Dotty Parker

the mauve death

BrilliantEditor and I were playing the video game SSX3. It's a game where you choose a character and snowboard through different competitions until you win enough money to buy him or her some more skill.

In the process of this game, the characters often get their heads knocked into walls, land face down in the snow, go tumbling down steep hills, and fall off the mountain.

In true video game style, they reappear moments later with a bit of their power/adreneline taken away.

I was playing with Griff. He's 12 years old and is a super snowboarder. He swings around poles and dangles from overhead subway-type handles. I was making him snowboard all over the place and it was there that I saved him from needing to reattach a head or an arm.

BrilliantEditor said, "Whoa! You saved him from the maw of death."

I realized a moment later what he meant, after I'd said, "Saved him from the mauve death?"

The words sound so similar that he started explaining what a maw was. But I then started explaining to him what I'd heard.

Yet again, I must remind myself to get my hearing checked.

zonk

Oh boy. I haven't been this tired in a long time. I only slept a few hours last night and woke up at 6-ish. What the hell is that about?

In my world, the odd thing about no sleep is that I'm just fine until lunch time. Once lunch hits my system, it's all over. My eyes won't focus; I can't concentrate; the world is skewed in angry directions.

Today, though, I decided to change that pattern a little and pretend I'm Alice in Wonderland.

It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.

I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to her to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could.

She handles things so well. And so did I, once I figured out I'd fallen down a rabbit hole and everything was different.

schedule redux

Every now and then, instead of feeling guilty about how much or little work I do, I keep track of it. Before, I'd made a spreadsheet. That was my first adventure.

That sucked, though. Adventures that suck are, in my opinion, not worth continuing unless the lack of continuation results in death, which is even suckier. Thus, the continuation of the adventure, although suckful, is advised.

So I bought myself a cuckoo planner to keep track of what I do all day.

Shockingly, or not, I spend a lot of time just playing games and stuff. I'm not terribly productive in the traditional sense. If you count in all the odd chores and things, though, I'm still not terribly productive.

I've decided to work up to a productivity that is acceptable to me. At my current rate it might take a while, but that's the idea, isn't it? Everything takes time, including my progress--even though I'm immune to the rules of the world.

you've come a long way, baby

You've come a long way, baby. The Virginia Slims slogan that long overstayed its welcome.

The slogan, while unwelcome and discarded by Virginia Slims, seems highly relevant to me today.

I went to Staples to get a calendar and some pencils.I got in line to pay. There was some nonsense going on in front of me. The guy had a GE credit card and didn't want to pay sales tax, but didn't have a tax ID number for the tax exemption and didn't know the phone number, couldn't even say where exactly he worked (he travelled, apparently).

So Dotty, with her retail experience was thinking, "Hmmm. I'd probably call the manager on this one or maybe decline to take his credit card unless he had identification and the card had his name on it."

Instead, the cashier said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to have you pay the tax."

The man said, "Well it's a bajillion dollar a year corporation. I think they'll pay the tax."

Ha ha ha, the boys snickered together.

I was next in line and put my calendar and pens on the counter. The cashier said, "Well, at least I know you'll have to pay the sales tax." He said it in a joking manner.

I said, "Why's that?"

He said, "Well," backing off slightly, "unless you're a teacher..." indicating that he was aware that teachers, because they're purchasing supplies for work, get a tax exemption.

So Dotty very gently (I swear I was sweet and gentle) said, "I need to scold you now. I could own my own business and be buying for that, couldn't I?"

Rather than acknowledging that this was so, he said, "Do you own your own business?"

As I deduct supplies and materials from my tax returns for my business which is ephemeral, yet powerful, I said, "Yes. I do. These things just aren't related."

I may have come a long way, baby, but honey, the rest of the world has not.

This next bit adds insult to injury for me. The guy who was, in my opinion, acting in a way that would warrant the request of identification, was a black guy. The guy who assumed that I was neither a teacher or a business person was in a wheelchair.

So three stereotypes: the black guy will not be working for a fancy company and so will have stolen the credit card, the guy in the wheelchair will be considerate, and the girl waiting in line is a girl out shopping.

And which stereo type does the cashier choose to buy into? I guess there are only a few types of women in this world.

hippie chicky steps up to the plate

Oh politics. I make rules about when and where I can talk about them. Since I have no food, no drink, no guests, and am neither sitting at a dining table or having a chat with a new friend while standing (having no guests would preclude that, wouldn't it?), I'm deciding that I can write this now.

Oooooooooh, just you wait Mr. G. W. Bush! One day it will all dawn on you; you'll realize the terrifying villian that you are; you'll go down in history as the man more cruel than the one he deposed; you'll discover that it's for so many reasons that they cannot be listed here.

He's worse than I am. Really.

Bad, punk bastard. I hate him!

And, in related news, I hate CBS, too. They won't play angry-with-the-president-type advertising during the Superbowl. It's only worth watching the Superbowl for the ads and this time I won't be able to bear watching it for the ads. Fascists at CBS.

Here's the ad they refuse to play. Cold, hard cash provided to CBS for the service, just like all the other cash, and yet, they won't play it. I know that they don't have to play it, but they show political advertising, yes? Yes, they do. And actually I don't know the policies on how political advertising works, so maybe I should be more outraged than I am.

Oh, my soap box is getting all lathered up. I'm going to step off the public soap box. I don't want to be incoherent. I'll leave that for our president. I'll stay angry and feisty and snippy and I shall continue to take umbridge. Where to take it, though!

But, as promised, the commercial they wouldn't play!

(On a less political and more absurd note, I encourage you to take a gander at this site. The ninth from the top left makes me laugh. Everyone in the world is a dope.)

dreaming of dessert

I don't often remember dreams, although with my imagination it might not be necessary. This morning, though, I woke up and was dreaming about desserts. I was dreaming about which dessert I wanted to choose when there were dozens of them. It was like a cruise ship dining room. And no one had sat down yet. And each place setting had a dessert. Most of them were different from each other and all of them were lovely looking.

In my dream I was stuck between two that were very similar, but each had its strong point. My parents were sitting at the table where one of my favorites was. The other was off somewhere in the dark and I wasn't sure I wanted to go over there.

Odd dreams on a cold day. I don't remember the desserts clearly now, but there was one that had fruit and custard layered with cake and that sounds pretty good right now. The other was similar, but had dense cake and something like cream on it. Yum.

I've heard that eating lots of whole grains decreases a person's appetite for sweets. I tried it for a while and it worked. But I'm not eating enough of them now. Can you tell? Mmmmm. Sugar.

happy rdmlkj day!

So yesterday was Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Day. It's only one day, but it's a long holiday, nevertheless. At least the name is.

I'm feeling like I should make a brave political statement, or even a quailing political statement, but I'm not feeling brave, political, or quailing.

There will be no statement forthcoming.

We bought the dogs a ramp so they could get on the bed without waking me up in the middle of the night. Sprocket has figured it out. I'm not sure Spring feels like bothering. That would disappoint me. I want to preserve her joints. She's still having trouble climbing the stairs (although with stairs like ours, it's hard to blame her). She has achy days, too.

But! A fabulous new development in the world of veterinary science! There's beef stinky aspirin! Spring likes it! Now I don't have to gavage the aspirin down her throat anymore. Gross and painful for me (she'd bite my fingers when I'd try to get the pills past her tongue) and demeaning and demoralizing for her.

Now she's demeaned by being tricked into taking the medication. But she doesn't know it. So maybe it's okay.

In any case, I believe it's time for her aspirin and it's time for a snack for Dotty.

p.s. Sprocket is snoring.

snows in my toes

BrilliantEditor and I went out to dinner at our friends' house. They have a long driveway. We parked at the bottom of it. We should have parked at the top. We couldn't get up it. We had to ask our friend to help us. Poor darling. He and his wife (mostly his wife, really, since she cooked) fed and watered us and then we had to drag him out of his toasty house and into the cold where he shoveled some ice out of our way (I tried, but was generally not useful) and put salt down and we made it up and all was well.

I think that I might actually want to get an SUV or some kind of vehicle that has grippier feet. Ah well. Someday there will be fuel efficient vehicles with grippy feet. And I will be most pleased.

To thank them for the meal we received, I was going to write a thank you note. Now, I think they'll get a thank you note and a bag of salt with a big bow on it.

Maybe if I hadn't eaten so much...

princess parting

I've taken a few days off, as you may have noticed. It wasn't entirely on purpose. My thoughts have been consumed by departures and I've not been feeling very entertaining.

The ThaiPrincess left for Thailand early this morning. She stayed with a friend last night. She's been packing for weeks, but little bits of things, left--power strips and a pair of wooly slippers, began surfacing and being discarded. There are some pillows and blankets and the bag of trash I told her I would take out.

She's really leaving.

There's more recycling but less food on the shelves. We don't leave the light on for her anymore, but I still wait to hear her come in and call Sprocket, "Hey Kid."

I don't hear her lightswitch make the snappy sound and Spring is missing a person to stare at when begging for food. She won't answer the phone now so I won't hear people confess, "I thought it was you!"

It's a strange and sad transition. If she were moving across town it wouldn't feel so bad. But she's going to Thailand. That's far. But it is exotic.

I'm glad that it's exotic. And she wants me to visit. So I now have a friend in an exotic land who wants me to come and see her! There are worse things in this world.

Still, I miss her already. And there are certainly better things than that.

hmm. it's time for snow tires, perhaps.

Yes, now that it's snowed quite a few times and I've complained about it quite a few times, I've determined that it's time to actually get the snow tires stuck onto the car. They were given to me by a woman I work with. She sold her tiny car, the same kind of tiny car that I have, and kept the snow tires. So then she gave them to me. In October.

I don't like taking the car to the garage. I don't like the way I feel like I don't know what I'm talking about even if I do. Even though I've been to these folks before and like them quite a lot, I still hate explaining, "Um, I have some snow tires that need to be put on the car and they're on steel...um..." Rims, says the guy on the phone. "Yeah," fake, nervous laugh, "and the right front directional that you guys fixed for me doesn't work, so I was hoping you could take a look at that." Yeah. Okay. See you at ten o'clock tomorrow.

So at twenty past ten I roll into the garage and the guy behind the counter looks like a deer in the headlights. I think he thought I was expecting him to have everything done in negative five seconds. But I really didn't want that. I just wanted him to stop looking at me as if I were an alien. Sometimes that's fun, but not today. No sir.

Maybe tomorrow.

a new dog for dotty?

A dog showed up in our backyard. That the first time it's happened in four years. So it was quite an event, as you might imagine.

BrilliantEditor was out in the snow hanging on to the big yellow galoot and trying to wrangle him away from the evil twins of doom. He managed. The dog was named Splash. We called the number on the tag and the address was about two miles from here. We were really worried.

No one answered. We hoped they were out looking for him. We thought it more likely that they were at work and we'd have four more hours with the stink bomb.

He was a pleasant enough creature, although he made two gouges in the floor. We've lived through it and now that it's been harmed, we can probably live free and easy when moving furniture. Or free-er and easier.

I decided to shove Splash in the kitchen where he very good naturedly ate three rawhide toys that Spring and Sprocket had mostly abandoned but still gnawed on from time to time. I reverse looked up the phone number and by using my super spy skills, found the guy because he's a good parent and sponsors a swim team or something.

I called his office, he came to pick up the dog, and all was well. He said, "By the way, how did you get my office number?" I felt a bit sheepish, prying into his life that way.

I said, "I found it on the internet--your daughter swims, I think and you're on a list of parents and swimmers, so I assumed it was you. Your work number was there. And by the way, your home phone number is the same as the animal rescue number in Larsen County, California. I thought that was kind of funny."

He also thought it was funny and explained that his dog might be back because he wants to play with the dogs. I said it was fine with me, now that I know he's not lost.

And there we go.

Then the electrician came. So you can imagine it was a busy day for the evil twins of doom.

she cut my arm off!

I sometimes talk and say the things I believe my dogs would say. Mostly I say things like this: food would be good; now; ready?; feed me; I'm starving; pet me; I love you pet me; I love you feed me; let's go. That's most of it. Then I toss in some insane comments and BrilliantEditor does his share of the insane comments, too.

Tonight I was talking to Sprocket and she told me that she didn't want me to clip her nails. She said, and I quote, "Don't cut my arms off. I hate it when you cut my arms off. I scream. It's bad. Don't do it."

So I trimmed her nails and for the first time in her life, I trimmed one too short.

I felt really bad. I still do. I would like to make it all better.

I can temper my guilt with this information, however. She told BrilliantEditor that I cut her arm off. What a little punk. I hate that.

but, baby, it's cold outside

I am a whiner. I whine when it's cold outside.

I've said it. Now we'll go to the real issue: It is incredibly cold out there. You know how frost gets on the windows and little kids write naughty words in it with their little fingernails? Yes, I've seen that phenomenon in real life.

In my house, however, there's frost up most of the window and at the bottom is a solid ski slope of ice from where any moisture drips down. It is so damn cold that the condensation freezes to the window and creates "frost" that is thick and clear and much too much to draw pictures or write little words in.

Do you know those people who say, "Hot enough for ya?" I know those people. They have even been me (ironically, yes, but still, I perpetuated the craziness), but those people are going to be my dearest friends in the summer. I'm going to say, "Yuh, just about."

Those very same people would say, "Cold enough for ya?" but they can't because their lips are frozen together.

Communicating is difficult. Everyone talks into a scarf so their voices are muffled. The wind carries away their words. No one wants to look at anyone else since there's the risk of the wind actually hitting your face and freezing it. I went into a store to buy my dogs some treats. I walked in, found the treats, and was ready to go in under a minute. Signing my credit card slip was nearly impossible as my frozen fingers couldn't hold the pen.

In this weather, old ladies walk in from the cold and say, "Holy shit." Little old ladies! The blue haired, tea party giving, garden tending, woolen hat wearing ladies come in the door and say, "Holy shit it's cold."

What's the temperature? Right now it's -3 F. To convert that to centigrade you subtract 32 (more accurately, add negative 32), divide by 1.8 (or multiply by five ninths if you prefer) and once you write down the answer it says x=pretty fucking cold.

Oh yes. I, too, will be one of those little old ladies (just old, most likely no tea parties or blue hair, but I do like wool hats [the felted kind are so nice] and gardening) who walks in the door and uses naughty language.

But if you want to get warm, I've got news for you. Learn to talk like a sailor--the shock will keep you warm.

And, if you're curious, by my approximate math, it's about -20 C. 253 K. Damn cold.

saving the frogs

The sweater I'm wearing today has pretty much kicked the bucket.

It's too fuzzy (like blurry fuzzy as opposed to warm and fuzzy), the sleeves are just a bit too short, and I've grown to mildly dislike the yarn. Good reason to can it, right?

I have a problem though. I love the clasps on the sweater. These kind of clasps are sometimes called frogs. Like the Chinese-looking clasps that are black knots and loops? Yeah. Frogs. Before the garbage steals my sweater, I'm going to steal the clasps.

There's a picture of what the clasps are like. Lovely things. One thing that reassures me that sewing and its related activities are really for me is that I get so happy when I feel fabric or look at buttons or look at thread or see yarn and if I can touch it, too, well, ooooooo lala.

Mr.Guy was forced to go shopping for buttons with me once. (There was a massive sale, you see, and I wanted to take advantage of it in every city I could. Five cards of buttons for a dollar! Some of them retail for $12! Oh yes. When I picked him up at the airport in the big city, he had to go shopping. He said he didn't mind, but if he had to endure the entire button shopping experience, plus the previous ribbon extravaganza, well, I'll betcha that his eyes might have glazed over even as I talked about how fabulous it is to have really thick natural shell buttons as the thin ones break and they just don't look at nice. See? Eyes glazing as I type.)

He can attest to how happy it makes me to pick out buttons. He assured me that the 747 airplane buttons were a good purchase. He was so right.

BrilliantEditor was also sufficiently impressed, even as I spread out the huge number of buttons I'd purchased and started calculating how much money I'd saved (around $600). Of course, that's assuming that I would have bought them all...but we're not thinking rationally here.

In any case, I'm taking the clasps. I fear I will cause my sweater shame, but I believe it will understand. It will go on in this way, spreading its happiness in some way to all the other sweaters I own.

hee hee! (but that's not nice)

This morning I saw a woman who had toilet paper trailing behind her. I thought it was just stuck to her shoe. And that's silly enough.

I wasn't close enough to say anything. Who knows if I really would? But someone else _was_ close enough.

The toilet paper was stuck to her shoe, but once she pulled that bit off, it was still dangling next to her leg. And once she pulled that off, it was tucked into her pants.

Please believe me when I say that I have compassion for this woman and how she might feel.

Please also believe me when I say that it makes me laugh. How do you do that? It seems like it would have to be a conscious effort. How do you tuck the end of the toilet paper so firmly into your trousers that, when you walk away, you're unrolling the entire roll of paper?

Will it happen to me? Will I turn around to find myself with a paper pet following behind me?

But still, the ground is frozen and covered in snow and it's icy so all entrances are wet. A lot of the pavement is wet from salt melting the ice. How in the hell did she manage to get from wherever she was to wherever I saw her without plucking it off of herself like a piece of lint or thread?

Maybe I don't want to know.

oh! poo!

That's an excited statement. It's meant to typify my family's preoccupation with, well, poo.

BrilliantEditor and I were talking and I was, of course, telling a story about something. That story led to another story which was about my father, Dr.Dad.

Dr.Dad has a thousand and nine fascinating and disgusting stories that he's gathered up over the years. Some of them are gross and funny only in a morbid sort of way. He doesn't really tell those very often.

Then there are the stories that are funny, but in a way that makes the person who is the victim of the joke and the bizarre malady to be tragic.

We can't have that. No way. What we (that's me and my family) tend to look for are the people who have a medical problem that is no less serious than another person's, but something about it makes it absolutely absurd.

Don't believe me? Oh, here's an example.

Dr.Dad had to testify in court when a woman was accused of hurting someone while in a bar fight. The woman said that she was hurt, too, and she was blind in one eye! The other person blinded her! With a knife! She was poked right on the side of her eye with a knife!

Tragic, you say. Morbid, you say. Just you wait and see, I say.

Dr.Dad had examined her that night when she was stabbed in the face. He cleaned it up and said that it would be "tender" (he uses that word whenever something is going to hurt and there's nothing you can do about it). In the end it needed a band aid. But it was near her eye. It's good to be careful.

He followed up with her later and she said she couldn't see out of her right eye. Dr.Dad looked in her eye, shined a light in her eye, and did what I call the "poke test".

Well! Looking in her eye showed that it looked the way it should. Shining a light in her eye made her pupil dilate and her forehead crinkle a little. When he did the "poke test", [he moves his hand from outside of her peripheral vision and moves his hand in front of her eye (if you try it, it gives the impression of having someone slap you in the face. Go on. Try it out.)] she squished her eye shut.

Why did she squish her eye shut? Because it looked like my dad was going to slap her in the face. But how could she know that if she was blind in one eye? Unless, of course, he'd done the poke test on the wrong eye. But he didn't, because he pretended to slap both cheeks. Like Jesus. Turning the other cheek. Oh! And giving sight to the blind.

Remember my father in your prayers tonight, children.

So when he got to court and the attorney asked if she was blind, my father couldn't say no. He said that there was no organic source for her blindness. Maybe it was hysterical blindness, suggested the defense attorney. I imagine that my father shifted in his chair a little and said, "Could be." He probably didn't.

The prosecuting attorney had some fun: Did MissDopey follow up with you for care? "She did." What was the interaction?

"MissDopey told me that she was blind in the eye where she was stabbed. On tests where she verbally responded to my questions, her responses were largely consistent with blindness. Upon performing tests of her involuntary reflexes, however, she responded in a way that was consistent with her having sight.

"I examined her eye for damage to blood vessels, problems with pressure within the globe of her eye, corneal damage and could find nothing wrong."

So Dr.Dad, are you doubting the veracity of MissDopey's assertion that she is blind in one eye?

"I can find no organic source for blindness in MissDopey."

In your experience, is a wound like this likely to cause blindness?

"I have not seen this specific wound before, but in cases like it, no. I have never seen this kind of wound cause blindness."

If MissDopey continues to claim that she is blind in her right eye, how would you treat her?

"I can find no organic source for her blindness. I would not treat her for blindness."

Just to be clear, in your opinion, can you find any medical evidence that MissDopey is, in fact, blind in her right eye?

"I can find no evidence of blindness."

Thank you, Dr.Dad.

Dr.Dad told me that he got really tired of saying the same thing over and over. He wanted to just say that this skanky bitch who got stabbed in a bar room brawl was a liar and that both people should get out of the courtroom and do something productive.

It still makes me laugh. I can imagine her with bleached blond hair and a soft belly like mine, but hanging out of her too-tight t-shirt printed with a cigarette brand printed on it (I don't look like that part). She'd be smoking if it were allowed in court.

The story I told BrilliantEditor today, however, was one that is only tangentially medical. But it does have a connection to the poo! title.

Dr.Dad and I were walking through a big supermarket when a woman walked by. We heard someone fart, which always make us both laugh or get very embarrassed or both. Of course, this is a story about my family, so we'll get detailed now. It was extra stinky. Like if we'd been in the produce section the African violets would have wilted stinky.

Dr.Dad and I skedaddled out of there. As we walked away he said, "I bet that lady's got problems with constipation. Smells like she just vaporizes it all."

Oh! Poo! The stories that bring families together.

Ewwwwww.

well, how do you like that?

My dears, my darlings! Please welcome me to the big world! Today I received comments on my blog. Not a very good entry, really. And it only said things like "test" and "Hi there" and "really nice web page".

I think we all know that, although my writing is brrrrrrilliant, the site itself is, uh, not so hot.

Nevertheless! Upon questioning, "Should I write to these people?" BrilliantEditor asked some questions that led to some questioning which further led to the conclusion that no one in particular had written these things and they were just spam (that's spiced ham, if you ever wondered).

I, prepare to applaud, deleted their comments, blocked their IP address, and closed my commenting for a night or two. I feel like a punk! And I can finally say to someone, Hey! Welcome to my punkass world! Bastards.

my new support

BrilliantEditor and I bought a loveseat. A wee sofa. I suppose.

I'm so proud. It's beautiful. Really really beautiful. So beautiful that I don't really want the dogs on it. There's a sheet on it now. I think I'll make some covers for the pillows. But oh my goodness it's just lovely.

happy new and improved year

What's new besides the year? Well, I found out that my feet swell when I sit in an outdoor hot tub for forty minutes when it's threatening to snow. I also found out that it's pretty fun to sit that way. That's new.

We bought a couch today. That's new. And exciting. I'll take a photograph tomorrow so you can see the glorious new addition to the living room. It's new and it's lovely. New.

I put chair covers on our "dining room" chairs. They're fifties chairs with red enamel seat and back but chrome-ish legs. Now they're red fabric. Mmmmm. Red is gooood. Red like candy red and has semi-subtle embroidery on the bottom. They need ironing. That's not new. But the cover are new. Oh yes.

Spring's birthday was on the moment of New Year's Eve and it extends throughout the month. Her vet records say DOB: 1/0/98. That's not new but it is wacky. But she's six now. That's new. And she still hates having her toenails clipped.

More not new things? There are lots. And that's good. I wouldn't want to get completely turned upside down at the beginning of the new year. Unless it was a good party.

Happy New Year. It's new.