Need to Know Basis

 

Audrey was home last weekend and told me that she needed some new socks. So happens that my workout shoes had been feeling a little squishy lately, too, and I had been putting off getting new ones. I’m easily overwhelmed by too many choices, so I’m not a big fan of shopping. Shop till you drop? That happens to me within about five minutes of entering any store.

But my weekend was not too packed, and Audrey’s sock shortage was good motivation to send me to the shoe store. Road Runner Sports has been my go-to for sneakers for over a decade. The staff is knowledgeable enough to listen to my needs and bring me three or four suitable choices to pick from. It’s probably a little more expensive, but it’s not like I’m exactly blowing through running shoes more than once a year.

Recently, sneaker shopping has been a breeze because I LOVE my sneakers, so I simply ask the salesperson for the most recent version of the same shoe. I can try it on and be out of the store within 20 minutes, which was what I was expecting last weekend.

Running Shoe Lady: “What brings you in today?”

She was bright and chipper. I was appreciative that there was not a long wait as there sometimes is on a weekend.

Me: “I need some new shoes.”

RSL: “OK! I can help you with that! What are you looking for?”

I looked down to my shoe and turned it sideways so she could get a good look.

Me: “I really love these.”

RSL: “OK, great! I just need to know what kind of shoe that is.”

This was already getting unusual, because the staff typically know at a glance exactly what I’m looking for by now. I looked at her name tag. Was I in the right store?

Her name was Torie I think. Or maybe Talie or Trixie. But she had a Road Runner name tag so I was assured that I hadn’t walked into Ulta by mistake. Perhaps Torie needed to know the exact model? I turned back to my shoe and rotated my ankle so she could see the “FreshFoam” printed on the other side.

A few seconds passed before I moved my glance back up from my shoe. My questioning eyes met her smiling confusion.

Something was amiss, but I couldn’t figure out what was happening. Fortunately, Torie offered clarity to this baffling situation.

Torie: “I just need to know what KIND of shoe that is. Like….is it Nike?…..Or?”

OHHHHH…..I get it now!

YOU GUYS.

LOOK AT MY SHOE.

YOU TELL ME IF IT IS, LIKE, NIKE…..OR?

That’s the choppiest, busted up swoosh I ever did see!

I felt like I was getting Punk’d. Like the Impractical Jokers were going to pop out from behind the wall at any moment. This would be like walking into McDonald’s and slapping a Quarter Pounder wrapper on the counter.

Me: *slap* “Hit me up with another, Bruh!”

McHuman: "Welcome to McDonalds! Would you like to try an All Day Breakfast?"

Me: "I really enjoyed this. But I don't want any of those weird little onion bits."

McHuman: "I can Mchelp you with that! I just need to know what KIND of food you want. Is it, like, a smoothie.....or?"

It was pretty clear to me that Torie didn’t have the capacity to meet my needs. So I met this young lady’s smiling, blank-eyed gaze and pivoted, “Ummm…..I think I’m just going to pick up some socks today.”

She met me at the cash register and reiterated JUST ONCE MORE so that I was crystal clear about how clueless she was, “Yeah, I would just need to know what KIND of shoe that was if you want me to help you.”

OK, Torie. Poor girl is just a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

I hope you get all your needs met this week. Just Do It.

Thank you for reading!

Nothing Up My Sleeve

 

Several years ago, Albert worked with a plastic surgeon who was collaborating on a new procedure to help a patient grow a prosthetic ear in her arm. Prosthetic ears were previously attached with glue or tape, but more recently they are attached with magnets. Can you imagine snapping your ears on in the morning like an AirPod case?

Patients don’t like detachable ears for lots of reasons. One cancer patient notably envisioned her children running around with her prosthetic yelling, “I have mommy’s ear!”

So we all agree that ears that are secure parts of our heads are preferable. To grow an ear in the patient’s arm, the medical team removed cartilage from the ribcage, carved it into an ear shape, then implanted the contraption into the forearm for several months allowing skin and blood vessels to grow. Once the ear was formed, it was removed from the arm and attached to the head where it belongs.

As I was researching prosthetic ears, I came across this story about an Australian fellow named Stelarc who grew an ear on his forearm as performance art. Lookie ear.

Stelarc started working on this project more than 25 years ago in 1996, but it took him ten years to arrange funding and to find plastic surgeons willing to work on his idea. He explained the delay this way:

"The medical community is essentially a very conservative community and medical practice is about curing people and repairing damage. It seems trivial and unethical, in the sense of a waste of time and effort, to construct an extra ear on the arm of an artist who is perfectly healthy."

 

His discovery confused me. Because giant, rigid boobs seem trivial to me. Girl, those breasts are not gonna change and might be a hassle when you are 70 years old with balance issues. And a lot of the nonsense appearing on women’s faces these days seems like an unethical waste of time and effort.

As ear-y as Stelarc’s art is, here’s a story about a dude who really got the shaft. Malcolm McDonald from Norfolk, England ran into some hard times twelve years ago. His relationship fell apart, he became homeless, and he started using “more and more drugs.”

I suspect that he introduced Staph infections with IV drug use which led to some nasty necrosis. Malcolm described “abscesses which swelled up the size of a tennis ball and popped.” After a while, he developed sepsis which turned his fingers and toes black and then a long-term perineal infection which caused his penis to necrose as well.

In Malcolm’s words:

“My toes started going black, my penis started going black. I knew deep down it was gone and I was going to lose it. Then one day it just dropped off onto the floor.”

According to the British news story, “Malcolm said he threw his penis in the bin.” Bloody adorable the way the British say things like “bin” and “loo.” The chap must have been knackered after that experience with his willie. Time for a cuppa.

So every day was Meatless Monday for Malcolm until his GP offered him an excellent tip. Malcolm was referred to a doctor in London who specialized in phallus reconstruction, a precise in-dick-ation in this case.

The plan was to form a tube from a flap of skin from Malcolm’s forearm, create a urethra within the skin, then attach this fresh salami where the sun don’t shine.

Hypoxemia: below-normal levels of blood oxygen which can arise from many causes.

The sausage-fest was cut short midway. In order to keep the tissue healthy, Malcolm’s newest member was connected to vessels in his left arm “temporarily.” So he got a third arm instead of the third leg he was wishing for. This was back in 2015 and he ended up carrying this short arm pickle around for SIX LONG YEARS.

While one might expect this to be Item #1 on Malcolm's to-do list, the tallywacker transfer was delayed due to a string of missed appointments, transport and scheduling mix-ups, then eventually staff shortages due to the pandemic. Malcolm was miserable with this wang dangler for all those years. Are you ready for the dick pic?

Malcolm lamented that he was “unable to run because the penis waggles about.” Nothing that a fashionable iPhone armband couldn’t fix, I don’t imagine. He could even get one with a storage pocket so it wouldn’t look so conspicuous. “I just like to tote my snacks in there. Oh, yes, hot dogs ARE my favorite!”

He was unable to wear short-sleeved tops in public and couldn’t go swimming with his two children for fear of embarrassment. Maybe he could’ve gotten one of those arm sleeves like Allen Iverson. That would've been slick.

Malcolm complained, “I f*cking slap myself in the eye with it. It’s dead weight.” His left-hand man really caused a lot of problems. It once fell out of his sleeve and flashed a woman in the supermarket. He has burned his arm peen while cooking and even hit his grandma in the face with it while hugging her.

However, Malcolm also described some perks to his extra wiener. As an avid darts player, he learned to “tuck his darts under the penis.” I hope he didn't get pricked.

Malcolm recently offloaded his armload of baloney and got it put back between his legs where it be-schlongs. I wasn’t able to find the British documentary, but here is a video of a few hilarious dudes discussing the story.

Wishing you a lovely week, my friends! Call me if you want to hang out. But only if you don’t have any tricks up your sleeve.

Thank you for reading!

Dogs, Lambs, and Popcorn

 

PSA: This post contains movie spoilers. However, both movies are whack. Read on at your discretion.

Power of the Dog was an awful movie. This is how I was certain that it would win lots of movie awards. Why did I even watch it, you ask? Albert put it in our watchlist, because it had more than a four-star rating and “it’s about a dog!” It’s almost impossible to go wrong with a dog movie. But the movie isn’t about a dog. The title is a trap.

Not far into the movie, there is a scene that will forever be emblazoned in my memory. The sequence focuses on a single stalk of wheat blowing gently in a field. I think it was wheat. I’m not a botanist. That’s it. We watched this nonsense for approximately fifteen minutes.

At this moment during the film, I expressed my concern to Albert. “I’m worried that this movie might be a little too artistic for me.”

My sweet husband immediately tried to remedy what he perceived as my emotional discomfort by offering to pick a different movie. But I had heard chatter about this movie and was interested to see what it was all about. And the beauty of being Empty Nesters is that we have time and space for even the terriblest of movies these days.

At the end of the movie, we looked at each other and sighed. We both agreed that we didn’t enjoy the movie. I hated the characters. The way that Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch’s character) manipulated others with his palpable and volatile anger made me feel anxious and resentful. The rest of the main characters were so intimidated and trying so hard to placate this jerk that watching them literally made me groan.

HOWEVER. I am notorious for falling asleep during movies and I stayed awake all the way through this baloney. I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie for days, and Albert and I had lots of annoyed discussions about what the hell was the point of the movie and WHAT was with the skinny dude with the kooky eyes?? So I guess this movie gave us some Type 2 Happiness.

These mixed feelings happened again recently with a movie called Lamb. But, OK, wait. Before I tell you about the movie, let’s talk about lambs.

I recently drove to Eugene to pick Audrey up for the weekend. The drive is a dull hour-and-a-half down the I-5. That is, it’s dull unless the sheep and cows are out. And at this time of year, there are LOTS of babies! Calves were wandering curiously or nursing. And the lambs were running and jumping and playing. The cuteness was practically unbearable.

My heart swelled with wonder and joy then immediately clouded over with sadness. It was lamb season because Easter was coming up. Most of these sweet babes landed on someone’s dinner table this past weekend. Why? Because Jesus is the Lamb? And Christians eat Jesus to show love and devotion? Smaller body wafers during Communion but larger roasted versions at Easter to celebrate the resurrection?

The first time I tried lamb was 1991 when Albert and I got engaged. Delicious! But I can no longer eat lamb because of my dog. You see, Ollie looks like a little lamb, and the thought of him being killed and eaten is almost making me cry right now. Look how cute.

"Please don't eat me, Mom!"

So Albert thought this movie called Lamb might be a good choice for us, because it seemed to loosely describe our relationship with Ollie. Here’s the description:

“In rural Iceland, a childless couple discover a strange and unnatural newborn in their sheep barn. They decide to raise her as their own, but sinister forces are determined to return the creature to the wilderness that birthed her.”

The movie started kind of slow. Instead of fifteen minutes of wheat shots like Power of the Dog, we watched fifteen-minute passages of snow storms. Makes sense. Because ICEland, you know? We saw little lambs being born, and then one of the little lambs gets brought into the house and treated like a little baby, just like the movie description. It was amusing, because Albert makes fun of me for treating Ollie like a baby.

BUT THEN.

We find out that the little lamb is, like, half baby-half lamb. I literally yelled out in horror. AHH! OHMYGODWHAT???? Look at this shit.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had watched the trailer which clearly shows this person-lamb with one chubby little hand and one hoofy little hoof. You can watch the creepy two-minute trailer here if you like.

Also like Power of the Dog, I couldn’t get this movie out of my head. What kind of freak thinks of these stories? Is this person-lamb creature like, A Thing in Iceland that seems so whatthefuck-like to me only because I’m not familiar with it yet? How did this creature come to be? Did the husband do the Wild Thing with an actual wild thing??

So gross. Ew. Or, more appropriately, EWE.

This movie brought new gratitudes into my life that I express daily as I sit with my little Ollie and stroke his furry, little back. “I’m so glad that you have a whole dog body! I’m so glad that you have all four little dog paws and zero thumbs!” It’s unleashed a new source of appreciation for me. And for that, I believe this movie deserves an award.

I hope you find joy this week when you least expect it.

Thank you for reading!

Best Compliment Ever

 

Did you guys miss me? For sure I was thinking about you! Last week was the first week in over two years that I have missed writing a blog post. I hope you weren’t worried. I was just feeling very tired. It was that kind of tired that makes me cry, where the thought of getting myself ready for bed is overwhelming.

You mean I have to stand up and take a shower? AND take out my contacts? AND put all the potions on my face? AND floss and brush these giant teeth? It’s all too much. I'm going to sit here and play games on my phone until my eyes start crossing instead.

Some of you know that I resigned from my bookkeeping job at the church back in February. I worked there for five years and truly loved my time there. I told them that I’d stay on through April to allow enough time to find a replacement. The New Guy seemed nice, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out that he didn’t know shit.

I am committed to the financial integrity of the church, so I gave freely of my time and energy as New Guy got his bearings. I didn’t expect him to call me almost every damned day with dopey questions, however. One day, I got 2-factor authentication notifications on my phone letting me know that someone was trying to log in with my user ID. After four notifications, I texted New Guy. Are you trying to sign in with my credentials?

You see, two months after New Guy started, I tried to help figure out what exactly was preventing him for knowing how to do things. A bunch of us got together, I logged into QuickBooks, and we all poked around for several hours. The next day New Guy worked, my user ID auto-populated, and he didn’t understand that he had to change the user ID to his own. Instead he tried over and over to use my password to log in.

Aha! Now I understand what was preventing him from knowing how to do things. Lameness. Fast forward a few weeks, and Unskilled New Guy quits. The church hasn’t had accurate financial reports since the end of March, and they asked me so sweetly whether I would be willing to come in to clean things up.

I am an excellent helper. I LOVE helping. But when I got the call, Chris was home for a two-week summer break PLUS I started a different job a while back. My experience with Unskilled Quit Guy’s work told me that putting Humpty Dumpty back together again would consume a lot of my brains and time. But I am committed to the financial integrity of the church.....

You guys, what a fricken disaster this guy made of the books in just three short months. It would have been preferable if he had just done nothing the whole time. But now I am tasked with trying to get into his head to figure out what the hell he did, undo it, then redo it the right way.

It’s like "Criminal Minds" where Agents Hotchner and Morgan put their heads together with “Baby Girl” Garcia to figure out the motives and actions of the Unsub. Except I don’t have to think like a serial killer. I just have to think like a dum dum. Fortunately that is well within my capacity.

So I’ve just been working a lot lately. Sorry I missed you last week. Even though this is a huge hassle, it feels like a compliment to be asked to come back to fix things. Just a not-the-best-circumstances kind of compliment.

Chris paid me a nice compliment recently. He went back to Philly to start his master’s program a couple of weeks ago and had called to chat. He talked about his program and was excited to finally be with his friends IRL after a whole year of being cooped up.

He started talking about a friend who has long-standing issues with her parents. Her parents do things that Chris can’t comprehend. Some are things that might seem reasonable at first glance, like paying for her own college tuition and buying her own car. The confusion arises when her parents DO pay for college tuition for her other siblings. And that car she bought? Her parents took it out of state so she can’t use it even though she’s still paying for it.

Chris went on to tell me that he didn’t understand how awful other parents could be until after he really got to know some of his friends’ parents. He told me that he never really appreciated what good parents he has because he thought that we were just “normal.”

As he ranted about the violations that had been imposed upon his friend, he interrupted himself.

Chris: “THANK YOU, by the way.”

Me: “Aw, you’re welcome. Thank you for what?”

Thank you for introducing me to vegetables early, which led me to a lifetime of healthy eating habits and a career that I am passionate about? Thank you for teaching me manners which open doors to relationships with respected and influential adult mentors? Thank you for loving me ferociously and completely so that I can blossom into the remarkable young man that I am? Well, not exactly. Chris had a different gratitude in mind.

Chris: “THANK YOU!! For not being a DICK!”

AW!! Best. Compliment. EVER!
Thank YOU guys for not being dicks, too!
I love you, my friends!

A Case of Mistaken Identity

 

Green Acres is the place to be.
Farm livin’ is the life for me.
Land spreadin’ out so far and wide.
Keep Manhattan, just gimme that countryside.

Green Acres was a TV show that ran from 1965 through 1971. My brother and I must have watched syndicated reruns, because I’m pretty sure that we weren’t watching this show when we were 2- and 4-years old. It was a sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. Eddie Albert played a successful New York attorney who moves to this shack in the country with his Hungarian wife. Albert embraces farm life, while his wife clings to city life, strolling the land in evening gowns, feather boas, and full make-up. They have a very smart pig named Arnold who is like a son to them. Very silly with lots of classic canned laughter.

Eva Gabor was famous for being an actor, but also famous for being a sister to Zsa Zsa Gabor. Eva was the put-together sister, while Zsa Zsa was a hot mess, married nine times, divorced seven times, and served three days in jail for driving without a license with an open bottle of alcohol in her Rolls Royce and slapping the police officer who pulled her over. Damn, that must be hard to be so different from you sister in everything except looks.

These are the thoughts that ran through my head this past week after my Barre class. Barre workouts are inspired by ballet, yoga, and Pilates. They are kind of mellow but I like them a lot because my butt always hurts the next day, and that is confirmation that I spent my time and money well.

Barre classes are usually done in low light, and the ballet barres line the wall, so everyone mostly faces away from each other. I rarely pay much attention to who’s in class with me unless I spot a friend. So I was surprised when a woman approached me right after class with an odd question.

She: “Are you Zsa Zsa?”

What I wanted to say: “Do I LOOK like a drunken police-slapper??”

What I actually said (with a smile, I might add): “No, I’m Lisa.”

She: “Oh, really? Because you look EXACTLY like a lady I know. I could swear it was you! Same smile and everything!”

OK, whenever anyone tells me that I look like someone else, I immediately wonder what this other person looks like. Does she look like Winnie from The Wonder Years?? A lot of people used to tell me that I look like Winnie Cooper, and that used to make me really grouchy, because I think that I am VERY MUCH more beautiful than she is.

Actually, as I searched for pictures of Danica McKellar, she’s actually very pretty, so maybe I can finally let go of this lingering anger. But being mistaken for or compared to another person really does make me wonder at how I’m perceived by other people. I was curious about this woman named Zsa Zsa. I had a friendly parting with the woman who approached me.

She: “Sorry, I just thought you were someone else.”

Me: “It’s fine.”

She: “I’m Tara, by the way.”

Me: “Nice to meet you!”

I enjoyed a shower in the locker room and was at the mirrors finishing up when Tara approached me again on her way out.

She: “I just have to tell you that I thought you were my ex-husband’s girlfriend.”

Oh, shit. This was a new one for me, but I have been married for almost 30 years and I HAVE SEEN FATAL ATTRACTION, and I am not comfortable in the girlfriend role AT ALL.

I must have looked alarmed, because Tara became very reassuring.

Me: “Oh, no!”

She: “Oh, it’s OK! You’re just so pretty and you have such a great energy, and you really look JUST like her. I was, like, what the hell, I’m just going to go up and introduce myself.”

Me: “Oh, wow, that’s SO BRAVE! You’ve never met her?”

She: “No, but she seems like a really lovely person. My kids love her.”

Me: “Holy smokes. That must have taken SO MUCH courage. I don’t know whether I would have had the nerve to do that!”

She: “It’s OK. I just wanted to tell you that.”

Me: “Thanks for telling me. Well, maybe if you ever DO see her, this will have been good practice and you won’t feel so nervous to say hello.”

Tara went on her way, and I finished up with my hair. And not even joking, the music playing in the locker room was a song called “Instagram” by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. It goes like this:

Who the hell do you think I am?
I don’t give a f*ck about your Instagram.
Listen up, ‘cause I’m not that girl.
Ain’t enough liquor in the whole wide world.

When you wonder about how others perceive you, just remember that you’re so pretty and you have great energy. And I love you, my friends! Thank you for reading!