"We Help Daddy Win a Lawsuit Against Big Tobacco"

See, here's the thing, folks. I only have so much free time in a day. I use that time either writing on my blog or reading yours. And when I have many writer-crazy friends that means I spend two hours reading their stuff instead of writing my own. You can't have it both ways, people. So quit writing about your families and other crap you love. Then we'll be getting somewhere here.

I just finished reading Peawhistle her bedtime story. She chose "We Help Daddy," one of the classic Golden Books I had as a child and passed along to her. I am always struck by the shear number of chores these people (Daddy, Benjy, and little Sue) are able to accomplish, particularly given the fact that two of the three contributors are apparently under the age of five and by definition a liability rather than an asset. Any other man in "Daddy's" situation would take upwards of 56 hours to accomplish what this fellow does in just one day. He amazes me. And on top of that, "Daddy" also smokes like a chimney. He's like the Energizer Bunny, but with emphysema.

The book also shows "Mommy" baking cookies in the kitchen--I'm assuming all day long, because really, that's why I don't bother with them. Peawhistle pointed and said, "Look! That Mommy's making cookies! Just like BStephanie!" You'll notice she did not bother to assume I would ever do the same, or was even capable of such. At least her expectations aren't high.

Halfway through their day, the kids help Daddy bathe Zip, their dog, who according to legend hates baths. Zip reminds me of Peanut, who has despised baths since the day he was born. And I don't mean that he fusses or cries a little. He FREAKS THE HELL OUT. He begins to tremble the second you even start to clean the bathtub. You'd think I were pouring acid on him or something (I'm not). This is why I strongly suspect he's a witch.

Today it snowed again. Snow twice in the course of 30 days?? Crazy talk you say! Indeed. I was especially pleased though, that the snow didn't confuse our refuse collection fellows today as it did last week when the dusting of snow on our white trash bags camouflaged them so effectively that ours were the only trashbags left on our entire street after the fellows had come and gone. Nevermind that our trashbags were sitting right there on the sidewalk and thus created unnatural two-foot-high lumps on said sidewalk. Why no, we haven't installed sidewalks two feet higher than everyone else's, although we are trying to discourage visitors! (TAKE THE HINT ALREADY.) But white=snow, so no trash collection for you, jerks!

One last thought. No, two. First I have to click my tongue at Bob Carol on principle. No wonder he wound up in London running a halfway house. And second, it's also no wonder Congress has no trouble handing out cash left and right to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, Inc. since it's not their money they're giving away. PAY YOUR TAXES YOU SPENDTHRIFT HOSERS. We have little enough respect for you as it is without being forced to also give you a completely free ride for the rest of your worthless term in office. There's a place specially reserved for the worst of the worst of society like you, you leeches! It's called Annapolis! NO GPS FOR YOU!!

I Should Have Had a Model in a Sequined Dress

The results from the Post-it Note NieNie Free Book Prize Drawing are in and there are TWO winners! Yes, two winners! Why? Because I'm saintly. Also, because I decided that Heidi deserved a book no matter what, because within two hours of my quiz posting she had coughed up all of the answers, every whit correct on each and every one. She made me happy. It was also proved to me that the Fates wanted her to have one because I put her name in the drawing for laughs anyway and hers was the first name I drew out. So congratulations to Heidi! As soon as I get the books in the mail yours will be out the door to you.

And the second winner in the drawing was....Stephanie! Congratulations, Stephanie! She answered everything more or less correctly and got it in within the deadline I gave to her since my original deadline was before she even came home from vacation. So she got another day to get them in. Good job to her and to everyone who took the time to take the quiz and trip down memory lane with me in hopes of free prizes.

And now, for your edification, here are the answers:

1) Who or what do I consider my arch nemesis? Annapolis. Or more accurately, "the blasted city of Annapolis" as Stephanie, one of our winners you recall, answered.

2) Why is my kitchen linolium famous? There's a photo of it up on Cake Wrecks with my poopy Rudolph cake on top of it.

3) Who did Mark Austin tour with when I saw him in concert? Janis Ian. Remember, that's just one of the time when I got lost in Annapolis. You see how it all links together with me?

4) Say you chuck your model of the USS Constitution down two flights of stairs. Who could you get to fix that for you? Jerome Morris. Yes, that Mainer artist extraordinaire who indeed read my blog post about him and never spoke another word to me. I don't think he was nearly as amused as I was. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the theme of my blog is "It's funny when it's not you." On a related note, if you or your wealthy parents would like to pester Mr. Morris during a lovely and relaxing vacation to the coast of Maine, we rent our beautiful family cottage (it sleeps 6! Or 7 1/2 if you like couches!) out for the summer. Email me. We'll talk prices.

5) What is Michael Phelps's real name? Bob Carol. Oh, like he wouldn't be just as good at swimming with a name like that? Please.

6) What do I absolutely NOT OWN A COLLECTION OF? Barbie dolls. A non-collection that has grown since I last wrote about it, by the way.

7) Name one professional organization that is stalking me. DNC, NSA, FBI, Smithsonian . I'd tell them to give it up, but I fear I'm just too addictive.

8) Why is my dad so good at hiding Easter eggs? He is a former USAF intelligence officer trained in the art of being masterly sneaky. Or as Heidi, our first winner, put it, "Because he was a career USAF officer with Jason Bourne-like skills at hiding documents from the KGB-impersonating counterintelligence guys." Right on, Heidi.

9) They're foreign and ridiculously, unintentionally funny. Who are they? Celtic Thunder/Celtic Man. To quote Gwennifer, "I didn't realize it was possible to feel physically assaulted by a singing group, but I now know the feeling." So do the rest of us. So do the rest of us.

10) Who has mastered the art of the Evil Eye to the point of making me poop my pants? The ever-endearing, overly self-confident, and always entertaining Dr. Combat. Did I mention healthgrades.com tells you where your doctors work? And that it told me Dr. Combat is alive and still in the Army torturing others at yet another Army hospital? It's nice to know he hasn't been stripped of his natural environment.

Many thanks again to everyone who participated. I wish I was rich enough to give books to everyone who submitted answers because you all deserve it. For everyone but Heidi and Stephanie, go buy the book! If you buy the digital copy all proceeds go to the NieNie Fund; the hardcopy version gives all proceeds minus $8 printing costs. Hurry! Buy it! Be famous by association! And do something nice for a nice couple with four nice kids who suffered unmeasurable tragedy. Go. Buy. Help. And feel good about yourselves afterward.

The Very Bowels of Hell: Take Two

I was stuck behind an old people shuttle bus today. On the back it said "Dept. of Aging." We have a Department of Aging? Since when? And why does my Coke taste like eggnog? It's disturbing.

Anyway. Have I ever mentioned that I hate Annapolis? I have? Have I ever told you exactly how much I hate Annapolis? I have? Have I told you lately? No? Then allow me to update you: I FRICKING HATE ANNAPOLIS AND THE WHOLE CITY CAN GO TO HELL. OH WAIT, IT ALREADY IS HELL. NEVERMIND. Consider yourselves appropriately caught up.

Several months ago a friend mentioned some Christmasy show for kids that some kid-based theatrical company puts on every year and it's so cute, yada yada yada. I figured Peawhistle would get a kick out of it, plus it included breakfast, so I signed us up. I noted well at the time that it was in Annapolis--and mind you, not the good part of Annapolis, the part you can actually escape from, but the really bad part that won't let you out. The heart of the evil if you will. I assumed that over the course of three months I could come up with some scheme that would allow me to avoid getting myself stuck in there alone. I tried everything, which is to say I emailed another woman who was going and tried to con her into carpooling, but she would have none of it. Foiled! So I printed off as many directions and maps as I possibly could before trekking into our virtual perpetual graves. I bid a loving final farewell to the Husband and Peanut; PW and I made our way out the door to our demise.

As soon as I approached The Evil's epicenter, I could sense something was wrong. My map showed two roundabouts (a traffic device with which the state of Maryland has a special love affair if you recall) near and around the capitol building--one of which would lead me to my destination, and the other to my doom. It's like I was living a storybook maze. I missed the turnoff to the roundabout that I actually wanted (why? Because Annapolis doesn't believe in properly marking its streets, remember?) and headed for the Hateful Roundabout instead. I began to swear profusely and did not cease doing so for the better part of an hour. We circled the capitol hoping to come upon the exit we needed, never once seeing it. We went up streets and down streets, not having any clue which led where. We got back on the roundabout (SAME DANG ROUNDABOUT MIND YOU) only to discover that some of the streets had changed, while others had not. I came to realize that there were not two roundabouts as promised by Mapquest, but only one mystical and possessed roundabout that constantly shifted depending upon the city's cursed whims.

The street I wanted, which I could see clearly from Lucifer's Roundabout, I could not access as it only led into the roundabout but not from it. I kept trying to drive onto various streets near to it, hoping to find a sidestreet (all of them one way streets) that would allow me to head in its direction, only to find that upon finally finding one that led the correct way it led me no where near it. I finally drove around long enough that I found my sidestreet, parked nearly right next to the Roundabout From Hell, and ran as fast as I could while dragging a four-year-old the entire length of this road to get to this breakfast fiasco. And we made it 15 minutes before they stopped serving breakfast (it having started 45 minutes before) and before they started their idiotic program, what with the kicking and the dancing and the gyrating and the Christmas Bear (?) and Christmas elves and Christmas Rat (?) and whatever.

Tangent Time. I fell asleep watching TV the other night only to waken at 4am to a standup comic talking about how much white people suck at dancing. I started gaining consciousness right around the time he said it's not so much that white people can't dance, it's just that they confuse various dancing moves and put them all together. He then proceeded with an imitation of White People Dancing (I'm assuming anyway; my eyes were still closed). Then he said, "There is one song that no white person can resist dancing to. They hear it and they immediately get up and begin dancing to it; they just can't help it." In my half-awake state I said, "YMCA." And then he said, "YMCA." (Speaking of the Village People, when the Husband was in the Navy lo these many years ago, he had a ship's captain who insisted on departing for every six-month deployment to the tune of the Village People's "In the Navy." That is, until someone told him what it was actually about. He stopped requesting it after that.) Indeed, we do love our "YMCA." Probably because you have to be a total moron to screw it up. [Fun fact: the Village People never spelled YMCA with their arms in their video. Musta been some white kid who couldn't dance who did it.] For the record, I can resist dancing to any song you care to play. Any song at all. Try it and watch me sit with my arms folded as I stare at you.

Back to our story. They had open dance time halfway through the show in which the kids could come down to the performace floor and get down and boogie with it. They played several Christmas songs. Finally they ran out of those and pulled out the non-Christmas songs. Guess which song they played first? And guess which song every fricking person in the place went wild over? And guess which song PW and I both managed to resist dancing to? And guess which song the only black guy in the entire room walked out on?

So the Christmas Show nightmare finally ended and they unchained the doors, unbarred the windows, and allowed us to finally leave. Freedom never tasted so sweet. Until I remembered we still had to get out of the city. We got in the car and headed very quietly (I think PW could instictually sense the need for silence. Especially after I threatened her if she made a sound) towards the Roundabout of Death, so as to sneak up on it and not alarm it as to our approach. We proceeded cautiously, but purposefully, through and out the other side where it told us we should go (remember, following the signs it gives you to follow are its first trick against you). But then we pulled a fast one on it and took a left shortly thereafter leading us straight to the highway! Mind you, the fact that you must turn down this street to escape is never once advertised anywhere in the city. If you were to believe its signs, you would have proceeded down the first street and immediately found yourself in The Parking Lot of Despair. You remember The Parking Lot of Despair, don't you? Of course you do.

As we were leaving with the city of horror well in our rearview mirror, a fire engine roared past us and into the heart of the city. Poor sucker, I thought. Someone finally got desperate and crashed their car just to escape. May he find himself without the confines of the Ninth Circle of Hell very soon.

Just try and resist it.

A Word About Baltimore

As opposed to its evil twin, Baltimore is a pretty good city as far as large metropolitan cities go. While not as easily navigated as someplace like SLC, it's easier than even Denver, and especially all Nine Circles of Hell found in Annapolis. Parts of Baltimore scare me, as well they should. But by and large, it's not such a bad place. One now well-known establishment in Baltimore is Charm City Cakes, the cake making/decorating business featured on the Food Network's reality program "Ace of Cakes." I like Ace of Cakes for one specific reason: it makes me think I could do that. You watch some of these cake decorating shows and wonder how the crap they manage to pull it off; and that's even with them showing you how they pull it off, too. But with Ace of Cakes, a part of me honestly believes I could do what they do on that show. As we may recall, I am not a master of cake decorating. In addition, the cakes that come out of that shop don't look horrible--they actually look really good. But what they do somehow makes me think I can do it, too, given time, patience, and possibly hallucinogens.

As you know (and if you care) the musical "Hairspray" is set in Baltimore. Ace of Cakes was asked to create a cake for the Baltimore premiere of "Hairspray." Duff Goldman, who owns Charm City Cakes and is a huge fan of "Hairspray," commented during the TV show that "'Hairspray put Baltimore on the map." He was very excited about it. Perhaps it was his level of excitement that prevented him from realizing what he was saying. Fortunately, that is not going to stop me from making fun of him for it.

To "put [a location] on the map" suggests that the location in question had not been on the map previously, figuratively speaking of course. We can accurately state, for example, that Coors Beer put Golden, Colorado on the map. Golden had been something of a large city in its day a century ago as Colorado Territory's capital. However, it gradually faded into obscurity until Coors beer commercials stated that's where their beer was brewed. It wasn't until Coors told the country about Golden that anyone knew of its existence. Thus, Coors did indeed "put Golden on the map."

Now let us look at Baltimore. If Wikipedia is to be trusted (although I refuse to believe "Baltimore was founded by crack addicts"), Baltimore is not only one of the oldest and largest cities and seaports in the United States, but is also the 20th largest metropolitan area in the country, larger than the nation's capital region. With a rich heritage and cultural center, it is a hotbed for tourism, particularly the lovely Inner Harbor region of the city. It is the largest city in the state of Maryland, far larger than its capital, Annapolis (mostly due to the previously mentioned evil contained therein). Baltimore is also home to the vast complex of Johns Hopkins institutions, Johns Hopkins Hospital being named the best hospital in the country for years, and also home to the National Aquarium, one of the largest in the world. Hairspray was set in Baltimore because Baltimore is a well-known city, not the other way around. "Hairspray" did not "put Baltimore on the map."

Stick to cakes, Duff; leave the commentary to the rest of us.

Your Christmas Wish: A Long-Winded Medical Account, Right?

Because you care (and by "you" I mean me), I have de Quervain's Tenosynovitis, aka Something I Can't Pronounce and Assumed Was a Made-up Name But Hurts Like Heck. This is a condition where the tendons leading from your thumb to your wrist become damaged, swollen, and painful. This syndrome, sometimes called New Mother's Wrist, they believe is caused by the unusual position in which you are forced to stretch tendons previously unstretched in order to do things like pick up a baby under his armpits. Apparently the scooping motion combined with forcing the thumbs outward causes the problem.

I had this in my right wrist for several months after Peawhistle was born. My doctor at the Army Hospital (we'll call him Dr. Combat; few things amuse me more in this world than seeing my physician eternally dressed in BDUs and combat boots) injected the tendon with a cortisteroid mixture and all was well without any further pain. That is, until Peanut was born. For nearly four months I have had the same thing in now both wrists, the left being the worse culprit this time around.

I have a new doctor through Johns Hopkins. She's a lovely individual who is kind, patient, humble and welcomes criticism. In the negative column, I don't think she typically knows what she's doing. However, I think she knows this, and thus when something comes up that is unfamiliar to her she is more than willing to admit it and if necessary send you off in the direction of any number of specialists who hopefully have a better understanding than she. This is why I like her. She's basically me, but with the legitimacy of a doctor and access to prescription and referral forms aplenty. Thus, I'll call her Dr. Referral. Going in to her about the recurrance of the wrist pain I had an inkling that she would be at a loss, particularly with how to treat it, so I brought along Dr. Combat's medical notes he made at the time. As I started to describe my symptoms to her and the confusion began to spread across her face, I whipped out Dr. Combat's notes and she was simply delighted. She had to look it up in her online medical dictionary (always the willing learner, that one), noted the remaining treatment (injection), declared she couldn't do it and wrote me a referral for an orthopedic hand specialist. She attempted the test for deQuervain's, called Finkelstein's Test (pictured below), which is supposed to result in consideral pain, confirming the diagnosis. "Does that hurt?" "No." She did not administer it correctly. Nevertheless, she sent me to the specialist with her blessing.

I came home and did some research of my own, given that Dr. Combat never told me what the condition was even called (I think he felt such communication was unnecessary and pointless). He had written it in the notes, but I couldn't even read it until Dr. Referral looked it up with me. I realize that it is a cliche that doctors' handwriting is unreadable, but I seriously contemplated sending my medical record to NSA, convinced they would immediately offer Dr. Combat a job designing the country's newest unbreakable code. But back to my point, I found Finkelstein's Test and decided to administer it myself. My result was something like this: "AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! SON OF A .... AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" I administered the test correctly.

The next day I went to the specialist and his nurse-practicioner, who both poked and prodded me individually and then together. First, the nurse (aka Nurse Excruciating) took notes, did the test, ("AHHHHHH!!"), and then called in the doctor (aka Dr. Pain). He did his own exam, intentionally inflicting pain and then asking if it hurt. Fortunately he asked before doing the Test again: "You've already done the test, yes?" "Yes. And we're not going to do it anymore." "Fair enough." I elected to have both wrists injected in the same visit as I am not one for making unneccessary trips. I didn't understand at the time why they then gave each other "a look." I certainly understood afterwards.

To give you a better understanding of my willingness to have both done, let me explain how Dr. Combat treated me and my conditon. First, the diagnosis went like this:
Manipulating my hand as little as possible, he asks "Does this hurt?"
"Depends. Are you even touching me?"
(exasperated sigh, which his conversations were well peppered with when it came to me) "Fine. You do it."
"OK, it hurts when I do THIS."
*scribble, scribble*
He leaves to go get the medications for the injection. I wait 10 minutes while he chats up every person in the hallway (the man talked more than a 13-year-old girl), strongly tempting me to get up and yell out the door, "Hey Oprah, could you cut the interview short? I'm in pain here!" until I recall that he could very well inflict great pain upon me "accidentally" so I keep my trap shut and patiently wait for him to make his jr. high locker rounds.
He finally returns having got the talking all out of his system enough to continue his habit of exchanging as few words with me as humanly possible. He holds my wrist in a very comfortable position, gently and slowly injects the cortisteroid, massages and works it into the tendon, and then checks on my pain level. The pain has disappeared utterly and completely. He laboriously scribbles some more, hands me my chart, and shoves me out the door with his fondest fairwell. Overall, a satisfying and pain-free experience.

Nurse Excruciating and Doctor Pain do things differently. After deciding that it would be better to send me into complete shock, they choose to do both injections at the exact same moment. Forcing my wrists and thumbs into the most painful position available to them, they jab each tendon with the needle and dispense the medication as quickly as possible. They seem perfectly oblivious to the neverending trauma they are inflicting. To ebb the now-steady flow of blood from both injection sites, they apply large bandages to each wrist, which, to the unknowing observer, now strongly resemble a botched suicide attempt on my part. I am instructed to obtain specialized braces for each wrist, which incidentally my insurance does not cover through their office, forcing me to travel into my arch nemisis, Annapolis, to obtain them. I made it out by the very skin of my teeth, particularly given that I cannot move my wrists or thumbs in the new braces. Apparently, those are important in operating a vehicle, reducing my ability to steer to that of your average, large household pet. I am to go back to the specialist in a few weeks so I can tell them that their hack job didn't do the trick, leaving surgery as the final available option. They strike me as the sort who would do it without anesthetics, too, possibly on a dare.

It was not until this week that I became fully appreciative of the level of competence displayed by Dr. Combat, the medical one-stop-shop. Not only did he immediately know what was wrong with me, including that horrendous name for it, but also how to treat it, how to administer it himself, and with as little pain as possible. He did the work of three people, only better. Incredible.

Stay tuned later for the Complete Adventures of Dr. Combat, where not a single encounter ever resulted in anything less than complete amusement and entertainment on my part (on his part: an ulcer)!

The Very Bowels of Hell (pictured below)

My dad loves trivia. Each time you see him he'll have a new trivia question for you. His favorite as of late is "What is the only state capital without an airport?" The answer is Annapolis of course. Why they don't have one is even more apparent: Annapolis is in the Bermuda Triangle. Some will argue that that's not true, given the established coordinates of the Triangle. To those people I say, "Shut up. I'll explain." If you are within 10 miles of the MD capital region, you will inevitably find yourself at its core, staring at the capitol building. As they say, all roads lead to Annapolis. Unfortunately, those roads are all veritable one-way streets because once within the capital's grasp you cannot go back. If you are foolish enough to follow the scarce signage that indicate the direction of one or more highways nearby, you will instead end your journey in a parking lot. After noting your folly and choosing to return and take the opposite direction, only to again end up in the same parking lot, you finally begin to realize just how sinister this city is. You, like I, come to the conclusion that the only reason Annapolis has a population at all is because these are the people who have never been able to find a way out of the city, gave up, and bought property there instead.

Mark Austin (you remember Mark) was touring with Janis Ian a few years back. He and his lovely wife Whitney (seen together with Janis in the photo on the right) kindly invited me to a gig in Annapolis since I'm a fan (of his, not Annapolis) and I live within a reasonable distance of the locale. A quick learner, I refused to drive home alone after the show and instead waited for the Austins to finish and pack up. If the city was to capture me in its Death Star-like tractor beam, I wasn't going down alone. After circling that cursed capitol (it's a lovely building by the way--the oldest in the country and likely the source of all this evil) and ending up in the Parking Lot of Despair, Mark parked, walked back to my car and said, "OK, you saw those signs for the highway too, didn't you?" I gave him a knowing look--one that assured him that this was only the beginning and that he shouldn't plan on seeing his family again anytime soon. After much prayer and fasting on all our parts, we managed to get out, much to the chagrin of the city. I have not been back.

For those of you wishing to visit historic Annapolis, but also wish to leave it at some point, I give you this advice: pay no attention to signs promising a highway exit in the near future. These signs are a trap, designed to get you to the Parking Lot, which is really the entrance to the city's digestive tract. I suggest you instead pull into traffic, close your eyes, and let the car wander as it may. Within at least two hours you will be free, either by backroad exit or by virtue of an ambulance. Either way, you've won.