Things Somebody Should Have Told Me Beforehand

Did you know you have to wipe off your deoderant before getting a mammogram?

Had I known this beforehand, I could have brought to my appointment one stick from the 67-pack I bought last week at our Pseudo-Costco. (We live about one mile from a discount clubhouse called BJ's. No, no, no, it stands for Berkeley and Jensen. Sheesh! Get your minds out of the gutter!) But no, this is yet another thing Coach learns the hard way. Thank goodness there was a grocery store only one block from where I parked the Pontiac Stateship so I could make an emergency purchase. You see, I won't pay $1 per hour to park in the medical building's parking lot because I think that expense, on top of the insurance premiums and co-pays, falls soundly, trivial as it is, into the category of Insult To Injury. Not only that, it's all the enticement the Universe needs to ensure you sit in the waiting room for 55 minutes before you get your 10 in the exam room with the frazzled Highly Educated Medical Professional whose creativity and compassion have been transplanted by a codebook of protocols composed by some actuary whose case of Tinmanosis* is congenital. I mean really, why do we bother seeing a doctor at all? Some formulary has already decided what drug we can take anyway.

* lacking the cardiac organ

It just worked out to my good fortune this morning that my mingy nature saved me an extra stop at a drugstore on my way back to the office. If I'd blown the rare cash sitting in my wallet on parking at the medical building, I'd have been forced to retun to work au naturel, so to speak. We already have a situation of hygiene disparity in my cubicle row at work. Far be it from me to add to the fumes.

It seems that being cheap is one good way to outfox the Universe. Another good way to beat Murphy at his own game is to plan for a 55 minute wait by bringing an excellent book or your latest knitting project to your medical appointments. Sure as sugar, the minute you are engrossed or entangled you will be called in for your appointment. This technique also works to hurry along the Highly Educated Medical Professional after you're stripped down to your socks, shrouded in an iParty tablecloth, and perched with as little surface-to-surface contact as possible on the edge of the pre-chilled exam table.

But I run the dangerous risk of digressing from the point of this message into a complete wobbly on the American Medical System. So, for those of you who have never had a baseline mammogram, consider yourself warned to either book your appointment for the end of your workday or remember to bring along your sample-size Powder Fresh Secret from your travel toiletries.

Pronouncable Blogger Word Verification Of The Day: gpyma (j'-PEE-mah)

Hi There

Anybody know a nice place for brunch in the Arlington-Winchester-Medford-Malden part of Massachusetts? Anybody? Anybody? Just wondering.

Lots of blogs seem to be languishing. People must be really busy these days. Either that or, like me, they have nothing much to say.

There was a nice surprise in my Inbox this morning at work. It seems the Director of my division here at my workplace has been engaged in a cross-discipline comparison of our salaries to the rest of the industry. Turns out I actually AM woefully underpaid. (Gosh! Who knew?) The company has decided to rectify the situation to the tune of a 5% increase effective February 1st. This is a mixed blessing. While it's nice to see more money on the electronic paystub after suffering the inordinate hassle of having to remember a secure login ID and password to get access to such delicate information (that is too precious to send in paper format through the mail but not too confidential to have employees display on their workplace monitors, apparently), it diminishes some of the complete and utter freedom I felt until this morning to whine and complain about how badly I am mistreated by the B-/C+ -caliber Doofuses that run my company. The afterglow of this little suprise announcement lasted exactly 6 hours. By 3 PM, I was being asked to do a stupid chore of little consequence that will eat into my deadline and offer me no direct benefit. I've been pretty peevish ever since. So goes life here at Busywork, Incorporated.

The FCB Saga Continues

As if the stunted bag and too long handle aren't enough, the woeful Frigging Crap Bag has... are you ready? Wait for it...

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A TWISTED HANDLE.

I swear on my Grandmother's glass eyeball (if she had one), that handle was NOT twisted when I Kitchener stitched it to the raw edge on the stunted sack portion of FCB. I checked it half a dozen times. This is most certainly and totally the fault of my washing machine. If I weren't so generally disgusted with the whole abomination that is FCB I might be able to marvel at the singular talents of my 15 year old GE white good. I'm too crabby to be awestruck.

Don't you worry, Dent team (hey, isn't that a kind of gum?). I know exactly what action to take next. The Riesling is already on the chill, the Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Wheat and size 10 needles have already been dug out of the stash, and don't tell Classic Elite Yarns but their V-neck pullover from the Tweed 3 pattern book has already been selected as the next victim for abuse by

Your (ever-)loving,
Coach




It will look nothing like this when I am through with it.

Confessions Of A Lazy Knitter

Friends, I may love to knit but I... I... (hiccup, sob) I'm just not that good at it! The Felted Grab Bag is done. It is being redubbed The Frigging Crap Bag. It looks like hell. Somehow I thought the felting process would magically fix the fact that the bag is not deep enough and the handle is too long. OK, OK, truth be told I did NOT use the yarn specified in the pattern. All right, yes, neither did I felt my swatch, as instructed, to test that whole process. Yeah, yeah, I stopped knitting the bag part even though I had a whole 2 skeins left and my instinct was screaming at me like the shrew she is, "Keep knitting. Keep knitting, you moron!!!" But I was getting bored and, after all, it's just a bag. Big whoop. It'll all work out just fine in the end. After all, I am an experienced knitter. The yarn and my washing machine must surely know this and respond accordingly.

Oh! how the mighty ego falleth. Five-point-one on the Richter scale. Did your dishes rattle? That was my pride you heard shattering. It's OK, friends. I've swept up the biggest pieces. Think I'll carry them around in the Frigging Crap Bag where they can whack my knees while I walk; a crafter's version of the Hair Shirt. "Ego indignus! Ego indignus!"

Maybe I should just stick with reading for a while. Yeah, that's the best idea for the sort of person who's too lazy to felt swatches like she shou... Ooo! Look what's in the new VK Winter 2007. I've simply GOTTA try one of Meg Swansen's Scandinavian Two-End Knitting caps. Well, whaddaya know? Here's a skein and a half of celery green Donegal Tweed. That would make a pretty cap. It would match my frigging crappy bag! I'll just use these here dpns poking through the three UFOs composting in my knitting basket. They look about the right size for this weight yarn. It'll all work out just fine. After all, I am an ...

Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee the Latin quotation shown above actually translates to "I'm not worthy" since my knowledge of the classic language has been obtained in the usual modern way: by singing Masses in choruses, by watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and by searching for "Latin - English dictionary" on Google.

Everybody Sing!

Old McDonald had a bun, e-i-e-i-o,
And on that bun he had some beef, e-i-e-i-o,
With a french fry here,
And a juice box there.
Here a fry, there a toy,
Everywhere a happy meal.
Old McDonald hooked my kid, e-i-e-i-o!

Where Have I Been?

Well, for starters, not blogging.

Working, mostly. There's enough to do at the office that I can't actually steal any time from my employer to write this blog. I must be satisfied with swiping Bics and one by one-and-a-half inch PostIt pads instead.

Cooking again. Sadly, Christmas is now so thoroughly passed into history, there aren't any leftovers anymore. Cooking means grocery shopping. Grocery shopping means list making. List making means recipe hunting. It's a lot to do for someone as lazy as I am.

Knitting sloooooooooowly. I'm using up some lovely celery green Donegal Tweed to make the Felted Sack on page 35 of Vogue Knitting's Bags & Backpacks. I'm on the strap now. It's wicked boring and easy to leave wadded up in a scratchy bunch on top of all the other UFOs in my sofa-side basket.

Keeping warm. Or trying to, anyway. This morning I thought our little indoor/outdoor thermometer was broken. It said 8 and 63. This did not compute. My brain registered "broken". Then I realized I was seeing the outdoor temperature and the family room temperature one hour after our digital thermostat switched to the "Wake" setting. Not broken; just br. It's been so long, I forgot it was even possible for the outdoor air temperature to be a single digit. Not even 2 weeks ago, it was 69 degrees on our deck. So I guess that means no one here can complain. (Someone should tell us that, though.) I'm talking Fahrenheit, folks so don't you Celsius people be goin' "Eight degrees? What's she whining about?"

Watching TV. Too much. Heeeelp! Pleeeeeeease! Someone come wrest the remote control from my chilblained, frostbitten, frozen-rigid hand. Or at least change the damn channel for me.

Happy New Your Hair

I told you I'd let you know when I flunked all my resolutions and voila, the first failure is here! As promised, it is:

5. Take all medications religiously, on schedule, and at proper doses.

I still can't find the perfect pill sorter. Oh, excuses, excuses! But really, there is no such thing as a storage box with 4 daily compartments: 1 for breakfast time, 1 for lunchtime, 1 for dinnertime and 1 for bedtime. The ones I've seen only have three (because who's ever heard of having to take medication with food? Freak!). And to find one that's child-safe? Impossible!

The title of this post? Why, the timely greeting you get from 2 Year Old this holiday season, of course. Speaking of 2 Year Old's exclamations, as I was attempting to stuff her winter-coated body into her car seat this morning without doing any injury to her or myself, she treated me to an "Oh, Christ!" complete with the exact same inflection as Englishman but without the accompanying Mid-Atlantic accent. I can definitely blame him for this one because my language is far more foul and more of the bodliy function variety than the relgious fervor type. At the time I was thinking "Oh ship!". (Substitute appropriate consonant as necessary)

Please note, I have successfully managed to add a BIP list to the sidebar of this page. I write that so cavalierly, trusting that what I saw in the preview on my Blogger template page will exactly match what actually appears once I publish this post (note the title of the BIP to uncover the source of this unexpected look on the sunny side from your Coach). Goddess be praised for the miracle of html.