The Blog I'm Not Writing

Department Of When The Word Gets Out About His Instructions
This Doctor Will Be Booked Years In Advance

Hmm…what to keep and what to shred?

MH decided to store his COVID vaccine card in his medical file, which was filled with papers that were decades old.  He decided to downsize the file, and began skimming the various papers. Flipping through the multi-page instructions for his colonoscopy of many years ago, he noted that each page had a heading for the various instructions, which were divided into sections: e.g., “how to prepare the week before,” “what to do before your procedure, “what to do following your procedure.” Each heading got its own page.  If all of the section’s instructions didn’t fit on one page, the instructions continued on the next page, with the heading.

This layout proved unfortunate – read: highly entertaining – for the last set of instructions, “what to do following your procedure,” as there was no room for the last “Do not,” heading, which then printed on a page of its own:

 

 

 

Yeah, after your procedure, drink *any* alcoholic beverage.

What the heck, DRINK ‘EM ALL. 

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Department Of Why I Share Stories Like These
Sub Department Of Best Comeback Ever

I share stories like the above, whether they are my “own” or someone else’s, because I am selfish.  I share them for my own personal enjoyment.  The pleasure I take in it is not what you may be thinking – it’s not so much in the telling of the stories, it’s that moiself  loves hearing *other* people’s stories.  And I know and expect – due both experience and a wee knowledge of psychology – that by sharing a certain kind of story, at least at least one person hearing/reading it will be reminded, prompted, or “loosened up” enough    [1]  to share a related story of their own.

True to expectations, when I forwarded MH’s colonoscopy instructions story to select friends and family, I got some feedback. One story in particular had me

ROTFLMAOLABABCFATMAFSOTC

Which I think is the acronym for

Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off losing all bowel and bladder control foaming at the mouth and flinging saliva onto the ceiling.

 

 

Perhaps…not that dramatic. But when I was out to lunch with MH and checked my email, when moiself  read the following anecdote my cousin DF shared with me I laughed so hard and suddenly that I spewed some of my Gardenburger dangerously close to MH’s French fries.

“A nurse (RN) named Annie always used to help with my colonoscopies (I had 5 of ’em ……colonoscopies, not nurses). Annie once told me that mixing the salty, night-before-prep with tequila would easily help me get through all the fluid intake …and better handle the subsequent fluid outtake.

Another time, Annie was about to give me a shot in the arm. She pushed up my sleeve, rubbed alcohol onto the injection site, then said ‘prick’ …to which I immediately replied ‘bitch.’

I was summarily jabbed big-time.”

 

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Department Of Speaking of Sharing Stories…
Does Any One Else’s Cat Do This?

 

 

One of our cats, Nova (pictured above, looking suspiciously innocent), from time to time performs an odd…ritual (?)…as part of her morning ablutions.   After she uses the litter box for #2, she leaps out of the box and proceeds to run several laps around the house, sometimes accompanied by her come-play-with-me!  vocalizing.

Moiself  calls this behavior *Nova’s Happy Turd Trot.*  My interpretation is that she’s running for joy (“I feel so much lighter now, I could fly!”)  Because these incidents in the past  [2]  were occasionally accompanied by MH and/or I finding a…ahem…”turd on the loose” (or worse yet, skidmarks on the carpet), MH says that she does it because she feels that “something is chasing her” (read: one of her turd astronauts has not quite made its splashdown).

I think we’re both correct.

 

 

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“Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.”
(Old Lodge Skins, played by Chief Dan George, Little Big Man)

Dateline: Tuesday,  circa 6 am; doing my morning 15 minutes of meditation, which is not going so smoothly. Moiself’s  monkey mind is drifting even more than usual; I decide to forgo my typical techniques and concentrate on my breath while repeating a pay attention kind of mantra, or reminder, to moiself.  I chose arguably the most deceptively simply yet profound mindfulness phrase, “Be here now,” which does the trick for about five breath cycles, until my baboon brain takes it for a spin…and I hear moiself  thinking to moiself:

Be here now
Bees here now
Bear here now
Bear hair here now
Bear hears cow
Care bears cow
Beet hairs now
Barley here now
Beer here now
My beer is barely here now
Wait a minute – I don’t even drink beer…

 

 

 

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Department Of Petty Pleasures
Number 479 In A Series

This has happened more than once – moiself  deriving childish amusement via witnessing the cuisine-related faux pas of someone else.   [3]  Dateline for the most recent incident: last Tuesday, 12:45 pm-ish.  I was in a Thai restaurant,   [4]  in a seat by the counter, enjoying my panang curry and watching people coming in to pick up their phone-in/to-go orders.

The restaurant owner greeted each person who picked up an order by reading off the order’s contents (“Two Pad Thai shrimp; two red curry, veggie….”) .  One customer, as she received her to-go bag of three curry dishes with rice, asked if there were chopsticks with her order.  “Three napkins and utensils included,” said the restaurant owner, who pointed at a basket on the counter which was filled with forks and spoons wrapped in napkins. “You need more utensils?”

“I want chopsticks,” the customer said. The owner repeated that utensils were already in the bag; the customer repeated that she wanted chopsticks.

 

 

I wondered if that was that customer’s first time ordering Thai food.  If she’d have looked around she might have noticed that the tables were set with napkins and forks.  No chopsticks in sight.

Many Americans, not wanting to be seen as “Oriental food” newbies, mistakenly think chopsticks should accompany any food they identify as Asian (Does it come with rice?  Check; it’s Asian.    [5]  ,   [6] apparently not knowing (or caring?) about the nuances of eating Asian and south-Asian cuisines.

 

 

I have witnessed customers at Thai restaurants berating servers for not bringing them chopsticks.  A Thai restaurant employee told me that so many non-Asian Americans want to appear as if they know what they are doing when it comes to Asian food and thus (mistakenly) insist on using chopsticks to eat their Thai food, that Thai restaurants keep a supply of chopsticks on hand for just that purpose.    [7]

Rule #1: Put Down The Damn Chopsticks!
The spoon (usually a table spoon) is used to bring food to your mouth. The fork is used to maneuver your food around your plate and onto the spoon. Generally, spoon in the right hand; fork in the left.
Individual table settings will not have a knife. Knives are used in the kitchen – not the dining table. Meat is served already cut-up into bite sizes. When you do need to cut something on your plate, Thais will use the spoon.
Thais use chopsticks when eating Chinese food. (Duh!) They also use chopsticks for their varieties of noodle soup….
But even then, the chopsticks are used to snatch goodies from your (noodle soup) bowl and place them onto a spoon.
( Thai table manners – put down the chopsticks! mythailandblog.com )

 

 

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Department Of That Which Comes from Social Media Prompts

I can’t remember the exact phrasing of the prompt, which I saw on Facebook.  It was something along the lines of,

“Date yourself by naming one concert you have attended.”

The first one I thought of that fit the bill was a double bill, featuring bands which my offspring would likely have never heard of:  Cheap Trick opened for The Runaways .  I googled The Runaways to find their touring history, to get the date right (it was the Santa Monica Auditorium gig, in April 1977), and by doing so I came across a link to “Bad Reputation,” a 2018 documentary about The Runaways’ cofounder, Joan Jett.  Guess what I streamed on TV that night?

 

 

I’ve long loved Joan Jett’s songs, and she’s fun to see in concert. Besides the afore-mentioned gig, I saw Jett a couple of times in her post-Runaways year, rocking up a sweat storm  with her band, The Blackhearts.  Somewhere in my attic is a cassette tape I cherish:  a DJ friend of mine persuaded Ms. Jett to record a personalized birthday greetings for moiself .  [8]

As much as I enjoyed most of the documentary, I found some of it painful to watch. In particular, that which pained me is at odds with the sentiments of Jett’s lyrics from the documentary’s titular song:

♫  I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
You’re living in the past, it’s a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do
And that’s what I’m gonna do…

And I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
Never said I wanted to improve my station
And I’m only doin’ good when I’m havin’ fun
And I don’t have to please no one…

I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
Never been afraid of any deviation
And I don’t really care if you think I’m strange
I ain’t gonna change…  ♫
(“Bad Reputation,” first three verses, sans chorus)

Living in the past it’s a new generation…yeah, I wish. Seeing the Joan of the present compared with the past makes me want to listen to Lawrence Welk muzak, for some reason.  Her punk fuck you musical persona aside, obviously, Joan cares about celebrity standards of appearance (for women).  Although she sings otherwise she seems afraid of any deviation from the Hollywood norm, as per her present visage.  Her countenance evinces the er facplastic surgery stretching associated with the most insecure, fading former debutante, instead of the bad ass rocker she *should* look like, at her age.  You’re living in the past, it’s a new generation ? There’s nothing new, or punk or empowering, about Jett’s overly taut, plasticized face.

The documentary featured interviews with many actors, composers, producers, and musicians who expressed admiration for or had a connection to Jett, and the gender contrasts were striking.  Why is it that male rockstars like Iggy Pop and Keith Richards are allowed to be comfortable with their accurately aging faces and bodies (which look like they’ve been in a raisin-drying contest since the 1600s),  when Jett evidently feels that she has to try to recreate the forehead she had at age 15 – and the mouth that she *never* had  [9]  – when she is in her mid-60s?

 

 

 

I dunno…. Is it pettiness on behalf of moiself , that allows me to be distracted by the obvious cosmetic augmentations of the present as compared with Jett’s face of the past?  I just wish that JJ felt the same, because she was so cool in so many ways. 

When it comes to “cosmetic dermatologic procedures” it’s easy for me, not being in the public eye (anymore) and subject to the ruthless scrutiny of their appearance that “public” women get, to critique other women who fall for it go for it. Although, as per the scrutiny, I did recently get an email from a cosmetic dermatology practice telling me that I needed to avail moiself  of their services. “How do they know?”  I asked MH, after I read the email.  “Have they placed cameras behind our mirrors?”

Once again, I digress.

On a marginally related note, I’ve never liked the classic Happy Birthday Song ®.  If you’re going to serenade moiself  on my birthday – and why *wouldn’t* you? – I’d prefer a verse or two of The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme.  Guess who has done the best cover, IMHO?  Take it away, Joan:

 

 

 

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Punz For The Day
Punk Rocker Edition

You can always give punk rock bands constructive criticism –
they appreciate feedback.

Q. What has eight arms and still can’t play bass worth shit?
A: Squid Vicious.

Johnny was a punk rocker in the 80’s. Now he makes crockery at the pottery center
and jokes about it.  He’s come full circle: he’s a pun crocker.

 

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May the concerts you attend never date you;
May you never ask for chopsticks at a Thai restaurant;
May you follow your entertaining colonoscopy instructions to the letter;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

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[1] As in, “Whoa boy, if she can tell/admit to that, then I can say ______ “

[2] Hardly ever anymore, now that she gets hairball supplements with her dinner.  And just in case your brain was going there, she has regular vet care and has never had worms, or any other parasite that might account for…whatever it is she’s doing.

[3] As in not moiself – no, never.

[4] The simple pleasure of being able to do that, again!

[5] A sweet, culinarily clueless relative said that to me, once, as per how he knows “what kind” of food he’s eating.

[6] Chinese; Japanese; Thai; Vietnamese; Cambodian – it’s all the same, right?

[7] The people I’ve spoken with said it’s easier to just give chopsticks to those who ask, rather than trying to explain Thai table manners.  One server, himself Thai, said that a white customer berated him for not knowing that “Asian food required chopsticks” and implied that forks were for children and adults who could not handle chopsticks.

[8] Jett was doling PR at his station, recording a promo.  Thanks, Erndawg – one of the best birthday presents, ever!

[9] What is it with the batwing-tipped, cupid’s bows on her upper lip?  The contrast with her natural mouth, so evident with archival footage – DUH – is bizarre, to say the least.