Category Archives: humor

Thoughts on Editing

etc., funny things, humor, language, writing, ,

When it comes to language, I used to be a prescriptivist, telling others how language ought to be used. Now I am a descriptivist, recording how language is used in practice.

Oh, I haven’t entirely given up my mission to get people to use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I still feel that writing “correctly” can be important to the meaning of whatever it is you’re writing about. And I still cringe when someone (usually my husband) says “foilage” instead of “foliage” or “nucular” instead of “nuclear.” But that’s speech, which is very different than writing.

Of course, an editor can’t really edit spoken English aside from pronunciation. Well, there are malapropisms and misplaced modifiers.

Malapropisms occur when a speaker substitutes an incorrect word for a correct one. One headline that makes the rounds on Facebook is about an “amphibious” pitcher, when “ambidextrous” is meant.

Misplaced modifiers are descriptive phrases in the wrong place in a sentence. The classic misplaced modifier is Groucho Marx’s “Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. What it was doing in my pajamas I’ll never know.” (A misplaced modifier is often confused with a dangling modifier, which happens when an introductory phrase modifies the wrong subject in a sentence: “Painting for three hours, the portrait was finally finished.” Who is painting for three hours? We don’t know, but it certainly wasn’t the portrait. I once worked with a man who described any kind of grammatical mistake, even a subject-verb agreement error, as a dangling modifier. But I digress.)

One of the places I often encounter “faulty” grammar, spelling, and punctuation is on social media. I have to think twice before I share memes with errors in them because I’m afraid someone will think that I don’t know the difference. (I know Lizzie Borden’s name isn’t spelled “Bordon,” but I couldn’t resist the joke: “If you get any messages from my parents, don’t answer them. They’ve been hacked.” But I digress again.)

Speaking of memes, I once saw one that said one shouldn’t look down on someone who mispronounces less-familiar words. It means they learned them from seeing them in print rather than hearing them. One of my dear friends treated the word “sarcophagus” that way and came to me to learn the proper pronunciation. I was happy to oblige. (I’ve also heard of the phenomenon going the other way. Another guy I knew had only ever heard the name Sigmund Freud spoken. He wrote it down as “Froid,” a fair guess based on the sound, but outrageously inaccurate nonetheless. But I digress yet again.)

When it comes to language I do like, however, I love new additions to English. “Portmanteau” words are particularly fun. They’re made up of two words or parts of words smashed together to mean something new. One that everyone knows (but don’t realize is a portmanteau) is “smog,” which comes from “smoke” and “fog.” (I say I like them, but not the ugly portmanteau words that crop up, especially during the holidays. Nothing is simply a sale. It’s always an “aganza,” “palooza,” “bration,” or “thon.” The first million times someone did that, it may have been clever, but the shine has long worn off. But I digress some more.)

Anyway, back to editing. I hereby apologize to everyone whose infinitives I unsplit and whose prepositions I moved away from the end of sentences. I’m really sorry. My bad. Think of me as a recovering prescriptivist. Maybe not fully recovered yet, but I try.

The Whisker Jar

cats, etc., family, funny things, humor, pets,

Cat whiskers are wonderful things. They’re early warning sensory apparatus that let cats know what’s close by. They sense vibrations that indicate changes in air currents, revealing the size, shape, location, and motion of objects or creatures in the cat’s immediate environment. Other sensory organs at the base of the whiskers keep the cat aware of where its body is in space and what’s around it. They supplement the cat’s eyesight. They help keep small particles away from their eyes as well. And their length corresponds to the cat’s shoulders, indicating the width of spaces that cats can get through.

But we know what’s really important. Cat whiskers are adorable. (So are cat eyebrows. Not as prominent as the whiskers by the nose, the eyebrow hairs are wispier. Their function is probably to help protect the eyes but also to give the cat a variety of darling facial expressions. But I digress. I was talking about whiskers.)

Our cat Toby has brittle whiskers. Just when the white appendages start getting long and magnificent like a respectable cat’s, they simply break off, leaving little inch-long stumps. They do grow back, but for a while, he looks like a pincushion instead of a mighty hunter. I guess Toby is just a little less than respectable. (It wouldn’t surprise me. The little dickens.)

We have had cats with properly impressive whiskers. Shaker, a tuxedo cat, accessorized with thick, long vibrissae (to be correct and pedantic). She was very proud of them and clearly thought they were one of her finest assets. They didn’t break off the way Toby’s do, but every now and then, she’d shed one, leaving a fine, thick, easy-to-spot whisker lying on the carpet. Ordinarily, we’d pick up the whisker and store it in a little ceramic pot we called the Whisker Jar. (No, I don’t know quite why we did this. We didn’t do anything with them, like voodoo spells. They just seemed too magnificent to dispose of, and we wanted to see how many we could accumulate. But I digress again.)

Once, however, we decided to have a little fun with one of the whiskers she had shed. We took one of them from the whisker jar and placed it on her head. It stood straight up, protruding from her sleek, black head like an alien antenna. Inspired, we started making boop-boop noises.

Shaker was deeply offended. She was a cat with a great sense of dignity. (Except when she rolled over and showed her fluffy white belly, inviting a belly rub. Then she looked like a chubby black-and-white kitten, which I suppose she used to be. (We got her as a full-grown cat. But I digress some more.)

Anyway, Shaker clearly objected to having her aplomb assaulted in this fashion. She sensed that we were making fun of her (we were) and she expressed her displeasure—and not by leaving an unpleasant deposit somewhere for us to find unexpectedly when we were barefoot. Instead, she used the power of her remaining whiskers. They turned down in a disapproving manner, rendering her face a veritable mask of scorn.

Then we laughed uproariously, compounding the offense. Shaker retreated in high dudgeon, shaking her head indignantly and dislodging the whisker as she went.

We picked it up and put it back in the Whisker Jar. You never know when you might need another belly laugh.

Let Your Freak Flag Fly

etc., fashion, humor, , , ,

To those of us who were hippies back in the 60s and 70s (and are now in our 60s and 70s), letting your freak flag fly meant something special. If I had to define it in two words, it meant Weird Pride. The straight world viewed us as weirdos, and, rather than being insulted, we embraced the title.

A lot of the controversy had to do with hair—specifically, long hair on men. I know it’s hard to believe now, in a time when anyone can do anything with their hair and not have anyone bat an eye, but back then it was a form of rebellion and a cause for discrimination. (There was a time when long hair was considered a job-killer. Beards too. Now about the only job-killer appearance I can think of is face tattoos. But I digress.)

It’s hard to let your freak flag fly anymore. There don’t seem to be any more freak flags. Not even hairstyles. Mohawks are passé. Shaved and partially shaved heads are accepted, even for women. Grandmothers are dying their hair green, pink, and blue—and not the kind of blue that used to be called a blue rinse. (Though many old ladies called it a blue wrench. I’m not sure why. But I digress again.)

It seems like the only way left to have a freak flag is based on your clothing. Even then it’s hard to do. I’m not talking about tie-dye, either. That can be worn by anyone, not just Deadheads. Mismatched, colorful socks won’t do it, and (unless you move in Martha Stewart’s orbit (which I don’t, needless to say) neither will wearing plaids with polka dots. (If you’re wearing a suit, the mismatched striped socks thing might work, but anything unusual worn with a suit would count as a freak flag (except an AR-15 pin, and maybe not even that in some surprising circles). Business suits are still an indicator of a non-freak. But I digress some more.)

Even non-clothing freak flags are getting more permissible. Psychedelic music is now on the oldies stations. Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In hasn’t worn well, even though you can find it on a streaming channel. Marijuana is legal in many states (does anyone still say weed, pot, Mary Jane, blunts, roaches, etc.?) and used for relief from physical pain and illnesses. Psychedelic and party drugs are being used for psychiatric illnesses.

Protest songs don’t even exist anymore, though they’re sorely needed, if you ask me. Vulgar and obscene t-shirt sayings barely rate a blink. There are places to go if you’re a nudist, gay, or kinky that don’t get raided. Bare feet are about the only things that can get you tossed out of restaurants.

There are no freak cars anymore either. People don’t paint their VWs with flowers. A VW bus is more likely to belong to a soccer mom than a commune. And when it comes to travel, no one has to go to Canada to evade the draft. There are no draft cards to burn. Teenagers don’t even know what the draft was, and Vietnam vets are old men and women.

Now I’m not saying these new sensibilities are bad things, not at all. It’s probably a good thing that more styles are not only acceptable but non-controversial. It’s great that people can express themselves more freely. Whenever my husband wears his Jerry Garcia t-shirt, people think it’s far out. (I know people don’t say “far-out” anymore. Or “groovy.” I can’t keep track of what they do say. Plus, my husband’s t-shirt usually draw remarks that he looks like the picture. But I digress yet again.)

Basically, if you can find a way to let your freak flag fly, do it!

Fraidy Cat

cats, etc., humor, pets,

I’ve read that if you surreptitiously place a cucumber or zucchini behind your cat, when the cat notices the vegetable, it will jump straight up in alarm (the cat, not the cucumber). I’ve never tested this out because I’ve also read that the cat thinks the cucumber is some kind of fat, short, immobile but threatening green snake and is genuinely terrified. Some people thought it was cruel to put a cat through this unexpected terror. (Though no one seems to care that the whole red dot thing puts a cat through unrelenting frustration. We think it’s funny, so that’s okay. Actually, the whole cucumber thing was supposed to be amusing, too. Go figure. But I digress.)

I’ve never tried the cucumber trick on any of our cats. They have enough things that they’re afraid of already.

Knowing that I’m a cat lover, my friends often give me cat-related gifts—cookie jars, Christmas ornaments, earrings, mugs, and so forth. One year, someone got me a pair of cat house slippers. They were very lifelike, a pair of puffy, furry, black-and-white cats with little pink noses. Basically, they were adorbz. (Yes, I know that “adorbz” is years old and probably as horse-and-buggy as “horse-and-buggy.” But I like it, so it stays. It’s not like a piece of slang that no one can figure out what it means without context (or maybe even with) like “rizz.” But I digress again.)

At any rate, the first time I walked down the hall wearing them, our cat Shaker (who was also black and white) saw the pair of mirror-image cats shuffling toward her, she turned tail and ran. (The same thing happened when Dan “walked” a 3 1/2-foot-tall plush rabbit down the hall. (Dan won the rabbit at a carnival. He had fun driving home from Pennsylvania with it. He strapped it in the passenger seat and enjoyed seeing children waving at it. It didn’t go with what we graciously call our “decor,” so we gave it to a friend with a young child. The child appreciated it, but the mother didn’t. Didn’t go with her decor either. But I digress some more. (Embedded. Are you impressed?)))

Another cat we had shared with most other cats a love of plastic bags. (We once met a cat in Dubrovnik who tried to climb into our souvenir bag and come home with us. But I digress even more.) Anyway, Jasper, who was a little skittish anyway, got tangled in a plastic grocery sack, which was enough to alarm him. What he didn’t realize, however, was that the bag contained a CD in its case (CD = a horse-and-buggy item). Startled, Jasper tried to get away from the thing by running upstairs. But the bag was caught on his leg and chased him, thump, thump, thump, all the way up. He couldn’t get away from it. Unlike a cucumber, it wasn’t stationary. Like a cucumber, it terrified him.

Our current cat, Toby, is afraid of water. No, not his water dish. Not rain. Not even the water in the shower (he likes to sit on the shower seat, though not while the water’s running). No, he’s afraid of bottled water. The fizzy kind, anyway. If I crack open a bottle and it makes the fizzy sound (which it always does), Toby does that cat thing where he levitates three feet off the ground like he’s spring-loaded. I don’t know, maybe fizzy water sounds like another cat hissing.

I suppose it’s wrong of me to laugh at the fraidy cats. They don’t laugh at me when I run screaming from bees and wasps. Or at least I don’t hear them. (Maybe they’re polite enough to snicker behind my back.)

That Hoodoo That You Do

arts and crafts, etc., family, humor, ,

Having the in-laws visit is a situation that is fraught with peril. There’s the frantic pre-cleaning cleaning, the cleaning, the post-cleaning cleaning, and the tidying up. There’s the delicate balance over what foods to stock up on and whether or not to go out for a meal or meals, and other aspects of potential entertaining. And, for those of us who don’t have the luxury of a guest room, there are the sleeping arrangements.

But the particular challenge that I want to discuss is when my MIL visited us.

We cleaned, of course, though perhaps not up to her standards. We loaded the pantry and the fridge with the mineral water, breakfast items, and snacks she preferred, plus more than our usual supply of staples, meat, vegetables, bread, fruit, and beverages.

No guest rooms chez nous, but at the time, we had a pull-out sofa bed. Being at least aware of one or two of the social norms, Dan and I would take the sofa, giving up the bed to Mom. We made sure there were clean sheets, blankets, towels, and such.

But upon seeing the sleeping arrangements, Mom announced, “I won’t sleep in that bed!”

“What’s the matter?” we asked, puzzled.

“That … thing. The one hanging over the bed. It’s a hoodoo. I can’t sleep under that.”

Now, Dan has been to Africa, where he encountered some shamans, and I have been to Jamaica, where I failed to encounter any voodoo priests, but in all our travels, neither one of us had ever acquired a hoodoo. (I did encounter lepers in Jamaica once (or persons living with Hansen’s Disease, as we would say now). (I was there reporting on charity work.) The residents’ cases were no longer active, but they lived apart in their own establishment (aka “leper colony”). They liked singing religious and folk songs, and when I asked if there was anything they needed, one man asked for new guitar strings. But I digress.)

At any rate, no hoodoos were acquired from anywhere.

The suspected hoodoo was a small wicker circle with various objects attached: a piece of red yarn, a bean from the castor plant, a cat whisker, a small bag of polished stone chips. It hung over my side of the bed.

What it was, of course, was a dream catcher.

I have nightmares from time to time. (I also have the usual anxiety dreams about being lost in a hotel, missing a plane, and not being able to find a clean toilet. Now that I think about it, as much as I love it, travel makes me anxious. But I digress again.) During one particularly bad spell, Dan made me the dream catcher. The items attached to it were ones that had special significance to me. The red yarn was a scrap from my mother’s crocheting. The stones were for my love of the semiprecious variety. The cat whisker—well, do I have to explain that one? (No, I never tried to kill anyone with a castor bean. It was a plot point in a mystery novel I was writing, though. But I digress yet again.)

It was a whimsical, tender memento that held no special power but that showed how much concern Dan had for me and how much he wanted to relieve my distress.

What it was not, was a hoodoo. (I’ve never seen an actual hoodoo, so I don’t know what they look like. I guess I can see how a dream catcher could be mistaken for one by someone who has no idea what a dream catcher is but is well up on hoodoos. But I digress some more.)

Our choice was obvious—remove the hoodoo or banish Mom to the sofa bed. It was a tough decision, but we removed the offending object (the dream catcher, that is) and Mom agreed to sleep in the bed. The dream catcher went right back up after the visit ended.

No sense wasting a perfectly good hoodoo.

How to Start a Conversation

books, etc., fashion, humor, , , , ,

I never used to be any good at small talk. I would stand there, tongue-tied, while conversation went on around me. I was afraid I had turned invisible.

Then I met Erma the Armadillo, pictured here. She’s a purse that my mother bought for me from a catalog called, appropriately, What on Earth. This was back in the 90s, and I don’t think she spent more than $25 on the purse. When it came time to scare up a photo to go with this post, I found that today Erma is considered “vintage” and sells for as much as $140, used.

(I have a thing about armadillos. I fell in love with them when I learned that their main defensive technique is to jump straight up two feet, and their main natural predator is the automobile bumper. My defense mechanisms are like that, too. But I digress.)

Erma was actually a lousy purse. She was stuffed with cotton and had only a small zippered slot that would barely hold a driver’s license and a little cash. I had to carry anything else in my pockets. But what she was good at was starting conversations. Not that she spoke, but when other people saw her, they did.

People were fascinated. They always remarked on what an unusual purse Erma was. I would point out that she even had little tiny toenails printed on her stubby little feet. They’d ask where I’d gotten her. They’d ask why I wanted an armadillo purse. They’d ask more questions and share about other purses they’d seen or owned. Children were especially captivated by Erma. They couldn’t get over the fact that she wasn’t a toy and that she had handles. They always wanted to touch her, and I always let them.

When it comes to starting conversations with strangers, I always recommend accessories. My jewelry collection has some peculiar specimens. I have a sushi necklace that my friend Leslie made for me from air-dry clay. I also have a pair of bacon earrings, though I never mix cuisines in an outfit. Another set of earrings that people found amusing were the ones that looked like the planet Earth, complete with continents. (When I wore them, I liked to shake my head violently and shout, “Earthquake!” But I digress again.)

Conversation goes both ways, of course. “That’s an awesome (fill in the blank). Where did you get it?” is a good start on a good chat. People love to tell stories about their possessions, gifts, travels, etc. From there, conversation is an easy two-way street.

(It can fall flat from time to time. I once shared an elevator with a woman who had itsy-bitsy feet. I felt like I might have been staring at them. So I cleverly said, “Those are great boots! They make your feet look really small!” She replied, “They are really small.” After that, the conversation, and the elevator ride, ended. But I digress some more.)

I don’t know how people who don’t have unusual accessories start conversations. “Is that a good book you’re reading?” is one ploy, but it hardly ever works. Most people don’t read books in public, and if they do, they don’t like to be interrupted. And when I read books in public (which I do), I read them on my e-reader or phone, so the general public just thinks I’m doom-scrolling (which I don’t do).

Erma is no longer with me. Her handles wore out and Dan was unsuccessful at replacing them, which he tried to do. I don’t go out much anymore but when I do, I miss her. And the conversations.

Let’s Talk Boogers

etc., health, humor, ,

That’s what my writing friend Denise and I were doing the other day. She had seen a “hillbilly” truck with a bumper sticker on it that referenced boogers. She marveled at the grammar and punctuation, which was all correct, considering that the truck owner was clearly a hillbilly who used the term “booger.”

“What do non-hillbillies call boogers?” I asked. I thought it was a valid question. Offhand, I couldn’t think of any synonyms.

Denise admitted that I had a point.

“Snot,” someone else suggested.

“Doesn’t work for me. Snot is more liquid-ish. Boogers are a bit more solid-ish.” We left it at that.

(There is one bodily substance that can appear as any of the three common states of matter—gaseous, fluid, and solid. (We’re not going to discuss plasma or non-Newtonian fluids or other such foolishness here. If there are bodily substances like that, I don’t know about them and don’t want to.) I leave the identification of the aforementioned bodily substance as an exercise for the student. But I digress.)

Another encounter with the word “booger” occurred when I was wanting to know what the little crusty bits that accumulate at the corners of your eyes are called. Most of my friends called them “eye boogers.” (Even my eye doctor did.) But I refused to get on board with that. I had been calling them “eye crunchies,” but, while it usually got the meaning across, it seemed too casual.

Thanks to Mr. Google, I found that the technical term is “gound,” though the little buggers are also known as “dried rheum.” Neither of those is useful for general conversation. (I can just picture myself remarking, “I had a lot of gound when I woke up this morning.” The response, of course, would be “Huh?” and probably a sad headshake. But I digress again.) I guess I have to stick with “eye crunchies.”

Speaking of boogers, one of my odder friends wrote a song called “Rhinotillexomania.” This is Latin, from the words for “nose,” “pick,” and “obsession.” You see where this is going. It was a sprightly little ditty that became a sing-along. (It contained the memorable line, “When it comes to filthy habits of the solitary sort/Rhinotillexomania is my second favorite sport.” But I digress some more.)

I was sorely tempted to call in sick to work one day and say that I was suffering from rhinotillexomania, but I worked in an office of intellectuals, most of whom had at least a smattering of Latin, so that was a no-go.

Speaking of boogers and illness, my husband recently alerted me to a study that says rhinotillexomania can be a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease. The theory is that you introduce bacteria and other unfriendlies into your nose that make their way to the brain and cause inflammation. It’s just a theory at this point. (There haven’t been any human studies yet. I imagine it would be hard to recruit test subjects who admit to obsessive nose-picking.)

Did I ever think I would be writing a blog post about boogers and nose-picking? I can’t say that I have. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have ruled it out. (Well, it’s evident that I didn’t.)

Name That Tune

etc., humor, music, , , , ,

No one complains about Musak (aka elevator music) anymore. That’s because there is not, strictly speaking, any more Musak. Nowadays, elevators, stores, bars, and restaurants get their background music from a variety of services, which allow them to choose a specific type of music—smooth jazz, for example. Many locales choose oldies, which to me doesn’t mean the 2000s.

Recently, my husband and I went to a chain restaurant for lunch. We were there early, which means it wasn’t noisy yet, so we could actually hear the ambient music. When we walked in, we immediately heard Clapton’s “Lay Down, Sally,” and took this as a good omen for agreeable music.

Indeed it was. While we were there we heard some Whitney Houston (the early, pre-drug years), Sinatra singing “My Way,” and a bit of Fleetwood Mac, all of which were just fine. Then a song came on that puzzled us at first—Coolio’s “Gangster’s Paradise.” Or maybe it was “Gangsta’s Paradise.” At any rate, I eventually recognized the song, though Dan didn’t. I told him it was by Coolio. (“Kool and the Gang?” he said. That’s how stuck in the past he is. But I digress.)

Even more puzzling was an instrumental piece that came through the speakers. There were rhythmic trumpets and drums. At last I recognized it. “That’s the Imperial March. From Star Wars.”

“No,” Dan exclaimed. “It can’t be.” But it was. And the longer it played, the easier it was to recognize. It couldn’t have been any more recognizable unless it was the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Actually, that’s what I wanted for our wedding recessional. After all, we were embarking on an adventure, though it has seldom involved snakes. (Except for the time we were driving through Arizona and thought we saw a shed snakeskin on the side of the road. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a weathered piece of duct tape.) At any rate, the church organist balked and substituted the Love Theme from the movie Superman, which he probably figured was more appropriate but still a movie theme, though one that had no personal meaning for us. He was probably weirded out enough that I insisted on “Wildwood Flower” for the processional. But I digress at length.)

Returning to the aforementioned Coolio song, the reason I recognized it was that I knew the tune from Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise” and that it was Coolio because at the time there was confusion over whether he had given Al permission to use it.

Song parodies have sometimes proved even more confusing. I have friends who write song parodies, and sometimes the only way I know a tune is from their songs. My friend Tom Smith, for example, wrote a parody of “The Colors of the Wind” called “The Curlers of Delenn,” a Babylon 5 reference. I heard the original one day in a supermarket and wondered why they were playing a Tom Smith song. (I missed the Pocahontas movie.) Tom’s parody of The Proclaimers’s “500 Miles,” “500 Hats,” a Dr. Seuss tribute song, has affected me the same way.

(I have other friends who write parodies, too. Michael Longcor is one. He wrote a parody of the old folk tune “Lorena,” except about Lorena Bobbit, and one of Buck Owens’s “Act Naturally” called “Write Romantically.” He even wrote a parody of one of his own songs, a beautiful, tender love ballad called “Eternity’s Waltz.” He made it into “Eternity’s Polka.” But I digress some more.)

Of course, it’s not likely that I’ll hear “The Curlers of Delenn” or “Eternity’s Polka” as soothing background music anytime soon. But I like to imagine the kind of restaurant that would have them. I’m pretty sure there’d be a life-sized cardboard cutout of Weird Al right next to the hostess stand.

El Ka-Bong!

cats, etc., family, humor, , ,

Once again, it all started with a cat, of course. I innocently walked downstairs on my commute to my office, and there he was. Toby. For the purposes of this story, aka Mr. Underfoot.

As you may have guessed by now, he was underfoot. I tripped over the wretched little beast and I tested gravity, landing on my ample, padded ass. (There used to be a photo of me on a zipline titled “My Giant Flying Ass,” due to the fact that the photographer was on the ground beneath me. The photo was quickly deleted. But I digress.) My fall would have been inconsequential, if mildly embarrassing.

Alas, there was a chair interrupting my trajectory. Not a nice, soft, comfy chair, either. A solid wood one. And I didn’t hit it ass-first. No, It intersected my fall on the back of my head. I shouted, and Toby took off.

I didn’t quite see little tweeting birdies fluttering around my brow, but I rapidly acquired one of their eggs on the back of my head. (Hence the title of this post. Extra points if you get the reference without Googling. But I digress again.) (Back in the day we used to call this a pump-knot rather than a goose egg. Why? I don’t know. No pumps seemed to be involved. Added digression.)

Now, the problem with being flat on your back at my age and level of decrepitude is that there isn’t a good way to re-achieve vertical status. In point of fact, there isn’t one.

Added to this indignity is the fact that my phone was in my study. (There was no pocket in my nightshirt. I habitually spend the night without a phone within reach. Weird, I know. But I digress yet again.) In order to summon help, I had to make it to my desk.

What to do? I managed to locomote by a crab-like method, scooting along on the aforementioned ass and hoisting myself as much as possible with my arms. Hoist, scoot, repeat. (With occasional pauses for much-needed rest.) There were obstacles along the way—a coffee table, for example, which didn’t provide enough leverage to get me off the ground, damn it. I maneuvered past the comfy chair, which likewise wasn’t any help at that point.

I made it to my desk and nabbed the phone. Did I call 9-1-1? I did not. I called my husband, who works just a mile and a half away. Even though it wasn’t time for his break, he came for me. And helped maneuver me into the comfy chair, where I caught my breath.

“You’re going to the ER,” he announced. I wasn’t inclined to argue. I exchanged my slippers for sturdy shoes and, leaning on Dan, made it to the car. (It seemed ridiculous to call an ambulance. The hospital is also about 1.5 miles from home. But I digress some more.)

At the hospital, I told my tale of woe, leaving out the part about my ass. They solemnly wrote, “tripped over cat” in my chart and wheeled me off for a CT scan (formerly known, ironically, as a CAT scan). Back in my cubicle, waiting for results, the nurse noticed my nightshirt. “How many cats do you have?” she asked.

“Just the one,” I said. “That’s enough.”

“I thought the 12 pictures of cats on your nightshirt might be your own cats. And you’ve got paw prints on your sneakers. You must love cats.”

Not so much at the moment, I thought.

When the CT results came back, they revealed no internal bleeding and only mild scrambling of my white and gray matter, plus some strain on my neck. I hopped into a wheelchair (well, tottered to one) and was on my way home, where I slept for the next 12 hours. Dan poked me regularly to make sure I was still breathing.

So, what did I learn from this experience? First, that maybe I should consider keeping my phone with me at all times. (I suppose I could wear it in a little pouch on a string around my neck. Or convince women’s PJ manufacturers to offer pockets. But I digress for the last time today.) Second, that we ought to move that chair out of the line of passage between the stairs and my study. And finally, that we need to change Toby’s nickname so that maybe it will decrease the time he spends underfoot.

Yeah, right. That’ll work.

I’m Melting!

etc., humor, , , , ,

We don’t have any AC, which has been a problem for some time. So of course my response was to buy a laptop computer.

Why? (I hear you ask.) Well, we spent all our money on fixing our car and our truck, which chose to break down simultaneously. A Pitman arm (whatever that is) and brakes, pads, and rotors later, we had moderately functional cars—until the Pitman arm vehicle blew a ball joint (whatever that is). Dan had to take a Lyft to our mechanic to pick up the car with the new brakes, another expense we hadn’t counted on. The one with no ball joint is still sitting in our driveway, inert. (The other one runs moderately well, except now the power steering has gone out and I can’t make turns with my frail, little bunny arms, so Dan is the only one who can drive it. But I digress.)

Back to the AC. My brave husband tried some potential fixes. Breakers. Turning it off and back on. Poking around the basement and outside where the compressor sits in hopes of finding something that looked like an inexpensive way to resurrect it.

No luck. No money to fix it.

Back to the laptop. Best Buy was having a sale on Apple computers, so I went shopping there. I found a refurbished laptop. (I must admit I accessorized with a mouse, a carrying case, and a subscription to Microsoft Office. The carrying case comes into play later in this story. But I digress some more.) Where did I get the money? We have a Best Buy credit card. It paid for a laptop but not a ball joint or a mechanic, which is a shame.

Again, why a laptop? I have a desktop computer, but it’s unluggable.

My plan was to put the laptop into the case with the mouse and head off to Panera if the day got scorching. (Panera has electrical outlets, wifi, and USB ports, which cannot be said for Waffle House, my original choice. Mcdonald’s was my other choice. They don’t have USB ports and electrical outlets, but they do have wifi, and I may still go there as their iced tea is cheaper than Panera’s. I figure I ought to buy something if I go to a restaurant, and keeping hydrated is important. But I digress yet again.)

This strategy would be inconvenient. With only one car operational, I’d have to take my husband to work at 5:30 a.m., go to Panera’s (or wherever) (if it’s open at that hour), and pick Dan up after work.

The next development was that I came into a little money from my ghostwriting, enough to buy a small window air conditioner, which was enough to keep my study—and my desktop computer—cool. We both now spend most of our time in my study.

But I discovered that I wanted to keep the laptop (was there ever any doubt?), so I used the rest of the money to make an extra payment on the credit card. I can use the laptop if I want to work in bed or when we go out of town. Or if I want to go to Panera or McDonald’s anyway. The laptop, though refurbished, has an operating system several generations newer than my desktop. It might also come in handy if the desktop computer goes the way of the car and the truck. (I don’t know whether computers have Pitman arms or ball joints. Digressing again.)

So, to recap, we now have a laptop, an air conditioner which enables us to live in one room of the house, and one car that works. (For the moment. It’s a 2001. The ball joint-deficient truck is a 1995. I don’t know how much longer its last legs will last. But I digress even more.) I have a writing assignment that should wrap up in September, and I can use that money to pay down the credit card some more.

It’s complicated, but at least we have options. We like options. Especially when we need to drop back five and punt. Or when we’re stranded in my study and I’m melting.