight Plan: A Guide to Air Travel (Part 1)

Curbside Check-In: This is a service provided by the larger airports. Your taxi driver unloads your luggage at the airline’s Departure terminal and while you are busy paying for your cab and getting a receipt, the Curbside supervisor tags your bags right through to Finland. The boarding pass printer runs out of paper so you are directed to go to the check-in desk inside. An efficient maze of cordoned off lines (designed by Frank Perdue) has burst its capacity and travellers begin to leak into the space reserved for the rich. The sole occupant of that line grows increasingly distressed at the impinging masses and so is escorted to the Rich People’s Lounge to wait in comfort while his boarding pass is being gilded. A friendly agent with a walkie talkie shouts at the assembled masses that all flights will be leaving early today and so you will miss your flight. You find a boarding pass that someone has dropped on the floor. You grab it and run to the gate.

Security: Another snaking line inches its way through security. You are asked to remove all your garmets except for bra and panties. You are asked to put your laptop in a separate bin. You are told to remove your jewelry. As you pass through the security gate your artificial knee sets of the alarm. You are told to step aside and wait for a female attendant. From the comfort of the holding corral you can watch your plane depart. The attendant arrives and very politely wands you to ensure that you are not a bad person. You forgot and wore a bra that has metal hooks and eyes — it sets off the alarm. The wand then passes over your real knee and is set off again — this time by the tiny piece of graphite embedded in your knee since sixth grade when you were stabbed with a pencil by Sally Lourdesmazel. Finally you are cleared and go to pick up your stuff. Your raincoat is missing but someone left a tub of Chinese hot mustard in the bin with your computer. The security guard confiscates it.

Boarding the Plane: Five middle aged ladies wearing matching Quacker Factory cardigans and carrying eight foot long carved walking sticks push to the front of the line to “board early” because they need extra time. In addition to the walking sticks they carry rolling duffle bags, a Sunday newspaper part of which is housing Kentucky Fried Chicken in a bucket, and Guatamalen woven tote bags each holding seventeen sharp pencils and a five volume New York Times crossword book. They each spend several minutes trying to wedge their duffles into the overhead bins. Once you are seated they bend forward to arrange the remaining items under the seat. You stare at the large behinds wishing you had one of those pencils.

A mother with a sleeping child sits in front of you. As soon as they are settled the child wakes up having just produced an enormous bowel movement in his diaper. Smell of squashed turd wafts throughout the cabin. The child opens its mouth wide in the kind of silent scream that you know is always followed by four hours of crying and leaking drool over the back of the seat onto your tray.

The seat next to you is still empty but there are three people left coming down the aisle. A small woman wearing embroidered jeans and a sweatshirt that says “Petting  Zoo”, a man who on the spur of the moment decided to take this plane instead of finishing pimping the car he had been working on, and a woman who will definitely need a seatbelt extender. To your amazement it is the man reeking of motor oil who sits next to you. His body odor intermingles with the child’s doodoo counterpointed by the perfume of the nauseating cheap after shave he showered with. You try to take only tiny breaths but soon run out of oxygen. The captain comes on the intercom: “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard flight 585 nonstop to Iceland. Please keep  your seatbelts fastened as we expect considerable turbulence. Also, there is no cause for alarm but you may hear some unexpected noises upon take off and landing.

The gentleman beside you presses the call button for assistance. The stewardess arrives promptly. “How may I help you today?” The gentleman replies “Did he say we are going to Iceland?” “Yes sir. This is flight 585 nonstop to Reykjiavick.” He pulls out his itinerary — “I want to go to Nova Scotia.” At that moment we take off and watch the landscape shrink beneath us. The gentleman begins to curse under his breath. He only stops cursing long enough to fish a flask out of his backpack. You are airborne. The child in front of you begins a high pitched wail. A piece of pepperoni pizza falls from the overhead bin onto the aisle floor.

The Contents of Your Seat Pocket: Every airline publishes its own magazine. It contains lively entertaining articles about lava flows in Iceland and a guide to on-board cocktail service. There are several maps showing all the routes the airline follows. You trace the route from Boston to Iceland with your finger. You notice a stop-off point midway. You summon the stewardess. “This is a nonstop flight right?” “No Mam. We stop at Isle of Monadonac airbase.” “But the captain just announced that this is a nonstop flight.” “That’s right. Isle of Monadonac is not considered a stop since we will be on the ground only six hours weather permitting.” “Why are we stopping there?” “To change planes.” The stewardess looks at you and queries “What is that smell?” Several nearby heads turn to look at you.

You pull out the copy of Sky Mall from your seat pocket and begin to window shop. Someone has circled a picture of a lady’s brief case and written “measure for torso”. You quickly turn the page to a section devoted to at home brewing. A picture of a beer stein has been circled and some one has written. “Liquor is Quicker.” You continue browsing through the catalog. On the last page someone has drawn a series of stick figures engaged  in what appears to be wrestling — written underneath the drawing are the words Mile High Club. Your seat mate sniggers having been reading over your shoulder. You pull out the laminated card with the aircraft’s vital data and pretend to be absorbed.

The Drink Cart: By this time you are desperate for a beverage and watch impatiently as the cart moves slowly up the aisle. “What can I get for you?” the stewardess asks a row of business men. They each buy a beer. She repeats the question at each row. “I’d like a can of bloody mary mix, no ice, two pieces of lemon (make sure there are no seeds) and two miniatures of Vlad Tepes Vodka. I’d like in a separate glass three cubes of ice and a third of a cup of seltzer water — any flavor except lemon, lime, orange, raspberry, or plain.”

You take a big gulp of your vodka drink and watch in fascination as the drink cart rolls over the pizza slice with a barely discernible squishing sound.  You close your eyes hoping that you will sleep. The couple behind you begins to argue quietly about who was responsbile for packing what. The argument ends when the lady calls her spouse a “controlling ass” and abruptly gets up and goes into the lavatory. The vacancy signs lights up Occupied for the remainder of the trip. By some miracle you drift off and sleep fitfully until your head lolls off the head rest and hangs down into the aisle blocking passage. You wake as someone needing to use the bathroom attempts to gently place your head back on your seat. They pass by and you drift off again. Your head rolls slowly to the side and back into the aisle. You awake with a jerk, just in time for the coffee and boxed snack cart.

The Sleep Study

I spent last night at a sleeping (or, more accurately, a not sleeping) clinic being tested for sleep disorders. I already knew that I had mild sleep apnea, but my sleep issues are far larger than that and are complicated by some of my other medical issues (like Parkinson’s). My doctor ordered the study in hopes that all the monitoring would provide sufficient evidence of something that was actually treatable. And so I was invited to stay at the Sleep Hotel.

The brochure I received explaining the process assured me that the experience would not be painful and would be just like staying at a hotel. I think not. For one, there was no room service. For two, there was a two way mirror on the wall in my room. When I looked at it all I saw was a mirror, but the staff was on the other side and they could see me. I was watched the whole time I was there — no pulling ones pjs out of one’s crack thank you very much. Just try sleeping when you know someone is writing down everything you do. The clinic consisted of four bedrooms and a long hallway lined with curtained-off cubicles each holding a barber’s chair. All the cube’s curtains had been pulled open so we all got to share in each others’ experiences being wired.

My information sheet said I was to arrive at 8:30 PM. I arrived a couple of minutes early, before the night staff had arrived, so I sat in my car reading. A young lady in scrubs soon arrived, carrying a massive tangle of keys. I watched her for five minutes trying to unlock the door. Finally I buckled and rolled down my window and asked if I could help. I knew what was going to happen…people hate this — I took the keys, aligned the door with the frame, turned the key, and voila it opened. (A little know fact about Linshaolin — I can open any door key or no key.) As a reward, I was told to change into my night clothes and sit on my bed and wait.

There were to be four guests at the Sleep Clinic that night. Guest number two arrived while I was sitting on the bed. I was so glad there was a closed door between us. The guest (a man) received the same instructions — put on your pajamas and wait. I was evesdropping of course and immediately was aware of the long pause that came after the instructions. Then the guest said “I did not bring pajamas. I sleep in the nude.” I could not quite contain the explosion of laughter. I pictured we four quests lined up in our prep chairs being attached to electrodes and wires for the study. Me in my blue floral pjs, two of the guests in bathrobes and slippers, and Mr. X buck naked. Just what was the thinking process this fellow went through?

His technician told him he was required to wear something and went to fetch some scrubs from the closet. It turns out that the guest was a tiny gentleman and the scrubs were XXL. I was retrieved from my room just then so I got to witness the remainder of our group wiring. The tech pulled up Mr. X’s scrubs to under his armpits and made a belt out of electrical tape. Mr. X  looked like an old Urkel. Not content with being Distruptive, when the tech asked him to take a chair, Mr. X said “Hold on a sec, I need to get something.” He came back in less than a minute eating a Klondike bar. All eyes were on him as he ate, one chunk of quickly melting confection oozing its was out of the silver foil wrapper, heading for his lap.

My wiring took about half and hour — I did not mind the gunk used to adhere the wires to my skin, but was a bit alarmed when the tech got out a bottle of Vaseline and began separating my hair into little bald spots. The tech failed to mention that the Vaseline would take about ten days of heavy hair washing to breakdown. I can tell you already that I am going to look like a cat with mange.

Settling in to bed, I was given the instructions: sleep on your back for at least one and a half hours. I am a stomach sleeper. The instructions guaranteed a wakeful state. I lay there chanting Om Mani Padme Hum. The technician who had retired to the “monitoring station” pressed the intercom. “What did you say?” she asked. “Nothing. I am just chanting.” Silence followed by “Oh. I think that that is OK.” News Flash — Sleep Center bans prayer. Three out of four patients are outraged. (The fourth guest was unable to comment because he had been inadvertently taped to a barber’s chair.)

After an hour and a half the tech came into my room to tighten connections and fit me with a mask. “You wake up all the time,” she announced. I refrained from a snide “well duh” because she was a nice person and it was not her fault that I was cranky. She came back at 3:15 AM with an alarmed look on her face. “You have not once entered REM sleep.” I tried to comment but through the mask all that came out was a sequence of air-puffed grunts. In my mind I replayed a scene in which my husband complained that I was a nut case. But that has nothing to do with this post . . .

Finally at 5:45 AM I was released from this torment and began the long process of removing all the wires and nodes that had been welded to my skin and hair. The tech told me that finally I entered REM sleep around 5:30 AM. Wow, a good solid fifteen minutes of refreshing, quality sleep. Why I can function for days on that. I got dressed and bid my new friends farewell. Mr. X was no longer taped to the chair so I assume he was still sleeping.

In a few days my sleep doctor will call me and let me know that yes, indeed, I have sleep issues and will benefit from a CPAP machine. I will remind him that I already have one and he will remind me to use it for heaven’s sake.  Thus the frontiers of diagnostic science move ever forward.

Sing it Loud! And Cover Your Ears!

I really, really, really want to be a singer. It is a dream that will not die. Singing is a passion, which is most unfortunate because I am a really, really, really bad singer. How could Life be so unkind to me — I must have done something incredibly bad in a previous life to deserve this bitter irony. So much voice wasted on the uncaring, the unappreciative. There are people who can belt out a tune, carry a song, trill and vibratto their way through life — and yet they are souless individuals, unable to savour the sounds they make, unable to hear the gloriousness of making music. I, who can hear every ripple of sound am not quite barren, but worse than voiceless, I am the maker of off-key, dreadful noise. My friends and family tease me, pretend to wince and cover their ears to fend off the assault, little knowing that they are stabbing me in the heart. They would laughingly plead self-defense. They would win in court.

I do take some comfort that my daughter, my own flesh, half me, has perfect pitch and a voice like an angel. I am amazed that she squanders her precious gift by singing along to music that I can perfectly imitate by emitting a series of high to low gacking sounds interspersed with high-pitched “lewlewlewlewlew — eeeeeeeeeeeya.” Obviously the time we spent on Sunday afternoons in “family music appreciation” hour were wasted . . . well, almost. I do enjoy being able to amaze my coworkers by being able to identify any song by its first three notes. “That was Sweet Emma Sue by Jolene and the Tummy Tuckers.”

I have made a few near fatal mistakes in the world of music. Once in a moment of weakness I admitted that I liked Yani. One “I like Yani” set me back, credibility wise, a couple of decades. I had to pretend to revere Eimenem and put up a wall poster of Mr Slim Shadey before my daughter would even begin to respect me again.

I spent a couple of great summers working in summer stock musical theatre. When I would audition or try out for a part they would always sit me down at the piano and make me sing. The entire theatrical company would hold its breath as I negotiated the notes and  not take in a breath of air until I had finished. Then their would be deafening applause if I made it through without injuring anyone. The music director would stand up, dust off his pants as though he had just been through fisticuffs with someone, and announce “Linshaolin, you are perfect for two roles — Sancho in Man of LaMancha and the Chandelier  in Phantom of the Opera.” Hysterical laughter by one and all as I slink back to my bunk bed to plan my comeback.

Even when I am home alone there is always a critic. I will be singing my heart out while spraying the shower stall with toxic chemicals when the cat will come in to the bathroom with a great Look of Concern. Thank you very much.  I am not giving up. One day, some day, I will open my voice to the skies and sing beautifully. There will be tears, their will be congratulations, and soon to follow a recording contract. You will beg for my autograph. You will shed tears at my sensitive, tragic, and brave interpretation of Madama Butterfly. Linshaolin will be in lights.

Medical Insurance

I hate medical insurance even more than I hate taxes. I pay a fotune each year for coverage and my company pays even more on top of that. Despite the huge fee I have yet to find a visit or procedure that is fully covered. I am going to have a thyroidectomy this fall and I plan on phoning the insurance company to see what is covered and what is not. This is how I imagine the call will go:

After listening to five options, none of which are “find out how much out of pocket this procedure is going to set me back” I press Option 5 and a woman answers the phone unintelligably. “Gunafternoon this is Elszestomanblah speaking.” “I am sorry, can you repeat your name?” “Elzetmanblah. How can I help you.” “Thank you, yes. I am having a partial thyroidectomy and want to know what is covered and what is not?” “Are you Linshaolin?” “Yes, I am.” “Can you give me your birthdate and address? Can you answer the secret question?” “Well I don’t know, what is the secret question?” “You chose a question when you signed up with us last November. What is the answer?” “Ah, I don’t remember the question.” Long sigh. “If I tell you the question, for security reasons you will have to pick a different one for future logins.” “Fine, what is the question?” “What is the middle name of  your Aunt from Idaho?” ”Edna.” “Thank you, we have confirmed that you are Linshaolin.  I am going to connect you with my supervisor for a brief survey.” “Wait, I don’t want to do a survey.” Too late. The supervisor comes on. “I understand you have an inquiry about a thyroidectomy. We do not have a record of your having had a thyroidectomy.” “That is because it is scheduled for the fall.” “You will be covered at the usual and prevailing rate for that procedure at that time.” Is there any part that is not covered? “You are not covered for assistive walking devices for that procedure.” Big silence while I digest this news. “You are covered for 60% of all AFTMA and 40% for at home therapy as long as you use a network provider.” “Wait, what is AFTMA?” “Did you receive a Welcome binder from us when you signed up? AFTMA charges are covered in pages 89-106.” “Why would I need at home therapy?” “You would not.” “I see, but if I did it would be covered at 40%.” “That’s right. Thank you for agreeing to participate in our customer satisfaction survey — most people complete it in less than seven minutes.”"

“Oh, my battery is running low. Thank you and goodbye.” I dig out the Welcome binder and turn to page 89. It is headed “All Future Techological Medical Advances”. The rest of the pages are blank except for one line at the bottom of each. “For AFTMA” applicability “please call you customer care representative.” 

I make a list as a means of organizing myself for my next attempt. Preop testing, ultrasound, anesthesia, surgeon, recovery room, postop testing, followup visit. I call the insurance again and this time it is Susie who helps me. “Ha. This is Susie Speaking. How many I help you?” So far so good. “I am going to read you a list and you are going to tell me whether the items are covered, OK?” “May I put you on hold?” Click….elevator music. “Thank you for your patience. The office hours are Monday through Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Please call again.”

You Pomaded Stick Insect!

My ability to evaluate and appreciate finely-crafted insults is limited to the English language, I am sorry to say. But the mothers of our tongue, the British, can devise the most unique, colorful, and effective put-downs and jabs known. No better example to start with than that of the John Cleese character in Fawlty Towers who suffered a barrage of insults from his sharp-tongued spouse Sybil, including my personal favorite “You pomaded stick insect”. Mr Fawlty would retaliate with such delights as (refering to the contents of her packing for a trip) “handbag? Knuckle-dusters? Flick knife?” The evil-tongued Sybil is quick with the retort, labeling her long-suffering spouse at a “cloth-eared dint.” So much more satisfying that “you moron” or “your mother wears combat boots.”

My husband’s PDd thesis was about chemical nomenclature (where could this possibly be going you wonder) and philosophy. It was filled with concepts that were long and complex so dear busband concocted a set of short-forms for refering to these difficult concepts. So, the challenging concept blah, blah, blah  (sorry dearest no disrespect for your words) is substituted with “P”.  The thesis reads as such: ”Long after the Encyclopedists argued the interpretation of P the proponents of C lead the way to the still hotly debated . . . ” Finding this such a handy device we adopted it into our regular lives. Now when we are squabling and I wish to hurl an insult I but have to say “yeah, you and your pet frog could not “C”. And duck fast at the swiftly returned ” You ignorant “X”. We can fight in public with no embarrassing repercussions. 

I would love to know what the first insult was. I am sure it was about housework or sex. “You go off all day, come back smelling like some hideous beast, covered in Yak saliva, and you expect me to do what? I am going to double my annual giving to the National Geographic Society and earmark it for insulteology. Before I die I must know what it was and whether the knuckle dragging female got in the last word. You go girl!

Please send me your best jibes for my collection. I promise I won’t short-form them for at least a year.

Deep Inside

 Dear Readers — my recent brush with stroke or whatever it was has left me unable to remember basic html. So I  have formatted this poem best I can. I wish I could say it is intentional but it is not. When html comes back to me we will have a little virtual party. In the meantime, this poem reflects my current state — still swimming around but in deep, deep water.

Huge eyes that can not see

Eyes veiled with flesh that never opens

Dart uncomprehendingly from floor to ceiling

From desk to drawer

shipwrecked deep the weight of water feeling

Not a new species by any means

It is old as time and twice as shy

Leave it alone for fish can’t fly

I bought a  pretty fish with gold

And perhaps too many fins that make it weak

Saved by aloneness in the deep

Company is coming go back to sleep

The biology of pain creaks with every plank

rubbed smooth by years of tessellating water

A mosaic masterpiece so small and unique

That they cluster million fold enough to matter

Even the whales are dead or soon to be

Impaled for oil that burns uncontrolably

Where sand meets air instead of water

Two oceans marked by man’s instrusion

One explored and one illusion

Set up a mirror perched on a millenium of shells

Reflections of lidless creatures tails of gelaten

And no where to go but back and forth

Until a sucker latches on to place no place

For mutants to die for colorless gels to leech

The destination still a mystery

I thought I saw a presence lurking in the shoals

A shadow clothed in patience and sifting

Shifting landscape of particles that matter

Oh so very much that truth would blind with light

And what was hidden, dark, untested shatter

I dipped my blade and cut the water

So swiftly I thought it would not slice and fight

Me it blew open

For all to see blind fish dead whales,

And you call this beauty?

Pickles

We are a family of pickle eaters. Nary a luncheon sandwich would be set down on the table (or more often a TV tray) without a pickle. Problem is, we like different kinds of pickles. I am a baby gerkin pickle person, my daughter loves half sours, and  hubby likes em dill. My Saturday shopping cart looks like it is intended for several very pregnant women.

Have you ever noticed that a)pickles take up a lot of fridge space and b)pickle bottles are never quite empty — there is always at least one pickle defending its turf. So my condiment sheleves on the fridge door are lined with many bottles of singleton pickles. There is a firm rule that we learn at childbirth — you can not throw out a pickle jar. How many times have you been forced to eat that last pickle so that you can use the jar for bacon grease or holding buttons?

Pickle jars are the cleanest jars on earth. We compulsively wash them so that no pickle smell gets into the bacon grease we are pouring into it. Despite the sterile environment of a pickle jar, no matter how thoroughly it has been washed, pickle jars leave a sticky green ring on the refridgerator shelf. For unpopular pickles (those you seclected in an attempt to branch out) they sit on the stickly green ring far to long and become one with the ring. When you do your annual cleaning out of the fridge you discover that the jar has become an unmovable object. You find ways to work around it — I have my “pickle’n pesto” bottle doing overtime as a shelf divider. Some cheap yellow mustard has obviously attempted a coup at some point because the pickle jar is spattered with dried yellow stuff — it looks like it had been a valient but phyric victory for the pickles. I remove the mustard bottle (plastic) and attempt to empty it into the sink — I get only a watery squish for my efforts.

I was quite surprised to learn that we are allotted only a certain number of pickle jars per month. Have you been in the grocery store checkout line certain you had put a big refridgerated jar of dills in your cart and it is gone by the time you check out? Or have you ever been examining the pickle choices at the market and despite that fact that you want new pickles some force keeps making you return them? That is the pickle quota at work.

It is ironic that the best pickles are stored in mamoth wooden barrels — not in jars at all. And the mamoth pickles are chosen one by one and picked out of the barrel with long tongs. Into a baggie they go for a very short stay. These are eaten on the spot pickles. Barrel pickles are best when picked from a quaint country store in Vermont. And are even better when they are nestled in their baggie side by side with a slew of revolting penny candy which is your post pickle dessert. You just know that you and your tummy will regret this meal later, but for the moment it is heaven.

Strokeydokey

I have been in the hospital emergency room all day for treatment of a “brain attack”. I was in Denmark on a business trip when things started to go nasty — it began with a worsening of my ability to walk. I lurched around, tripped, and had difficulty keeping balance. Then  my memory was shot — I could not remember what hotel I was staying it or what room number. Pretty soon after that I could not talk without mixing up words, forgetting some and substiuting words. And I could not stay awake.

But my worst freakout was when I was using the computer (my constant companion) and  suddenly realized I did not know how to use the computer. It was unrecognizable to me — I forgot what a mouse was for. Yikes. So I took an awful 13 hour trip back — first to Atlanta and then changed planes to Boston. It is truly a miracle that I could figure out how to go through customs and change planes.

At the emergency room I had a CAT scan (but CAT scans don’t show up small strokes so I will have to have an MRI later. I was examined by half a dozen doctors including neurologist. They think that independent of the posssible small stroke I was having a severe reaction to two new Parkinson’s meds I had just started taking.

I still have no memory of many things that happened last week but I am showing some improvment in speaking and remembering things. “Yellow, baseball, and hospitality” are the three words I had to  remember and say bake to the neurologiest. At first I could not and said something llike “Yellow, Africa, ostrich.”

I did all the wrong things as far is stroke is concerned — I waited to get back home to be treated. With a stroke brain cells die off my the millions each miniture. If you have symptoms you need medical attention now! I am lucky there was not more damage and the doctors say I will gradually get back most of my functioning.

The medical staff who treated me were wonderful. I want to thank them and also thank all my cyber buddies who said prayers for me and gave me support. I am just so happy to be home at my keyborad (which I now recognize) typing away at my pomogrante (haha just kidding).

Your pal Linshaolin will be taking it easier from now on.