The behavior of cellphone-talking, traffic-weaving, non-signaling blonde in the beige luxury car was virtually indistinguishable from any other obnoxious driver with whom I consistently find myself sharing the road. And despite some habits that any after-school children's show host would frown upon, she and I DID share the road. In fact, we were neighbors more often than not than during the 15 minutes after which I initially noticed her.
She flew by me right after the point where the posted speed limit took a nose-dive from 65 to 45. Considering that I was going 55 at the time, I can't say for certain that she had let up on the accelerator at all, although I would be willing to bet a round at the bar—*waves to The ListMaker*—that she had been going substantially faster than 65 prior to that point.
I saw the car seat handle sprouting up out of the center of the back seat when I caught up to her, and spotted the towheaded child on one side. Still, the woman was clearly deep in conversation with the party at the other end of the cellphone, and I wondered whether the baby was sleeping, and if not, if the other child was amusing, annoying, or ignoring the baby.
I wasn't in a cursing mood, being absorbed in my own exhaustion and unwillingness to drive to work at all, much less SPEED there. I noted what I saw in an absent-minded sort of way, although some annoyance clearly wormed its way into my dark soul despite my purported ennui, because when I happened—without trying—to pass the woman a mile or so down the road, I found myself smirking broadly. I thought, I really should pay more attention to the speed-demons who feel it necessary to cut in front of just ONE MORE car, so I could see for sure whether they are (as I've often suspected, or at least hoped!) more often than not unsuccessfully in getting THAT far ahead of those they seem so hell-bent on passing.
Of course, the logistics of such a study would be impossible, because unless you DO keep the driving villain in sight, how do you determine if they have reached their destination an appreciable time ahead of you, or if they have simply turned a different way? I pondered that for a bit, as well as my delight at the sight of a mini-van ahead of me refusing to let the beige-car chatty chick cut in front of it to make a certain popular turn. And of course I felt chastened by Fate—or some facsimile thereof—because there she was, ahead of me again, and so SOON after I'd been so smugly pleased to have passed her.
I switched CDs at the next light (okay, I did it WHILE MY CAR WAS IN MOTION, whatever ... it was slow enough that it COULD have been at a light) and frankly forgot about the woman, who I was sure had it all together and was probably taking her kids shopping in the nearest metropolis and had oodles of spare time and no need to pass me anyway. Screaming metal mayhem often has the happy effect on me of removing my obsessing mind from routine annoyances.
I did see her turn off ahead of me at one point, but I was working hard on shrieking in harmony with the beautiful chaos that IS my precious IN FLAMES (I do love their latest album, but we will talk about that another time, my dears). I drove on and I made my turns where I needed to, and even waved at the construction crew that smilingly directed me around their work area.
I almost didn't notice the beautifully-coiffed beige-car driver when I saw her again, waiting for ME to turn at the intersection one block from Corporate parking. And although I admit that I laughed evilly then, I stopped when I saw her turn into the daycare across the street. For all my assumptions were just that: ASSumptions—the evidence in my rear-view mirror showed just another working mom like me ... better dressed and more comfortably charioted, to be sure, but more alike than I would like to admit.
It was a warmly moral moment, I tell you, and I mean it. Although less due to the fact that I'd made erroneous assumptions—which I admittedly have been known to do—regarding the driver, and more because the tortoise DID beat the hare.
Yeah, well, I know which moral of the story I am going to focus on ... you do what you like. ;)
April 25, 2008
April 24, 2008
An Utterly Uninteresting Hour And What I Learned From It
I just spent about an hour learning that it's really difficult to saw through chains. Now, it would be awesome if I were going to be able to take that statement and move on to some boring cliché—albeit one clad in highly descriptive and evocative clothing—but alas, I mean it quite literally.
Some time ago, my dad (the Professional Engineer) designed a pull-up bar for use in our basement. Shut up, I realize NOW that had I used this device with greater frequency and dedication, my recovery from my clutzy-stupid fall on the ice last month would be hastened, not to mention EASIER. Suffice it to say that I'm a lazy lump with good intentions, and I did not invest the same energy into using the pull-up bar as I did in requesting it.
Anyway, this pull-up bar is neatly designed for stability, portability, andstyle fiscal responsibility. It's a metal bar secured with screw-on thingies at either end, suspended from heavy-duty brackets by two lengths of chain. If you can, please get over my mechanical ineptitude and let's move on to the LENGTHS of chain, because that's the key here ... they were something like four feet longer than they needed to be.
The thing is, I had kind of blown the wad on getting the thing installed in the first place, as Little Girl's daddy wasn't into the project, and we work about as well together as car parts (what? I don't know the technical terms for those, either!) lubricated by tapioca pudding instead of motor oil. So once it was installed and I'd realized that I'd have to work my way up to ONE pull-up, the whole plan flat-out stalled.
Inasmuch as dangling chains ARE a nuisance in a house inhabited by tall people, the task of shortening them was so daunting that I spent months procrastinating. Besides, the chains could be wrapped around the bar repeatedly and then they were sort of out of the way! So the problem persisted, jingling occasionally, like when Little Girl's daddy would bash into them, but generally tolerable ... for me.
And then, I smashed my shoulder into ice-coated pavement and started a too-long healing road, and so TODAY, I decided, those chains were getting shortened. RIGHT. NOW. And so I adjusted the bar to a height under which Little Girl's daddy could (hopefully) walk without ducking, and proceeded to peruse the entirely disarranged tool collection for a saw that would cut metal.
While my vocabulary in the arena of things mechanical and/or engineering-related is sadly lacking, I am not without SOME modicum of common sense, and so I found a saw, and upon determining that a chain was damn hard to hold securely while wielding a finger-endangering implement, I found first a standard plier-thingie and later an extra-heavy-duty adjustable wrench-like-item and so I hung onto the chain more safely with one hand while I sawed like fury with the other.
And after ten minutes or so of that shit, I learned that chains are damn difficult to saw through. The End.
(Just kidding. Although, yeah, that's basically it.)
I sawed and sawed and sawed and realized, CRAP, now I have to saw through the OTHER side. Because, d'oh! You can't just bend chain that thick so that you can maneuver the rest of it through the half-sawed link. NO, you HAVE to saw through BOTH sides. So I did. And after I took a half-hour break to WRITE about this FREAKING BORING EPISODE ON MY BLOG, I sawed through the OTHER side. The End.
(Really. That's what happened. And that's what I learned.)
Some time ago, my dad (the Professional Engineer) designed a pull-up bar for use in our basement. Shut up, I realize NOW that had I used this device with greater frequency and dedication, my recovery from my clutzy-stupid fall on the ice last month would be hastened, not to mention EASIER. Suffice it to say that I'm a lazy lump with good intentions, and I did not invest the same energy into using the pull-up bar as I did in requesting it.
Anyway, this pull-up bar is neatly designed for stability, portability, and
The thing is, I had kind of blown the wad on getting the thing installed in the first place, as Little Girl's daddy wasn't into the project, and we work about as well together as car parts (what? I don't know the technical terms for those, either!) lubricated by tapioca pudding instead of motor oil. So once it was installed and I'd realized that I'd have to work my way up to ONE pull-up, the whole plan flat-out stalled.
Inasmuch as dangling chains ARE a nuisance in a house inhabited by tall people, the task of shortening them was so daunting that I spent months procrastinating. Besides, the chains could be wrapped around the bar repeatedly and then they were sort of out of the way! So the problem persisted, jingling occasionally, like when Little Girl's daddy would bash into them, but generally tolerable ... for me.
And then, I smashed my shoulder into ice-coated pavement and started a too-long healing road, and so TODAY, I decided, those chains were getting shortened. RIGHT. NOW. And so I adjusted the bar to a height under which Little Girl's daddy could (hopefully) walk without ducking, and proceeded to peruse the entirely disarranged tool collection for a saw that would cut metal.
While my vocabulary in the arena of things mechanical and/or engineering-related is sadly lacking, I am not without SOME modicum of common sense, and so I found a saw, and upon determining that a chain was damn hard to hold securely while wielding a finger-endangering implement, I found first a standard plier-thingie and later an extra-heavy-duty adjustable wrench-like-item and so I hung onto the chain more safely with one hand while I sawed like fury with the other.
And after ten minutes or so of that shit, I learned that chains are damn difficult to saw through. The End.
(Just kidding. Although, yeah, that's basically it.)
I sawed and sawed and sawed and realized, CRAP, now I have to saw through the OTHER side. Because, d'oh! You can't just bend chain that thick so that you can maneuver the rest of it through the half-sawed link. NO, you HAVE to saw through BOTH sides. So I did. And after I took a half-hour break to WRITE about this FREAKING BORING EPISODE ON MY BLOG, I sawed through the OTHER side. The End.
(Really. That's what happened. And that's what I learned.)
April 23, 2008
A Brief History of Overall Clutziness and General Stupidity: Part Two
Continued From (You Guessed It!) Part One
~1985 ... On a camping trip some 40 miles from the nearest medical establishment (a new record!), wyo falls some 15 feet out of a tree—yes, at the tired old age of 16 (or possibly 17?)—and although she lands on her feet, she immediately collapses. The split-second experience immediately after the fall during which she cannot feel her legs is terrifying to her, but sensation rapidly returns, bringing with it an intense lower back pain. She marches in her high school band competition the next day anyway, but thereafter spends several weeks recovering with the aid of high doses of ibuprofen. She does deign to retire from competitive tree-climbing.
~1989 ... As a young college student possessed of painful shyness and delicate sensibilities, wyo is working hard to "put herself out there." One of the activities she chooses to do so includes bicycling some unpaved trails near campus with a group of other college students. Because she has only a "touring" bicycle—and because she doesn't have enough sense to think through the potential perils of riding her thin-tired bike over gravel that is at least as wide as her tires—wyo attempts the foolish endeavor boldly. And if that weren't enough, she decides she can JUMP her bicycle up from the gravel onto the first of many small bridges along the route, even though she's never even tried to do this before. The wipeout that ensues, while not of Biblical proportions, is nonetheless impressive, and although the gravel and dirt embedded deeply into her knee (not as deep as the 1973 nail, though) is painful, it pales in comparison to the super-cute male bicyclist who stops—because he can't get around her sprawled body—to ask if she is okay. After assuring him that she is, and laughing over the bleeding mess on her leg, wyo limps off, walking her bike back to her truck. She does not cry until she's safely home, washing off her road rash in privacy.
~1989 ... During a chemistry laboratory session, wyo blatantly disregards a safety instruction in her haste to smell the "sweet and fruity" scent of the product of the experiment. Because the ammonia that concealed the scent had not, however, been fully evaporated before she stuck her face over the crucible—rather than using her hand to waft a diluted portion of the odor towards her—she blacks out for the first time in her life, awakening some (small) time later in the hallway. Having no memory of getting to the hallway, she is aghast to discover that her geekish instructor and (you guessed it) CUTE male lab partner had to carry-drag her incapacitated self out of class. It is gruesomely embarrassing to admit her error and return to class to finish the experiment, but she does so, and her instructor is a tremendously good sport about it, and doesn't even yell. Reflecting on the unforgettability of the incident—and the fact that she has retained a strong aversion to the scent of ammonia even nearly TWENTY YEARS after the fact—wyo realizes that he knew damn well he didn't have to yell.
1990 ... While playing a fierce game of raquetball with the man she would end up marrying, wyo runs right into a wall, connecting with her (GUESS! JUST GUESS!) TOE. While her right foot continues to suffer the effects of The Breaking Game, it is not, at least, her pinky toe that suffers this time. Instead, the x-rays reveal that she has shifted a chunk of the top of her big toe ever-so-slightly back from its traditional positioning. Back to the highly unfashionable 2x4 shoe wyo goes, although because this break does not endanger the structural integrity of the toe, she requires it more for the fact that she can't put on her right shoe comfortably anymore rather than the healing process. Her clutziness remains a great source of irritation to her, but wyo rationalizes that at least now she can drink alcohol legally.
~2000 ... After retrieving her dropped soap in the shower, wyo turns to stand and connects her tailbone with the tub's faucet. While the grapefruit-sized bruise cannot be seen by anyone who is not offered a private viewing—and very, very few are—it is truly stellar in its artistic rendering of a black-and-blue rainbow reflected over a pond. The coloration becomes even more impressive as it gradually fades into yellow and green, and wyo becomes a firm believer in the old adage, "Let dropped soaps lie."
~2002 ... During a particularly frisky session of performing the horizontal mambo with her husband, wyo rolls right when she should have rolled left, and whilst attempting to extract herself from an already awkward position, stabs her thumb into her eye, causing her to see stars of a distinctly different variety than the ones she was hoping to see. The resulting black eye and her blushing unwillingness to reveal the cause—memo to clutzes everywhere: ALWAYS come up with a better story than the truth when it involves stabbing yourself in the eye during sex—concerns a work colleague, who far-too-publicly (and very, very seriously) suggests that if her husband is hurting her, she should really seek help. Embarrassment of epic proportions follows, though the ridiculousness of the idea makes wyo laugh out loud despite being entirely appalled. This honest reaction thankfully silences the over-vocal (though well-intentioned) colleague.
~2004 ... In a remarkably ill-advised attempt to retrieve the mail from the mailbox without stopping the forward motion of her vehicle, wyo fails to flip the mailbox's door closed quickly enough, resulting in the mailbox's handle/lip ripping a six inch-long arc of the skin on her left forearm. While not deep or ragged enough to require medical attention, it is nonetheless a dire-looking tear. Fortunately, wyo does not mind embarrassing herself with the truth of the matter at work this time, and her coworkers—well acquainted by now with her proclivity to trip over things (even things that aren't there)—hardly even seem surprised.
2008 ... In the stressful midst of preparing an urgent Corporate report, wyo sneezes. This seemingly insignificant act takes on epic importance when, simultaneous to the sneeze, wyo feels her lower back spasm and lock into a three-ibuprofen-pill pain-level. She spends the following weekend in the warm embrace of her herbal heating pad, and the following week recovering.
2008 ... Determined to get back into running, wyo scoffs at the icy conditions and goes out for an early morning jog-trot-pant-wheeze. She notes the slippery conditions carefully and skirts them by staying along the gravely shoulder of one of her favorite trails. At the bottom of the hill that is her weenie-distance turn-back point, she carefully crosses the road to loop around, but not carefully enough. Too late, she realizes her error, landing VERY forcefully on her well-padded backside. This would have been fine—although mortifying enough—except that her forward momentum across the black ice-slick carries her into the slide so irreparably that her head hits the pavement all-too-painfully, and audibly. She stands carefully, stunned and wary of potential dizziness, and wishes very much that she had brought her cellphone with her on this ill-advised excursion. She slowly makes her way home, where she promptly downs a dose-and-a-half of ibuprofen. She does not discover that the primary injury was not to her behind, head, or pride, but rather to her left shoulder, for about an hour.
And here's where we are now, just about one month post-flattening: I'm going to physical therapy twice a week (I do like the massages but the rest of the appointments are not so much fun), doing twice-daily stretching exercises for my shoulder (girly push-ups seem eons away in attainability these days), seeing the Corporate Ergonomics Expert to make sure my work-station is properly arranged (it wasn't), correcting my posture constantly (it sucks), and wearing a posture-enforcing torture device to work (this thing is such a bitch that I cannot IMAGINE what hell a corset must have been). All in all, I think I got off fairly lightly, as I did hit the pavement HARD with my rock-like head, but to be perfectly honest with you, I'd rather stab myself in the eye during sex on a daily basis than go through falling on the ice again just once (your mileage may vary).
I'm not sure why I decided to compile this list—although I did see when I was checking a few dates with my medical record that I left out ... well, rather a lot—or what the point of writing it up was. There's certainly people clutzier than me out there (maybe?), and granted that accidents can happen to anyone: that's why they're called "accidents" and not "idiot-planned injuries." You can't anticipate everything and even walking on eggshells has some potential for disaster.
But do let's be careful out there, shall we? And by all means, if you've got a clutzy and/or stupid story of your own to share, please feel free.
~1985 ... On a camping trip some 40 miles from the nearest medical establishment (a new record!), wyo falls some 15 feet out of a tree—yes, at the tired old age of 16 (or possibly 17?)—and although she lands on her feet, she immediately collapses. The split-second experience immediately after the fall during which she cannot feel her legs is terrifying to her, but sensation rapidly returns, bringing with it an intense lower back pain. She marches in her high school band competition the next day anyway, but thereafter spends several weeks recovering with the aid of high doses of ibuprofen. She does deign to retire from competitive tree-climbing.
~1989 ... As a young college student possessed of painful shyness and delicate sensibilities, wyo is working hard to "put herself out there." One of the activities she chooses to do so includes bicycling some unpaved trails near campus with a group of other college students. Because she has only a "touring" bicycle—and because she doesn't have enough sense to think through the potential perils of riding her thin-tired bike over gravel that is at least as wide as her tires—wyo attempts the foolish endeavor boldly. And if that weren't enough, she decides she can JUMP her bicycle up from the gravel onto the first of many small bridges along the route, even though she's never even tried to do this before. The wipeout that ensues, while not of Biblical proportions, is nonetheless impressive, and although the gravel and dirt embedded deeply into her knee (not as deep as the 1973 nail, though) is painful, it pales in comparison to the super-cute male bicyclist who stops—because he can't get around her sprawled body—to ask if she is okay. After assuring him that she is, and laughing over the bleeding mess on her leg, wyo limps off, walking her bike back to her truck. She does not cry until she's safely home, washing off her road rash in privacy.
~1989 ... During a chemistry laboratory session, wyo blatantly disregards a safety instruction in her haste to smell the "sweet and fruity" scent of the product of the experiment. Because the ammonia that concealed the scent had not, however, been fully evaporated before she stuck her face over the crucible—rather than using her hand to waft a diluted portion of the odor towards her—she blacks out for the first time in her life, awakening some (small) time later in the hallway. Having no memory of getting to the hallway, she is aghast to discover that her geekish instructor and (you guessed it) CUTE male lab partner had to carry-drag her incapacitated self out of class. It is gruesomely embarrassing to admit her error and return to class to finish the experiment, but she does so, and her instructor is a tremendously good sport about it, and doesn't even yell. Reflecting on the unforgettability of the incident—and the fact that she has retained a strong aversion to the scent of ammonia even nearly TWENTY YEARS after the fact—wyo realizes that he knew damn well he didn't have to yell.
1990 ... While playing a fierce game of raquetball with the man she would end up marrying, wyo runs right into a wall, connecting with her (GUESS! JUST GUESS!) TOE. While her right foot continues to suffer the effects of The Breaking Game, it is not, at least, her pinky toe that suffers this time. Instead, the x-rays reveal that she has shifted a chunk of the top of her big toe ever-so-slightly back from its traditional positioning. Back to the highly unfashionable 2x4 shoe wyo goes, although because this break does not endanger the structural integrity of the toe, she requires it more for the fact that she can't put on her right shoe comfortably anymore rather than the healing process. Her clutziness remains a great source of irritation to her, but wyo rationalizes that at least now she can drink alcohol legally.
~2000 ... After retrieving her dropped soap in the shower, wyo turns to stand and connects her tailbone with the tub's faucet. While the grapefruit-sized bruise cannot be seen by anyone who is not offered a private viewing—and very, very few are—it is truly stellar in its artistic rendering of a black-and-blue rainbow reflected over a pond. The coloration becomes even more impressive as it gradually fades into yellow and green, and wyo becomes a firm believer in the old adage, "Let dropped soaps lie."
~2002 ... During a particularly frisky session of performing the horizontal mambo with her husband, wyo rolls right when she should have rolled left, and whilst attempting to extract herself from an already awkward position, stabs her thumb into her eye, causing her to see stars of a distinctly different variety than the ones she was hoping to see. The resulting black eye and her blushing unwillingness to reveal the cause—memo to clutzes everywhere: ALWAYS come up with a better story than the truth when it involves stabbing yourself in the eye during sex—concerns a work colleague, who far-too-publicly (and very, very seriously) suggests that if her husband is hurting her, she should really seek help. Embarrassment of epic proportions follows, though the ridiculousness of the idea makes wyo laugh out loud despite being entirely appalled. This honest reaction thankfully silences the over-vocal (though well-intentioned) colleague.
~2004 ... In a remarkably ill-advised attempt to retrieve the mail from the mailbox without stopping the forward motion of her vehicle, wyo fails to flip the mailbox's door closed quickly enough, resulting in the mailbox's handle/lip ripping a six inch-long arc of the skin on her left forearm. While not deep or ragged enough to require medical attention, it is nonetheless a dire-looking tear. Fortunately, wyo does not mind embarrassing herself with the truth of the matter at work this time, and her coworkers—well acquainted by now with her proclivity to trip over things (even things that aren't there)—hardly even seem surprised.
2008 ... In the stressful midst of preparing an urgent Corporate report, wyo sneezes. This seemingly insignificant act takes on epic importance when, simultaneous to the sneeze, wyo feels her lower back spasm and lock into a three-ibuprofen-pill pain-level. She spends the following weekend in the warm embrace of her herbal heating pad, and the following week recovering.
2008 ... Determined to get back into running, wyo scoffs at the icy conditions and goes out for an early morning jog-trot-pant-wheeze. She notes the slippery conditions carefully and skirts them by staying along the gravely shoulder of one of her favorite trails. At the bottom of the hill that is her weenie-distance turn-back point, she carefully crosses the road to loop around, but not carefully enough. Too late, she realizes her error, landing VERY forcefully on her well-padded backside. This would have been fine—although mortifying enough—except that her forward momentum across the black ice-slick carries her into the slide so irreparably that her head hits the pavement all-too-painfully, and audibly. She stands carefully, stunned and wary of potential dizziness, and wishes very much that she had brought her cellphone with her on this ill-advised excursion. She slowly makes her way home, where she promptly downs a dose-and-a-half of ibuprofen. She does not discover that the primary injury was not to her behind, head, or pride, but rather to her left shoulder, for about an hour.
And here's where we are now, just about one month post-flattening: I'm going to physical therapy twice a week (I do like the massages but the rest of the appointments are not so much fun), doing twice-daily stretching exercises for my shoulder (girly push-ups seem eons away in attainability these days), seeing the Corporate Ergonomics Expert to make sure my work-station is properly arranged (it wasn't), correcting my posture constantly (it sucks), and wearing a posture-enforcing torture device to work (this thing is such a bitch that I cannot IMAGINE what hell a corset must have been). All in all, I think I got off fairly lightly, as I did hit the pavement HARD with my rock-like head, but to be perfectly honest with you, I'd rather stab myself in the eye during sex on a daily basis than go through falling on the ice again just once (your mileage may vary).
I'm not sure why I decided to compile this list—although I did see when I was checking a few dates with my medical record that I left out ... well, rather a lot—or what the point of writing it up was. There's certainly people clutzier than me out there (maybe?), and granted that accidents can happen to anyone: that's why they're called "accidents" and not "idiot-planned injuries." You can't anticipate everything and even walking on eggshells has some potential for disaster.
But do let's be careful out there, shall we? And by all means, if you've got a clutzy and/or stupid story of your own to share, please feel free.
April 22, 2008
A Brief History of Overall Clutziness and General Stupidity: Part One
I am not the most graceful pigeon in the flock. In fact, if I were pigeon, I would probably fly into a solid, very obvious, 500 year-old wall while attempting the ever-popular "dive-bomb" move—AND I'd miss my target while so doing. While laziness has certainly played a key role in my most recent blogging lapse, so too has the last item on this list (which is by no means complete, but which does contain more than a few of my more stellarly stupid moves over the past almost-four decades).
Yes, what I've done, basically, is compile a list of ways in which I've injured myself. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked, Figment Of My Imagination! Because while it's not so much encouraging to see each and every recollected move of overall clutziness and general stupidity spelled out in the totality of its funny backstory and/or ridiculous glory, it IS heartwarming—as I struggle to recover from my most recent bad move—that I've managed, eventually, to get past each one.
So sit back, alternate relaxing and cringing, and most of all, enjoy! (Hey, I can still type, so it can't be THAT bad.)
As you may have noticed from the delicate forshadowing of "Part One" in the title of this piece, I got a little long-winded and had to break this particular tale of woe into more digestible bits. Or at least something that won't choke you outright.
1972 ... Very young wyo, in a blatant breaking of the established rules about NOT tormenting the chickens, slips from the fence she was standing on and peering over the top of, and falls, ripping open the inside of her lip on the top edge of the fence as she goes. A thrilling trip to the emergency room, some 25 miles away, ensues, of which all she can remember now is bright lights and scary faces. No stitches were required.
~1973 ... While playing in between the framed walls in her newly-constructed home's basement, wyo decides—despite the clear hazard of NAILS sticking out of said frame at seemingly random intervals—to hang on to a cross-beam above her, pull her knees up from the floor, and swing back and forth in front of the nail. It doesn't take long, of course, given her already-established propensity for overall clutziness, to drive a nail right into her knee. She remembers limping up the stairs to her mom, streaming tears and terrified at the sight of the puncture wound, but not the aftermath of the event, except that some years later, she had to have a giant cyst excised from said knee. She now looks back at this event as the defining moment of her entry into the widely-participatory field that is general stupidity.
1976 ... While performing an easy (for her) spin around the highest of the single-bar monkey bar set, wyo loses her grip, falls, and plants her chin firmly into the concrete-like surface of the hard-packed dirt below. A trip to the local clinic, some 10 miles hence, is warranted, and she receives a small but impressive—primarily because said stitches were sewed onto her very white skin in a high-contrast black thread—set of stitches in her chin, which is then covered with a band-aid of gargantuan proportions. She remembers the humiliation of being seen in such a fashion monstrosity more than the stunning nastiness of the tear in her flesh, but manages to cherish the scar that results.
~1980 ... Racing through the woods near her home, wyo slips and manages to ground herself in such a way that she rips her right palm open on an old, fallen expanse of barbed-wire fencing that she had avoided countless of times before. The cut is only about an inch long and is surprisingly straight for having been created by barbed wire, but because said wire was rusty, wyo wins a free trip to the local clinic—with which she is now well-familiar—for what turns out to be a slightly-overdue tetanus shot.
1983 ... Rounding the corner of her bed, wyo catches the pinky toe of her right foot on a nearby bookshelf, pulling it an estimated 45° out of its normal alignment. When she is unable to wear her right shoe the following morning due to pain and swelling, she is duly carted back to the clinic for x-rays, followed by crutches and instructions to "rest." Again, the treatment proves to be more painful than the injury itself, as she is incapacitated enough not to attend a state fair trip with her family that weekend. Being a worthy teenager, she spends her first weekend of convalescence moping and whining.
1983 ... During the course of "healing" her broken toe, wyo is instructed to firmly tape the injured digit to the uninjured adjacent toe, creating a splint of sorts. While she unenthusiastically follows this advice, she is nonetheless thorough, and before long—before long AT ALL, in fact"—she is permitted to return to normal shoes and most activities, while continuing to tape her toe. However, since one of her activities consists of "early morning band practice" on a rather damp practice field, and since she tapes her toes so tightly that she creates a small cut between the splint toe and the next toe, she unwittingly creates yet another health problem. The cut is tender, but rapidly becomes red, sore, and when wyo—late on a Friday night, of course—notices an angry, red line running up her foot from the cut, she sees her (college biology instructor) mother for a consult. Whereupon she is aghast that her mother shoots out of her reading chair and herds her back to her room to redress for a near-midnight trip to the emergency room: wyo has managed to contract "blood poisoning" (more properly known as "lymph poisoning") and is told by hospital personnel that she's fortunate not to have waited even 12 hours longer. Antibiotics and medicated soakings—followed by THOROUGH DRYING and only HIGH-LEVEL taping—follow, and the frightening line thankfully recedes.
1984 ... Thoroughly healed and happily over the dreadful Saga of the Broken Toe, wyo wanders, barefoot, into the bathroom one bright, sunny day, veers a bit too far to the right, catches her right pinky toe on a very-slightly protruding cabinet door, and BREAKS THAT SUCKER AGAIN. She is not amused by the emergency-room doctor's comment that, should she break it a third time, he would be suggest amputation, but she nevertheless makes an effort to smile at his lame sally, because he is kind of cute. Because the consensus is that this break occurred at least due in part to poor healing of the last break, wyo is given substantially more stringent instructions regarding her activities. Also, in addition to crutches and "rest," wyo is provided with a "shoe" composed of a textured 2x4 with a BRIGHT BLUE fabric upper and stunningly white laces; she is instructed to wear said shoe forEVER—or so it seems, as her teenaged sense of time is, like everything else, distorted. This time, however, the toe heals well and thoroughly. Thereafter, wyo refrains from roaming her house barefoot.
To Be (Unfortunately) Continued
Yes, what I've done, basically, is compile a list of ways in which I've injured myself. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked, Figment Of My Imagination! Because while it's not so much encouraging to see each and every recollected move of overall clutziness and general stupidity spelled out in the totality of its funny backstory and/or ridiculous glory, it IS heartwarming—as I struggle to recover from my most recent bad move—that I've managed, eventually, to get past each one.
So sit back, alternate relaxing and cringing, and most of all, enjoy! (Hey, I can still type, so it can't be THAT bad.)
As you may have noticed from the delicate forshadowing of "Part One" in the title of this piece, I got a little long-winded and had to break this particular tale of woe into more digestible bits. Or at least something that won't choke you outright.
1972 ... Very young wyo, in a blatant breaking of the established rules about NOT tormenting the chickens, slips from the fence she was standing on and peering over the top of, and falls, ripping open the inside of her lip on the top edge of the fence as she goes. A thrilling trip to the emergency room, some 25 miles away, ensues, of which all she can remember now is bright lights and scary faces. No stitches were required.
~1973 ... While playing in between the framed walls in her newly-constructed home's basement, wyo decides—despite the clear hazard of NAILS sticking out of said frame at seemingly random intervals—to hang on to a cross-beam above her, pull her knees up from the floor, and swing back and forth in front of the nail. It doesn't take long, of course, given her already-established propensity for overall clutziness, to drive a nail right into her knee. She remembers limping up the stairs to her mom, streaming tears and terrified at the sight of the puncture wound, but not the aftermath of the event, except that some years later, she had to have a giant cyst excised from said knee. She now looks back at this event as the defining moment of her entry into the widely-participatory field that is general stupidity.
1976 ... While performing an easy (for her) spin around the highest of the single-bar monkey bar set, wyo loses her grip, falls, and plants her chin firmly into the concrete-like surface of the hard-packed dirt below. A trip to the local clinic, some 10 miles hence, is warranted, and she receives a small but impressive—primarily because said stitches were sewed onto her very white skin in a high-contrast black thread—set of stitches in her chin, which is then covered with a band-aid of gargantuan proportions. She remembers the humiliation of being seen in such a fashion monstrosity more than the stunning nastiness of the tear in her flesh, but manages to cherish the scar that results.
~1980 ... Racing through the woods near her home, wyo slips and manages to ground herself in such a way that she rips her right palm open on an old, fallen expanse of barbed-wire fencing that she had avoided countless of times before. The cut is only about an inch long and is surprisingly straight for having been created by barbed wire, but because said wire was rusty, wyo wins a free trip to the local clinic—with which she is now well-familiar—for what turns out to be a slightly-overdue tetanus shot.
1983 ... Rounding the corner of her bed, wyo catches the pinky toe of her right foot on a nearby bookshelf, pulling it an estimated 45° out of its normal alignment. When she is unable to wear her right shoe the following morning due to pain and swelling, she is duly carted back to the clinic for x-rays, followed by crutches and instructions to "rest." Again, the treatment proves to be more painful than the injury itself, as she is incapacitated enough not to attend a state fair trip with her family that weekend. Being a worthy teenager, she spends her first weekend of convalescence moping and whining.
1983 ... During the course of "healing" her broken toe, wyo is instructed to firmly tape the injured digit to the uninjured adjacent toe, creating a splint of sorts. While she unenthusiastically follows this advice, she is nonetheless thorough, and before long—before long AT ALL, in fact"—she is permitted to return to normal shoes and most activities, while continuing to tape her toe. However, since one of her activities consists of "early morning band practice" on a rather damp practice field, and since she tapes her toes so tightly that she creates a small cut between the splint toe and the next toe, she unwittingly creates yet another health problem. The cut is tender, but rapidly becomes red, sore, and when wyo—late on a Friday night, of course—notices an angry, red line running up her foot from the cut, she sees her (college biology instructor) mother for a consult. Whereupon she is aghast that her mother shoots out of her reading chair and herds her back to her room to redress for a near-midnight trip to the emergency room: wyo has managed to contract "blood poisoning" (more properly known as "lymph poisoning") and is told by hospital personnel that she's fortunate not to have waited even 12 hours longer. Antibiotics and medicated soakings—followed by THOROUGH DRYING and only HIGH-LEVEL taping—follow, and the frightening line thankfully recedes.
1984 ... Thoroughly healed and happily over the dreadful Saga of the Broken Toe, wyo wanders, barefoot, into the bathroom one bright, sunny day, veers a bit too far to the right, catches her right pinky toe on a very-slightly protruding cabinet door, and BREAKS THAT SUCKER AGAIN. She is not amused by the emergency-room doctor's comment that, should she break it a third time, he would be suggest amputation, but she nevertheless makes an effort to smile at his lame sally, because he is kind of cute. Because the consensus is that this break occurred at least due in part to poor healing of the last break, wyo is given substantially more stringent instructions regarding her activities. Also, in addition to crutches and "rest," wyo is provided with a "shoe" composed of a textured 2x4 with a BRIGHT BLUE fabric upper and stunningly white laces; she is instructed to wear said shoe forEVER—or so it seems, as her teenaged sense of time is, like everything else, distorted. This time, however, the toe heals well and thoroughly. Thereafter, wyo refrains from roaming her house barefoot.
To Be (Unfortunately) Continued
April 21, 2008
Cat Scientist
Old Lady Cat was a dignified sort of beast, with a tendency to perch atop the highest surface she could find in the vicinity and then stare down upon her minions haughtily, as we scurried about in ant-like fashion under her supervision. For, you know, the entire expanse of five minutes, after which she'd be thoroughly bored with us.
These sorts of behavior are, of course, not exactly unheard-of for snooty cats—is that redundant? I think it is!—but Old Lady Cat was not just any snooty cat: she was also a scientific-minded feline with a penchant for research. A particular favorite involved water glasses.
For as long as I can remember, Old Lady Cat was a hazard around glasses containing water. I'm not sure if it was water, specifically, that drew her attention, or if it was simply that other beverages tended to not be abandoned, and therefore water was "just there."
At first, Old Lady Cat would simply study them, sitting primly in front of a glass, staring down into it, and occasionally tipping her head this way and that, as if memorizing the very molecular structure of water in its liquid state. I sometimes imagine that, had we been able to extract a movie-like thought-speech from her at such a moment, that she would have said, in a female—though still inflection-free—version of Star Trek's famed Mr. Spock, "Fascinating." And then promptly returned to her observations.
But it wouldn't take long before she'd move on to the experimental phase of her investigations. Up would rise one delicate, furry paw, to the very top of the glass, over the rim, and juuuuuuust into the interior space of the glass. And then—I imagined with a little "oop!" not unlike that which Gloria Stuart's character in Titanic dropped that delicious, sparkling bauble she'd kept all those years into the dark depths of the ocean in the last few minutes of that hyper-grandiose film—Old Lady Cat would flick her foot with perfect force to tip the glass over.
Her immaculate fur was never splattered with so much as a single drop of water, at least not in any such experiment that I observed. And I did watch a fair number of these events, as long as the glass wasn't more than a quarter full and was situated in such a place that its contents would drench anything more than the surface of the counter or the like.
Old Lady Cat seemed to get such a kick out of tipping water glasses, you see, and it was just the funniest thing to see her, apparently driven beyond reason to repeat her glass-tipping trick time and time again: "Hmm. A glass of water—fascinating. I wonder what happens if I do ... THIS!" And then lower her paw to sit regally as the water spilled out in rivulets before her: "Oh. I see."
And then, tired by a full schedule of glass-tipping, go take a nap.
These sorts of behavior are, of course, not exactly unheard-of for snooty cats—is that redundant? I think it is!—but Old Lady Cat was not just any snooty cat: she was also a scientific-minded feline with a penchant for research. A particular favorite involved water glasses.
For as long as I can remember, Old Lady Cat was a hazard around glasses containing water. I'm not sure if it was water, specifically, that drew her attention, or if it was simply that other beverages tended to not be abandoned, and therefore water was "just there."
At first, Old Lady Cat would simply study them, sitting primly in front of a glass, staring down into it, and occasionally tipping her head this way and that, as if memorizing the very molecular structure of water in its liquid state. I sometimes imagine that, had we been able to extract a movie-like thought-speech from her at such a moment, that she would have said, in a female—though still inflection-free—version of Star Trek's famed Mr. Spock, "Fascinating." And then promptly returned to her observations.
But it wouldn't take long before she'd move on to the experimental phase of her investigations. Up would rise one delicate, furry paw, to the very top of the glass, over the rim, and juuuuuuust into the interior space of the glass. And then—I imagined with a little "oop!" not unlike that which Gloria Stuart's character in Titanic dropped that delicious, sparkling bauble she'd kept all those years into the dark depths of the ocean in the last few minutes of that hyper-grandiose film—Old Lady Cat would flick her foot with perfect force to tip the glass over.
Her immaculate fur was never splattered with so much as a single drop of water, at least not in any such experiment that I observed. And I did watch a fair number of these events, as long as the glass wasn't more than a quarter full and was situated in such a place that its contents would drench anything more than the surface of the counter or the like.
Old Lady Cat seemed to get such a kick out of tipping water glasses, you see, and it was just the funniest thing to see her, apparently driven beyond reason to repeat her glass-tipping trick time and time again: "Hmm. A glass of water—fascinating. I wonder what happens if I do ... THIS!" And then lower her paw to sit regally as the water spilled out in rivulets before her: "Oh. I see."
And then, tired by a full schedule of glass-tipping, go take a nap.
April 20, 2008
At This Time
When I was unexpectedly laid off last year—as opposed to when I was somewhat-expectedly laid off some 7.5 years prior—the first thing I did (after lather, rinse, and repeating my way through the disbelief, sorrow, and rage post-job-loss stages) was apply for all open jobs in my field within a hundred-mile radius. I think there were two.
Because the very first job I applied for was something that was entirely suitable to my skills—if not my tolerance for long commutes, being, as it was, oh, about 1.5 hours away from my home—and I was quite sure I'd receive an opportunity to interview with the company. That was, in fact, the main reason I'd applied: seven and a half years between jobs had left me feeling a bit rusty in the interview-skills department, so a realistic practice session, I thought, could only help.
So while this far-away company of the excellent benefits and reasonable pay rates was on my radar, it was only just on the fringe edge, and once I progressed from applying for actual job openings to stalking the remotest possibilities of potential employers by writing to them after finding their name and address in the telephone book, I admit that I forgot all about that first application. I knew it had been received, because they sent me an entirely unflattering form e-mail to tell me so, but I knew not what had happened after that.
With this in mind, then, you can imagine my surprise when I got a letter from these fine folks just about 250 days after I applied. Holy crap, Batman, if I hadn't found a "real job" by then, I'd've been working two half-jobs to scrape by, as my unemployment benefits would have been exhausted to the point of DEAD roughly 120 days prior. In neither case could I have possibly summoned any enthusiasm for this note, either, but I guess at least they had the decency to follow-up, albeit in a ridiculously delayed fashion.
I considered including the entire text of the message here—with specific details neatly obscured, of course—but only until my paranoia reared up and flailed about frantically, shrieking about "IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN THE TEXT" and so traumatized was I that I could not even bring myself to state the exact date on which I received the letter. Because, you know, job recruiters obviously have lots of time to troll backwater blogs like this one looking for big-mouthed—or large-fingered, as the case may be—whiners to put on a company-wide, anti-hiring blacklist. Hey! It could happen!
Suffice to say, words like "canceled" were used in describing the position for which I had applied, phrases like "updated daily" were used in describing the source by which I had located the position in the first place, and something remarkably like "good luck" appeared in reference to my job search. Which, I guess, was nice of them, although it would be a lot nicer to hear back from a company in a time frame appreciably less than that which it would take to GESTATE A HUMAN BEING.
Although, when I think about it, perhaps there was a method to their madness after all, because receiving such a letter after so ridiculously many days was certainly much easier to take than had I received it while I was still in the desperate, thrashing throes of joblessness. This way, I got a good laugh out of it.
Because the very first job I applied for was something that was entirely suitable to my skills—if not my tolerance for long commutes, being, as it was, oh, about 1.5 hours away from my home—and I was quite sure I'd receive an opportunity to interview with the company. That was, in fact, the main reason I'd applied: seven and a half years between jobs had left me feeling a bit rusty in the interview-skills department, so a realistic practice session, I thought, could only help.
So while this far-away company of the excellent benefits and reasonable pay rates was on my radar, it was only just on the fringe edge, and once I progressed from applying for actual job openings to stalking the remotest possibilities of potential employers by writing to them after finding their name and address in the telephone book, I admit that I forgot all about that first application. I knew it had been received, because they sent me an entirely unflattering form e-mail to tell me so, but I knew not what had happened after that.
With this in mind, then, you can imagine my surprise when I got a letter from these fine folks just about 250 days after I applied. Holy crap, Batman, if I hadn't found a "real job" by then, I'd've been working two half-jobs to scrape by, as my unemployment benefits would have been exhausted to the point of DEAD roughly 120 days prior. In neither case could I have possibly summoned any enthusiasm for this note, either, but I guess at least they had the decency to follow-up, albeit in a ridiculously delayed fashion.
I considered including the entire text of the message here—with specific details neatly obscured, of course—but only until my paranoia reared up and flailed about frantically, shrieking about "IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN THE TEXT" and so traumatized was I that I could not even bring myself to state the exact date on which I received the letter. Because, you know, job recruiters obviously have lots of time to troll backwater blogs like this one looking for big-mouthed—or large-fingered, as the case may be—whiners to put on a company-wide, anti-hiring blacklist. Hey! It could happen!
Suffice to say, words like "canceled" were used in describing the position for which I had applied, phrases like "updated daily" were used in describing the source by which I had located the position in the first place, and something remarkably like "good luck" appeared in reference to my job search. Which, I guess, was nice of them, although it would be a lot nicer to hear back from a company in a time frame appreciably less than that which it would take to GESTATE A HUMAN BEING.
Although, when I think about it, perhaps there was a method to their madness after all, because receiving such a letter after so ridiculously many days was certainly much easier to take than had I received it while I was still in the desperate, thrashing throes of joblessness. This way, I got a good laugh out of it.
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