Beware of Schwees Bearing Gifts

When you have a Schwee, things are never boring. You have to get accustomed to walking around at DEFCON 3, ready to run, laugh, or apologize at any moment. Schwees are not easy to be with, but they make the world a better place.

Most of the time, people just don’t get Boyfriend Extraordinaire. They hear his comments and questions without realizing he’s making fun of someone or something, and they just continue talking to him. Meanwhile, I am usually on the other side of the room laughing, because only I seem to understand his humor.

Also, you cannot get a straight answer out of him to save your life. This used to bother me and I would almost lose my mind trying to get him to be logical and stop joking around. We once had a half-hour battle (totally my fault because I let it continue) over the concept of whether his eyes were a part of his head, or if they were independent of it. He’s actually rubbed off on me and now I cannot answer his questions without turning it into a joke.

On the way up to Michigan, he offered me one of his curly fries from Hardee’s as we sat at a picnic table and dined on lunch, which we were sharing with the seagulls. I refused the curly fry and we had the following ridiculous conversation.

Me: No! I don’t eat curly fries. It’s totally inhumane what they do to potatoes to get curly fries.

B.E.: What are you talking about?

Me: Well, they force it to grow around a steel pole in the ground. It’s unnatural!

B.E.: No they don’t! They have these things that cut the potato in the curled shapes.

Me: No, that’s what they WANT you to think. They torture the potato, pushing it and twisting it around this pole all its life!

B.E.: Okay, fine, but they don’t hurt the potato. It’s an HONOR to be a curly fry. Only special potatoes are chosen to grow up this way and have the distinction of being curly.

Me: No way being contorted like that isn’t agony! Michael Moore did a documentary on it. I know what really goes on with making curly fries! I will not eat them.

So, we torment each other with our crazy conversations.

On the way home from the trip, we passed Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and given that B.E. had taken years of French in school and has frequently translated for me in the past, I asked him what it meant.

B.E.: Well, Lac means lake. And obviously Fond du means fondue. So, it’s a big, fondue lake over there.

Me: We ARE in Wisconsin. It’s probably a big, melted cheese lake then.

B.E.: That’s right. In Wisconsin, of course they have a town named after a big, melted cheese lake. Fond du Lac. Fondue Lake. You gotta love Wisconsin.

If for one second I believed anything he said, imagine how stupid I’d look to others if I tried to repeat any of what he tells me.

Perhaps the one area of our relationship that causes me the most unease is that moment when he says he has a present for me. I fear his gifts, not because they’re dangerous, but because I just have no idea how to react to them. Let me show you.

B.E.: I got you a present!

Me: Oh no. You didn’t. Schwee, you don’t have to bring me presents. I keep telling you.

B.E.: I know, but I like to give you things. And this is going to be perfect.

Me: But Schwee! Oh god, this scares the shit out of me.

B.E. (laughing): NO, you’re going to like this one! It’s perfect for you!

Me: Like the Pooh overalls? Both pairs? Or the salt and pepper shakers you gave my mom? Oh man, Schwee, you REALLY don’t have to give me presents!

B.E.: Shush! Close your eyes and hold out your hand.

I felt him fastening something enormous and heavy on my wrist. My stomach dropped.

Dammit, it’s some kind of jewelry. How the heck am I going to pretend to be flattered and grateful when it weighs this much?

I opened my eyes and found this fastened to my wrist.



He calls it a bling watch. He says that the girl who orders street lit for the library should have a bling watch. It has a spinner hubcap on it, with fake jewels.


And it actually spins.


You can open up the wheel cover to see the time beneath. It isn’t just for looks. This piece of crap actually keeps time.


What the hell do you say to this? I mean, I’m not sure if he got this for me at the flea market as a gag gift or as a serious gift. He never laughed when I was gawking at the watch, unable to bend my hand because of how huge the watch is, and unable to lift my arm because of the weight of it. He was so proud of this gift, and I seriously don’t know if he was proud of coming up with such a hilarious gift, or if he truly thought it was the best gift ever. I’m leaning toward the hilariousness of it, but I can’t be sure.

I don’t know if you have a Schwee in your life, but if you do, consider yourself pretty damn lucky.

Also, if you do, let’s get together and sell some of our insane gifts.

Observances

Today a woman (and I use that term loosely) approached me while dancing a lemur-like dance, with her arms waving in the air as she seemed to leap and fling herself with her hips, all while singing. Others in the room were heard as if their speakers were on a two or three, and her voice was booming at nine, causing me to recoil. It took effort not to protect my ears, as my hand instinctively wanted to do. My eyes decided to make up for it by blinking so rapidly that it nearly caused me to have a seizure. She roared and laughed out this story about how her parents only ever played 50s music when she was growing up, some 25 years after the 50s I should add, and she still loved it to this day. In fact, things in life all somehow corresponded back to various songs in her memory bank, and often she is overcome with the need to sing the appropriate song for the occasion.

All I could think about was how I would really like to punch her right in the nose.

You do not behave this way in public, and you certainly don’t walk up to a group of complete strangers singing, dancing like a rhythmless white girl, and then telling everyone around about your childhood music experiences, and how they turned you into a raving lunatic.

She was way too goddamn happy. Drugs? Mental illness? In need of a good ass kicking? Some pampered princess who has never experienced life? What? What makes someone this freakishly happy? Whatever it is, we must seek the cause and kill it. People like her shouldn’t be allowed to walk around behaving this way. And if they are truly this happy, they should be forced to keep it to themselves.

Singing when there’s no music? Um, no. This is why people like me hate musicals. Only deranged, drugged or damaged people do this. Dancing, and very badly at that, when there’s no music? Even worse. In public, surrounded by strangers? Oh boy. Stand back. And then telling them half your life story? Euthanasia is the only option.

Happy, loud people who share too much: hate them.

* * *

On Monday, I had a series of appointments with multiple doctors scheduled back to back to back, and the first took far less time than anticipated, so I found myself driving around Bannockburn, Illinois, wasting time until my next appointment.

Bannockburn lies among the other North Shore suburbs like Highland Park and Lake Forest, notorious for their wealthy residents. I’m not a huge fan of the rich. I worked in Highland Park too long and was treated so poorly by much of the clientele that I have a bitter taste in my mouth each time I drive through the area, even 13 years later. However, I had time to kill and I decided to take a gander at how the rich and famous live.

Do you know what? Most of those houses were fugly! Big, square, obnoxious monstrosities! Some had these hideous metal sculptures in their front yard, as if to give passersby the impression that the owner had avant-guard flair, which translated to me as a wealthy version of pink-fucking-flamingos. Tacky. My eyes threatened to sprain from rolling so much. Who the hell takes themselves this seriously? There were some gorgeous homes, don’t get me wrong, because not everyone who has money is totally in love with himself and is trying to persuade others to feel the same. How insecure can you be? Why would you live in a home that has only three windows and is shaped like a psychotic architect tried to incorporate every conceivable shape into different rooms in the same house? I couldn’t help but laugh.

It made me realize that we aren’t so different from the rich. They’re just as moronic and garish as we are, trying hard to be noticed. The only difference is they have more money.

Yet I did notice a few more differences.

For one, they had hardly any for-sale signs. If you drive through my neighborhood, there are easily two or more houses for sale on every block, and these don’t include the ones that sit empty, nor do they include the ones recently foreclosed. Everywhere you look, homes are for sale by me, and they remain for sale for months on end, until the signs rot and fall over on the lawn. So, unless the rich sell their mansions in a way that doesn’t include public signage, it seemed to me that the folks in Bannockburn aren’t struggling with the same economic problems we are.

Another thing I noticed was the street names. Tennyson, Keats, Kipling, Malory, and Shelley. No matter how ugly your house is or what nasty metal atrocities you install on your front lawn, you are automatically filled with self-importance when you live on Bentley Drive. This is in direct contrast to my ‘hood, where we live on streets like Misdemeanor, Pimp and Smack. There is no Masters Lane in my town, no matter how you interpret that. And there is no Martin Luther King Drive in the wealthy areas. There is no irony there. It’s just kind of sad.

Something that gave me a little bit of comfort was the fact that gas is a full dollar per gallon higher in Bannockburn than it is an hour away by my house, which is still 20¢ per gallon more than our neighboring states. Go ahead and speculate on what drives gas prices and if we ever should’ve been paying more than we are now, which is still too much.

* * *

While visiting my favorite doctor, I had a little conversation with him about drugs, because the meds I’m on are causing so much trouble for me. The anti-malarial drug is a chemo med, so in addition to the digestive disruptions, nausea, hair loss, fatigue, bruises with no known cause all over the body, and muscle weakness, the medication somehow interferes with whatever it is that tells the bladder to hold the urine until it’s full, so I have to pee about every 2 hours, around the clock, day and night. Boyfriend Extraordinaire thinks I’m having hearing loss as well, though I’m not convinced of this yet. All this doesn’t even touch on what the steroids do, which I’ve actually become accustomed to suffering from at this point. My doctor shook his head and was grateful that my other doctor discontinued the Plaquenil and gave me a diuretic to help with the fluid retention in my neck, hands and feet. However, he warned me that the diuretic will make me pee even more, which I thought wasn’t possible, but he was right.

He looked so distraught about my side effects that I felt I had to comfort him a bit.

I said, “Meh, all drugs have side effects. What I don’t understand is why are they all negative? Why do medicines make you nauseated? Or make your hair fall out? Or make you have to pee every 90 minutes? Why don’t any of them have a single GOOD side effect… like… whitening your teeth… or… making your boobs perkier?”

He laughed and said, “Oh, wait! There’s Rogaine! That was designed for something else and someone started noticing that people were growing their hair back.”

I replied with surprise. I had no idea Rogaine had other intended purposes.

He continued, “And there’s Viagra!”

I piped up, “Oh yeah! That was a cardiac medication, wasn’t it?”

“Yep, a cardio-pulmonary drug that had this interesting side effect. Hehe, and then they just changed the dose by a few milligrams, and charged A TON more money for the specialized dose, and that’s what Viagra is today. A total marketing scam!”

“Ugh, of course,” I moaned.

“I get male patients who beg me to prescribe it and say it’s for their pulmonary problems so that they don’t have to pay the high price for it, but no, I can’t do that.”

I giggled and said, “Darn, you should, and stick it to them!”

Then I paused, thinking of the great pun I unintentionally made and we both started laughing again.

I have faith that this doctor does not live in one of those geometric homes with sharp protrusions of oddly shaped rooms, tiny windows, and unsightly sculptures on his lawn. He’s way too cool for that.

* * *

Tonight, the premiere of “Celebrity Rehab” aired and I am already emotionally invested in some of the addicts. I desperately want Rodney King to do well, make friends, and have a good life. Steven Adler, I’m afraid to see where things lead him because he looks like he’s too far gone to save. I want the rest to do well, of course, particularly Jeff Conaway because I can’t stand the idea of him being back over and over. However, there are two characters (and I use that term accurately) who are going to make me have violent outbursts just watching them. Jeff’s girlfriend is one of them, and I actually hate her so much that I wish she’d just overdoes already and be out of the picture. The other is Gary Busey, but I think that if he hangs out for a few more days, the rest of the people are going to kill him. THAT will be a good episode to watch! Dr. Drew might even join in, and my crush on him will only intensify. Damn this show for hooking me all over again!

I Did It!

Finally! I've been working all weekend on this and it's finally done!

If you're interested in reading about our adventures on the trip, you can click the picture below to read my travel blog.



Or, if you're not really into reading all the silly stories about our goofy antics, feel free to visit the following Tabblo pages of just photos.

And, now I can finally get a good night of sleep again. Whew!

ThunderCrafts!

For the past few months, Marina and I have been making jewelry to keep ourselves busy and we have gotten to a point where we have spent so much money on supplies, and made so many items that it's time to part with much of them. Personally, I have made over 200 pairs of earrings, and with only two ears on my own body, it just doesn't make sense to continue making myself more earrings. My unfortunate friends have been the recipients of countless pairs of earrings for all occasions and I fear that they too have reached a point where my gifts start to seem like I'm unloading more of my excessive wares on them. So, before Marina reaches the desperate point I'm at, she had a brilliant idea: she was going to sell hers on Etsy.

Marina's Etsy shop is called ThunderCrafts, and it's 100% Thor approved. (Go ahead and try to prove that it isn't.)

She makes chainmaille earrings with and without beads, as well as some matching necklaces, like the ones below.







They're really cute and the prices are far cheaper than they should be, because, like I said, we're both in need of unloading.

She's trying to talk me into opening an Etsy shop, but now that I've returned from my vacation I'm going to be working on my travel blog and tabblo pages to get my pictures up. Perhaps I'll do the Etsy shop in a week or two. Until then, go check out Marina's shop and enjoy the handiwork of an artisan who's been blessed by the God of Thunder himself!

Vacation Blues

It's 11 am and I'm on vacation, sitting in my motel room and eating my English muffin, waiting for Boyfriend Extraordinaire to wake up and the rain to stop. Despite the fact that the sky is gray for as far as the eye can see, I'm guessing the rain will stop sooner than my Schwee will wake. To give him some credit, he hasn't slept well. I was smart enough to pop in some ear plugs when I went to sleep, but they worked so well, I didn't hear the alarm go off for a full half-hour. He tried to ignore the blaring alarm, but I'm sure he didn't sleep a wink. Why he didn't wake me up to tell me to shut it off or shut it off himself, I'm not sure. I suppose he deserves that sleep deprivation. However, he did not deserve the early risers in the rooms next to us and below us, who all seemed to congregate in front of our room to laugh, chat and plan their day, loudly, at 7 am. Who the hell gets up and is out the door by 7 am when they're on vacation? Maniacs. I'm sharing the Upper Peninsula with maniacs this weekend.

My other conundrum is that my hair is blue and it's raining out. My last vacation led me to lose my favorite raincoat and I never replaced it, so unless I want blue streaks dripping down my neck and back, staining my clothes and skin, I cannot go out and play until the rain stops. (All that prepping and I didn't bring anything hooded, either.) I have consulted weather.com and noaa.gov, and they both are in agreement that there is no rain here and it should be sunny and 50 degrees outside. Clearly they are smoking crack. Big, boulders of cracky crack. And yet, I'm no less stuck in my motel room. Maybe the local Dollar Store has one of those garbage-bag parkas I could buy for, well, a dollar. Marina suggested a plastic bag, and I'm not sure if I should be offended that my friend suggested I put a plastic bag over my head. Probably. But I am considering it, still. The drawback is that other tourists (including B.E.) would likely be shooting pics of the garbage bag lady at various locations. "Here's the garbage bag lady at Miners Castle, and here's garbage bag lady at the city dock." Do I want to be Garbage Bag Lady? Not really.



The colors here are fantabulous! I could not have timed this trip better, but that was all luck on my part. Now if only the sun would come out, my luck would be complete.

Oh, and if Boyfriend Extraordinaire would wake up. Maybe it's time to check for a pulse.

Pre Vacation Freakishness

My vacation is just 3½ days away and I’m panicking. Part of it is because I only have enough money to cover the motel room for the week we’re there, and the gas to get us there and back. That’s it. We’re going to have to raid my refrigerator and pantry for food we can bring and microwave in the room, because we can’t even buy Subway’s $5 foot-longs for sustenance while we’re there. There will be no souvenirs, no rides on boats, no romantic dinners, no paid parking spots, no smooshed penny machines, and absolutely no driving around town more than necessary. There is no wiggle room. There is simply no money.

Another part of the panic is that I’m still not feeling well, and while many of my medication side effects have waned, I’m experiencing new ones that are pissing me off something awful. My muscles are getting weaker and weaker, to the point where my arms tremble and threaten to give up when I brush my teeth. It takes an hour to blow dry my hair because I can’t turn my brush through my hair more than three times before my wrist feels as if I’ve been kneading dense dough all morning. Walking up the 13 stairs of my house makes my thighs shake with frailty, and recently I’ve started having lower back pain, which I’ve never had in my life. I can’t do dishes, I can’t stand for any length of time, and sleeping is not something that comes easily anymore. Today the pain in the backs of my shoulder blades started, and no matter how much I massaged the muscles, it would not go away.

So, what exactly can I do on vacation without money, and with muscles that are burning and so weak that I can’t even walk up a flight of stairs anymore?

It’s freaking me out!

But, I will not let this stop me! Foliage color reports are predicting peak color in the Hiawatha National Forest to be this upcoming weekend and next week. I gambled and picked the perfect week to go! And since the we’re entering into a depression, the likes of which we haven’t seen in almost a century, I don’t know if I’ll ever get up there again. Plus, I just went to the store to buy something utterly essential, knowing I had very little money in the bank, and the total came to $3.01, but my debit card was denied for insufficient funds. THAT’S humiliating. Then I opened my wallet and thought I only had two singles, one for a Coke for each day at work for lunch until we get paid on Thursday, but there was an extra dollar and I was able to pay for my purchase with cash. THAT’S a sign! A sign from where or whom, I don’t know, but if a magical dollar can appear in my wallet when I need it, I can conclude with confidence that magical dollars can appear in my wallet in the future as well. I believe in magical dollars. You know? Like the kind they print up that have absolutely no basis whatsoever on anything but faith in the monetary system. Like magical dollars that will bail out our banks, who have been cheating and conniving and lying for so long that it’s finally catching up to them, and suddenly there’s squillions of dollars to help them out of this crisis. Magical dollars are everywhere. Let’s just hope that the American people keep believing in them too, or pretty soon we’ll have our own tulip mania, only ours will be called dollar mania.

And what this all boils down to is that I shun the signs telling me to stay home and save my money, which is scarce enough, and choose to go far away, draining all my savings and remaining open credit, all for some colorful leaves.

Sometimes, when I think about it that way, it freaks me out. So I try not to.

But the day wasn’t a total downer.

I’m working on improving our dog book collection, and Marina suggested I find books on the unofficial poodle mixed breeds that are popular, like goldendoodles and schnoodles.

Let me first say that I cannot say shih tzu without giggling. Then I started reading some of the other poodle combinations and I was in hysterics.

Do you havapoo?

Do you affenpoo?

Is it a serious case of lhassapoo?

Can you only afford chi-poo?

Have you ever had to jackapoo, perhaps with your cocka-poo?

When you try too hard, is it a shar-poo?

Or do you have delicate pinni-poos?

Does you mommy criticize your papipoo?

Do you have bossi-poos?

Are you the kind of coworker who has a poo-chin?

Are you shy and prefer to pekepoo?

Do you sometimes try to hold it too long and find that laughing causes an eskapoo?

Or are you a proud person who embraces their poo-ton?

Go ahead and look them up. They’re real.

And people think having a dog named River because he pees a lot is nasty. At least he’s a pee-vert and not a poo-vert.

Six Swallow Siblings Sitting in a Nest

"Where'd Mom go?"
"Is that Mom?"
"No, she went this-a-way."
"I'm hungry."
"Me too."
"Who farted?"


"She's taking too long."
"Is that Mom?"
"No, I think she just went that-a-way."
"I'm hungry."
"Stop pushing!"
"You're pushing ME!"


"WORMS!!!!"


"Dork, that wasn't Mom."
"False alarm."
"I smelled worms."
"I'm hungry."
"Where's Mom?"
"She's not back here."


"Worms?"
"Quit pushing!"
"Stop touching me!"
"Who farted?!"
"I'm HUNGRY!"
"Worm breath!"


"Ah!"
"Me too!"
"Is that Mom?"
"Where? I don't see her!"
"WORMS!"
"Who farted?"

Career Highlight

Not much makes me giggle like a schoolgirl more than a handful of new books coming up from our tech services department that I ordered. I feel like they’re mine, obviously, but more than that, I am bursting with giddiness over the fun titles.

Bad Girls 4 Live
Pitbulls in a Skirt
Thug’s Passion
A Hood Chick’s Story
Payback is a Mutha

They say sardonically, “Ah, look, Happy Villain’s books are in,” and they’re looking at a cover that has an African American woman’s ass barely covered by a spandex skirt that almost comes down to the bottom of her cheeks, and she’s sporting some stilettos that could double as weapons. Yup. Those are mine. And it thrills me to no end. If nothing else, I can die a happy woman now because I have given our library over 150 hoochie-mama books.

This is my legacy. It makes me smile.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Today I found a gorgeous blue jay in my backyard.

So I called the village hall.

The receptionist, much distraught by my situation, transferred me to the records clerk at the police department.

He wanted desperately to help, but had to refer me to call the police non-emergency phone number.

They weren’t messing around. This is serious business. Tomorrow they’re sending a Community Service Officer out to my house to help me out.

A blue jay is an event, you see.

I had my first squirrel early this spring, and he no longer visits my yard. I had robins that lived in and raised nests of young on my flood light for many years, but they dared not return this year. A nest of dead baby cardinals was pillaged from one of my trees. My bird feeder has become a ghost town, my trees are silent, and even the hawk who frequented my yard hasn’t been around this year at all. It used to be that bunnies were a pest problem, but due to their cuteness, I sacrificed my plants to keep them around. They are now the scarcity. These days, plants grow only to be dug up and peed on, and all summer long the entire area has reeked of ammonia because my backyard has not only become a buffet table for the local housecats, but also a litter box.

For years I’ve battled with the lady across the street, who has three cats that she heaves out the front door the second she arrives home from work each evening, and they remain outside until the next morning when she leaves for work again. Why she has cats, I don’t know. This spring, a new family moved in on the block, and they have a humongous grey cat that is far worse than the three across the street, for she is always outside, day and night, and she seems to have chosen the sanctity of my backyard, which is full of evergreens and my beloved weeping cherry tree, as her home. She has torn holes in the screen door from the outside from climbing it over and over to catch bugs, as well as used my arbor and bench as a scratching post. She climbs the arbor and uses it to launch herself onto the trees to catch birds, or she will use it as a ladder to get to the windows on the second floor, where she meows teases my dog. The yard is full of holes she’s dug, plants she’s eaten, and cat waste, not to mention the corpses of dead animals she hasn’t consumed or deposited on the front steps of houses nearby. It’s a constant battle with the hose to get her out of the yard, but she returns once she dries off and forgets that I can and will hose her whenever I see her.

On top of all that, she drives my dog apeshit. I am not exaggerating when I say that he will destroy furniture and eat anyone who gets between him and this cat, and taking him outside just to pee requires a lookout and quick canvassing of the area to see if the cat is nearby, because if she’s close and he spots her, he’s going to take you for a ride while he tries to get to her. It’s going to be hard to prove that the waste in the backyard is hers and not the dog’s, but I know that it is simply too dangerous to take him in the backyard at all, and he hasn’t been back there since the cat took over in late spring. My poor pooch can’t spend time outside at all anymore because of her, even leashed, and that’s unfair to him, as well as all the others on the block who have been fighting with this cat’s owner about keeping her cat inside.

It’s good to know the law is on my side, though. At least according to the village and the police department, I do have recourse. Perhaps talking to the cat owners will suffice, otherwise there will be traps in my yard and the cats will be going to the local shelter. Post haste!

Because I have a blue jay now. Or at least I did this morning.

Pizza Destiny

Hi. I’m a piece of pizza.

A piece of frozen pizza that Happy Villain cooked with great love and tenderness, adding her favorite spices and some Romano and Parmesan cheese to, but I don’t mind the enhancements. I consider them accessories. It’s not insulting. She cooked me up perfectly in the oven and I was primed and ready for her to ingest me and put me to use. You see, I come in this form so that the human body can break me down and use my parts to fuel her body. It means I’m destined for great things.

All was going well at first. She chewed me just the right amount of times, washed me down with a huge tumbler of cold water, and stomach acids were starting to release my true power in her belly. I was excited. This was my moment to shine. I was going to be sent to her cells to power her great machinery, and hopefully she’d do something really special with the energy and nutrients I provide her. Only, something else far more powerful than me, and even more powerful than Happy Villain herself, had other plans.

A quinine derivative medication followed me into the belly, as well as an antibiotic that doubles as an anti-fungal. Right away I knew something was dreadfully wrong with this human. Digestion all but came to a halt. There were belly quakes and spasms of muscles beyond where I could see, and Happy Villain seemed to be dizzy and fighting off the urge to vomit. She did well, the trooper. I certainly didn’t want to be expelled that way. Ugh.

A few hours went by and somehow most of me made it past the stomach, although some of me was still lingering behind in the unhappy soup of stomach discontent. Happy Villain fell asleep and thought digestion would be aided much by the prostrate positioning and slower metabolism. She did toss and turn a lot, but that’s because she still has a vicious sinus infection and double ear infections.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I made it to her intestines.

OHMYGOD, what a mess! That damn antibiotic she’s been taking is causing them to bleed, and things are looking mighty irritated in there. That anti-malarial medication is seizing up her guts, turning everything in the bowels to mush, and forcing it all out before it can truly be absorbed. This was not looking good for me.

At 4 am, it was like all hell broke loose. There were cramps coming from every direction, and her body heated up to a frighteningly high feverish state. I was cooking all over again, and this time it wasn’t good. She was sweating profusely and rocking back and forth from the pain in her abdomen, not sure whether things were going to come out the top or bottom of her, but I heard her begging for whatever was inside her to please come out. I felt bad. It’s not me, I shouted! I would never do this to you! I’m meant for bigger things! I don’t think she heard me.

Twenty minutes of her sweating and crying in her bathroom finally led to a mass exodus of everything she’s eaten since she was about two months old. She lost it from both ends, and part of me landed in the tub, while part of me went into the toilet. At the same time! That was wild! And my parts sat there for an untold amount of time while she sat trembling, too exhausted to even move, eyes closed, unable to even look at me. She was sad. She had big plans for me, too. We were going to work together, and here we were, forcibly separated, and she was too weak to even stand up. She needed me and now I’m destined for a place in the sewer, where microbes and vile things will dine upon my parts. This is not my destiny, yet here I am.

She finally was able to gather her strength to get up, clean herself off, and wash my remnants away. I assume she stumbled back to bed and got up in the morning to try some other food, for she surely needed some energy, but I can tell you it did not go well either. I was joined by her breakfast not too many hours later, and an equally distraught plate of eggs and English muffin were washed away, their destiny robbed from them too, all because of that stupid quinine-type medication that refuses to allow Happy Villain to digest food.

How exactly is this supposed to cure malaria if it runs the risk of starving the person to death?

I’m a piece of pizza. I’m full of nutrients from grains to calcium to essential fats and antioxidants. I’m supposed to give a human power. It’s a great purpose, I have. And thanks to some stupid medication, I dwell in the bowels of the septic system, munched on by unspeakable creatures, my glorious fate stolen from me unjustly.

Drugs suck.

When I Am Old, I'll Still Have Blue Hair

When did I turn 80 years old? I don’t remember turning 36, but suddenly I’m a decrepit woman who is looking back on her youth with vague recollection and a sense of something lost.

Marina and I were talking the other day about the fact that we’re both coupon-clippers and go to craft fairs.

Honorary elderly.

On top of that, we prefer making stuff to buying stuff. Clothes, food, jewelry, anything. From scratch. By hand. With aprons.

How is it possible we’re this old already?

We made plans for this weekend with Ann, but we have to get moving early so we can be home early, because we get tired.

I jokingly suggested that we should get to bed early Saturday after our shopping spree so we can go to bingo on Sunday.

Marina said, “Oh! I like bingo!”

Someone put us in a home. Take away our drivers licenses and put some diapers on us. Bathe us in Ben-gay and give us housedresses to wear so our fragile, un-elastic skin doesn’t chafe. We shall never wear shoes again – it’s strictly soft slip-ons so we don’t have to bend over. Zippers are a thing of the past. As are tampons, makeup, and thongs.

You know, maybe this isn’t so bad after all.

I've Officially Lost It -- Whatever "It" is

One of the few gifts of being sick is that I cannot smell the great, unwashed public. A sinus infection took root in my head on Friday and kicked my ass all weekend. My sense of smell disappeared, only to be replaced with a dull but unpleasant scent of mucus that is all my olfactory senses can detect. *Sniff, sniff.* Nope. All I have is mucus going on here. Thus, I cooked the stinkiest foods I could think to make all weekend. Everything contained caramelized red onions and garlic, and there was a heap of salmon and steak to be eaten. If I don’t care about the odor, I’m making the stinky foods! Which includes the spinach and artichoke dip, that isn’t stinky per se, but the effects are. “I have no idea what you’re complaining about. I can’t smell a thing!”

Another of the gifts of being sick is that I cannot hear the obnoxious and irritating public. The sinus infection raged so hard that it broke through and gave me a double ear infection. Now I cannot sleep on my sides because the pain in my ears is too much to support the weight of my head on two soft pillows. And everyone sounds like they’re adults in a “Peanuts” cartoon. This is just as well. Not often does anyone say anything worth listening to. “I have no idea what you’re saying. Maybe you should tell it to someone else.”

Ahhh, steroids. Only taking prednisone for a little over a month and suddenly the infections are running rampant through my system.

I’m sure that refusing to take the chemo medication didn’t ingratiate me with my new rheumatologist, so I feel obligated to take the anti-malarial she gave me instead. At least this drug doesn’t stop my body from making bone marrow and cause lymphomas. (How is that drug on the market, I ask.) Anyway, after some time, I guess I can start traveling to malaria-ravaged areas of the globe again. Which is fortunate, because I’m sure they missed me in Africa and Panama. I’m quite popular there, I understand. At least with the mosquitoes.

Then again, do I really want to get on a plane being all immune-suppressed? Probably not. But maybe I could share some of my many infections with others. Perhaps I could get on a plane and pee all over the toilet seat, hand people things after putting them in my mouth first, and rub my nose before reaching out to shake someone’s hand. And this is on top of my anosmia and deafness. Oh yeah! I’m the perfect tourist! I’m the very definition of Americana!

Ahh, finally, a patriotic moment in my life! Being sick is a beautiful thing.

(It could very well be that the infections have breached the blood/brain barrier because I think I’m starting to hallucinate.)