Calling in "Frozen"

This morning, like, well, some work day mornings - I was ironed and dressed, totally coiffed - I was even wearing lipstick, praise be. I was completely ready to face the day of corporate torture that lie ahead, so I packed up my laptop (and all the other crap I lug to and from the office each day) and walked out to the garage. So far so good. As per usual, I pressed the garage door opener, but instead of the expected whoosh of cold air on my face, I was welcomed with a low "grrrrr". So what does any other non-mechanically inclined girl do when something growls at her? Insist on compliance, and try again, of course! Only this time, the door did not respond kindly to my female persuasion (a.k.a "nagging"), and instead, the opener chain went kind of slack and sickly looking.

Huh. Perplexing.

So I set down my stuff, walked over to investigate, and discovered that my GARAGE DOOR WAS FROZEN TO THE GROUND. Literally. Surely, such a phenomenon is completely impossible? And surely this wasn't happening to me on a day when I set my alarm and actually planned on going in to the office instead of working at home? When I had actually IRONED?

I began to assess the situation:

• Perhaps a few kicks at the crack would do the trick? Nothing.
• Maybe if I got the shovel out and slipped it underneath in a few strategic places? No response.
• What if I shoved this small garden trowel underneath here and there? Uh uh.
• How about if I were to pour a bucket of hot water along the edge? Nada, nada, zip.

In the end, I had to call in a favor and ask for a ride (embarrassment of all embarrassment). And that was after I called my boss to say, "...you are totally not going to believe this, but the dog ate my homework and now I am totally frozen into my house."

These pictures do not do the garage door frozen-ness justice, nor to they accurately depict the frozen tundra of life we are experiencing here:

Surely, this has never happened to anyone in the history of the world? Can it really be possible that this can happen? Scientifically - is there really a possibility that the rubber lining of your garage door can FREEZE TO CONCRETE on a morning when you are actually PREPARED to go somewhere?

Evidently.

Next time you need a good excuse to get out of work, allow me to be your fib-telling inspiration.

Conversation with a Stranger

Last night, I went to dinner with some folks (yum - prime rib - not entirely "weight watchers" approved, but whatever). The food was delish, the company was great, and the restaurant PACKED. To the rim. In fact, it was so packed that people were hanging out of the windows and dangling from the rafters. So hungry were they that the smells wafting from the kitchen were turning them all into crazed, meat eating zombies.

So we finish our delightful meal, and when we were done, we were faced with a challenge of olympic proportions - how to get from the dining table to the car? Perhaps we could try the pole vault? Hmm. Not likely. Hefting our meat filled bellies up and over the throngs of drooling diners would not be pretty. What about sprinting? If we wanted to use humans for hurdles, maybe.

Tricky.

Whatever the method, getting through the crowd whilst carrying my precious leftovers would require agility and stealth, given the hoards of hungry people stuffed into every nook and cranny. And frankly - given that I am still nursing the pirate leg...I, um, have neither agility nor stealth. No, instead of launching ourselves from a circus canon midget-style, it would have to be the good old fashioned walk-through for us.

So there I was, awkwardly squishing my way through the crowd, when this cute little old lady with an underbite like a bulldog looks me in the eye and says "mwahblahhumdeda hurts."

Me: "Excuse me?"

Her: "I said your foot hurts. You're limping."

Me: (Throws back head and cackles) "Oh! I thought you said your butt hurts!"

Her: (Throws back her head and cackles) "No - I just noticed your limp."

Me: "Yeah - I just had surgery on my knee. But I misunderstood. I thought you were telling me that your butt hurts. Like you had been sitting too long or whatever. I was gonna to tell you that perhaps you ought to get up and walk around!"

Her: "Hilarious. That's great!"

Then I carried on past her, throwing 'bows in the paint, as they say, and phew. I made it safely outside.

As we were driving home, I started thinking about some of the crazy things we say to complete strangers. I mean - what if she really had looked me in the eye and told me that her ass was afflicted? How would one appropriately respond to that? Conversely, what if I had been born with one leg longer than the other, and walking with a limp was the norm for me? That would be kind of like me putting my hand out to shake hands with someone before I noticed that he had no arms*.

But happy day! There are several important things to note here:

1 - I submit to thee even more evidence that I am not the only one afflicted with word vomit syndrome, and
2 - That other than a bizarre conversation with a blue-hair, we made it through the crowd without any olympic maneuvering, and
3 - My leftover prime rib has been safely stored in the fridge for later. Phew for that, right? There were no zombies 'noshing on my goodies.

Thanks for the laugh, little old lady with the bulldog underbite. I am still cracking up.




* Not that I've ever done that, but it sounds like something I'd do - knowing me.

Top 10 Internet Searches that Led People Here

So you know that stat counter I installed here? It has this really cool trick where it details out the keyword searches people make that lead them to your page. I check it out occasionally, mostly for my own entertainment...but some of these are so great that I thought I would share. If you took the list below as an indicator of the kind of blog this was, you'd probably want to go take a shower.

I am curious what kinds of keywords are bringing in the traffic in your worlds. Homework, anyone?

10 - Homemade liposuction
9 - Public grab ass -or- What's wrong with me if I grab ass (oh man - if you have to ask, then yes, something is wrong with you - you sick pervert.)
8 - List of things to do before I die (this search was really popular at the turn of the new year)
7 - Insanity Symptoms (clearly, this would be the place to find out, right?)
6 - Ashley Jane Porn (mwahahahahaha! Ashley! Seriously - I am not making this one up.)
5 - There is sunshine in my soul today
4 - Soda causing burning when peeing (Ew.)
3 - Lyrics Jam and Bread
2 - Yoda looks like Spencer W. Kimball (I don't recall us ever discussing this here, but whatever, it's totally true.)

...and the number 1 search that leads people to my blog:

1 - Lang may yer lum reek (which translates into "Long may your chimney smoke!"...I used this as a title for one of my Scotland posts because I thought it was a cute traditional Scottish phrase...)

In Their Natural Habitat

Today would have been THE PERFECT powder ski day of life. But alas, for this little invalid, it was not meant to be. So how does one enjoy the perfect snow day when skiing is out? Why, the next best thing, of course - test out the new zoom lens on the beloved Canon. It just so happens that I had easy (and free) access to the best models ever:






Yep. No high-maintenance, stick insect model types for me. These little ladies thought that this work was really play, like they had died and gone to heaven. Perhaps I ought to invest in a whole team of huskies and start mushing? I think it might be easier on the knees.


I heart camera zoomage.

The Pirate Dance Yard Sale

Seriously, y'all. I know. All I ever talk about anymore is my stupid knee surgery.

But this is just too much - nay - too brilliantly conceived by the gods of misfortune not to share. And then of course there's also that thing where I have no pride, and I therefore have to run around and tell everyone about the stupid things I do. Whatever.

So it is with great pleasure, my friends, that I impart with you yet another embarrassing moment from my world. Aaaah. Sit back, crack open a cold beverage while the dogs lick your toes...and enjoy.

I like to call this one "The Pirate Dance Yard Sale", because, well - thanks to the ACL surgery, I currently walk like a pirate. Arrrrgh. The yard sale part, though, is a little more difficult to describe if you don't live 'round these parts. You see, when you're skiing and you eat it*, it's not uncommon for your hat or a ski(s) to fly off and go flailing past you in the heat of the moment. Maybe it's a glove or a pair of goggles that is thrown left or right...or possibly your IPod has been thrown under that tree over there. Everything is askew. And you? You lay there with snow shoved up your shirt and down your pants, staring at the clouds (or maybe those are stars you are seeing?), potentially laughing your guts out or maybe wincing in agony, when you realize that you are half naked and missing your tunes. Then it hits you - you have fallen victim to the "YARD SALE". Everything must go.

I'm guessing that the ski gods must have been feeling sorry for me since I am out for the season-o-ski-a-licious-ness, so they cooked up a little hors doeuvre - a wee morsel - for me to taste so that I don't forget what being cold and wet and half naked feels like...or maybe they just needed a little fuel for their cold, black hearts. I wish I knew. But the other day, whilst getting out of my car in my work parking lot, one of those trickster type ski gods decided it would be funny to SLIDE A FREAKING ORANGE CONSTRUCTION CONE right under my feet. Where I wouldn't see it. You know, it being ORANGE and NEON and 2 FEET TALL and RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE and all (except that actually, I walked backwards into it and then over it. Graceful.).

The resulting mayhem may have looked something like this:

Imagine - in slow-motion: as I am falling, I utter the loudest, most guttural, unnatural sound from my very core, until kerplunk! There I lay, on the cold, frozen tundra of handicapped asphalt...belongings everywhere, ego (and potentially my newly built ligament) damaged beyond repair.

Until it hits me - if I were on the slopes, it is a safe bet that I would be doing the exact same thing.

Ego-shmego. Whatever. I'll be your court jester.

*The technical term for a really bad crash, the kind where you definitely do not look like you have the gracefulness of a ballerina in a tutu.

Contest: Who Has the Best Job?

Today, during a particularly bloody conference call, a thought occurred to me. So of course, being the addict to instant messaging that I am, I shared it with my whole team...and now, I share it with you to make you all feel better about your own jobs. See how obliging I am? Just consider this post the next chapter in my upcoming self-help book. Or whatever.

Me: This project is like being dragged naked behind a horse through a rodeo arena full of poo while the clients stand above beating us with sticks. And there are man eating rodent's nipping at our wounds, and vultures hovering in circles overhead waiting for us TO DIE AND GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY SO THEY CAN HAVE LUNCH.

Colleague: Is that good naked or bad naked?? If it's good, I'm game. :)

Me: Ew! Any naked in front of your co-workers is bad. Do you really want to know what "so-and-so" looks like without clothes? Gah! Excuse me whilst I go poke out my mind's eye.

Moral(s) of the story: If you have never felt like this at your job, you win the "Who has the best job?" contest. And also, seeing your co-workers naked would be ill advised. The mental images you might conjure up in future business settings might not be good.

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours...

Ahem. I mean my knee, you perverts. Get up out of the gutter and onto the curb with me, y'all.

So presenting...ta da! My ACL reconstruction. This is what it looks like when you have such pleasantness performed on your knee. If you are like my sister, you could look at this for hours because the human body fascinates you. Me, on the other hand? Yeah. Looking at this is about as bad as that one time that I was watching "Fear Factor", and the contestants had to eat a PIG UTERUS. Shall I repeat that? A PIG UTERUS. For $50,000. And I am sorry, but 50 grand is just not enough to get me to choke something like that down.

But again. There I go with my forte', the digressing. And the dry-heaving. Which is not something I am really good with, as my previous sentence suggests, but whatever.

But since I don't want to be the only one retching all over the place, I thought I would share photos of my surgery with you, my favorite internet friends. Admit it - this is the post you have been waiting on the edge of your seats for!

So from what I have been able to glean from my physical therapists, the process was something this: the surgeons make about a 2 inch incision in the front of your calf, shove a 6-7 inch pipe into it (and around and then up) into the backside of your thigh, and somehow cut one of your hamstrings out (why they don't just start from the backside in the first place is beyond me). Then they have to DRILL HOLES into your femur and your tibia, and once that is done, they lace your newly extracted hamstring up (and around and through) like it is a running shoe, screw it down, and voila! You get this:

That's yummy. I think the shots on the bottom are supposed to represent the lack of a functioning ACL, and the ones on top show the actual threading of the old hammie (aka new ACL).

Now go and eat a sandwich or something really excellent without recalling that loveliness.

The other day I received a summary of the charges from my insurance. Some of these make my teeth hurt, and some of them were just plain lame:

• Water (for injection) - $20.62. For water. I hope it was blessed and holy or came from the fountain of youth for that price, but whatever;
• Endoscopic Drill Bit - $171.51 (do you think that DeWalt makes these for the medical world?);
• Blade Abrader - $171.51 (what the hell is that? It sounds scary.);
• Blade Bone Cutter - $286.18 (OMG! A bone cutter?)
• Pin Passing Drill - $171.51 (the thought of which makes me want to pass out);
• Post Fixation - $171.51 (I am guessing this is where the screw comes in?); and finally -
• Gait Training - $57.25, which consisted of a guy spending about 2 minutes with me after surgery (while I was still under the influence of morphine) showing me how to use crutches. Brilliant time to work in a little training. And do you think that's his hourly rate?

I'm such a pansy! The good news is that I can walk again, and even bend a little, even though I think I am turning into a transformer (thanks to my unruly leg brace). I even suspect the brace manufacturers may have put a tag on the inside that says "One size fits none". Must investigate this.

Do I sound like I am whining? THAT'S BECAUSE I AM. Because today, I am not here, skiing:

Just kidding! I am doing really well, and just ready to be back to normal. Thanks to all of you who keep asking.

Pictures Worth Eleventy Thousand Words (To Me, Anyway).

A few days ago marked the 23rd anniversary of the day I watched my grandpa suffer a stroke. He was just standing there - reaching into the cupboard at the top of the stairs, when he started slurring his words into a mish mash of confusing gibberish. I was 10, but even then I could tell something was wrong. That was one of the first brushes I had with mortality; the knowledge that my grandparents wouldn't be around forever...and that's a hard pill to swallow when you are 10, right?

I guess that it is partly this "impression of mortality" that fuels this fire in me to know more about my family. I often find myself asking what kind of people my grandparents were when they were my age. Were they at all like me (heaven help them)? Did they have an interest in politics, and did they ever think they would see the day when a black man and a woman were racing toward the White House door? Did they want to travel far and wide? Or was the thought of Africa and Europe or anything outside a 50 mile radius from home just completely unimaginable to them? How about technology - were they as intrigued with it as I am? Where today we have the IPhone and the MP3 player and space travel and major medical processes that were completely and utterly unheard of then ... well, they had the horse and buggy and then the car, and electricity and indoor plumbing, telephones and the Great Depression and war with Hitler and wow! Say all of that fast 5 times. And then think of more.

I am constantly looking for bits of myself in the members of my family. Why is it that I have no filters? Or how come I am so stubborn? Maybe so-and-so was afflicted with that too. I've proven that I am prone to sticking my foot in my mouth - did he-or-she-or-whosit-who have an issue with that as well? How come the girls in my family are so independent? Maybe it can be attributed to the fact that what's-her-name had to raise all of her kids alone, and she passed her "grit" down through the ages? Maybe I inherited all of my weird neurosis, or maybe they are all the result of my social experiences, who knows. It's still fun to try and see myself in them - I'm totally learning that understanding your heritage can explain more about the person you are today.

So perhaps I should get to the point - my first "user review", so to speak, of a website and a product, with a little sentimentality thrown in for good measure.

The Sentimental Part

Sometime this fall, I found hundreds of EXTRAORDINARY photos in my basement (extraordinary to me, anyway), and I decided that I needed to do something with them. It seemed sad that they were just rotting in a box instead of being displayed in all of their glory. So I decided that everyone in my family was getting copies for Christmas, and a little subterfuge that I refer to as "the project" was borne.

I started scanning and photoshopping pictures by the bajillions, removing scratches, changing contrast, fixing missing pixels, whatever. I even recreated a couple of badly preserved faces (oh photoshop! How I love thee!). I cannot even begin to describe to you how amazing it was. All sorts of questions started boiling to the surface - what was it like to be in the South Pacific during the war? How did my grandma do it with a new baby and a husband gone to war? Who were some of the people smiling back at me? Why didn't I do this while they were alive so that I could ask?

Then I took a few of my favorites and put them into a book for Christmas gifts. It's bound in leather, printed on nice, thick paper...fabulous, really, if I do say so myself. I had no idea I was such a sucker for preservation - but then, I have always loved old people, and anything that speaks to what our society was like way-back-when.

The Review Part

I ended up using mypublisher.com, although I am not sure I would recommend it. Here's the low down:

The Good -
Their concept is really cool - they have this software that you download to your PC and you create your whole book there (which is great, because that way you don't have to upload all of your pictures and worry about whether you have an internet connection while you work), and then once you have put the finishing touches on things, you upload the whole package one time, order as many copies as you need, and PRESTO! You have your book.

The Bad -
One problem is that their software is buggy. It doesn't work consistently throughout - sometimes you can resize/change your text, sometimes you can't. Or clicking on something on one page doesn't result in the same thing when you do it on another page. This all really, really irritates me, because in the world of software development, user acceptance testing is just not that hard...and they clearly didn't spend enough time working out their kinks. Secondly - I was able to upload and order a finished book using a template that THEY KNEW didn't work (I found out later). This is breaking the first rule of quality - they created 5 books with known errors, which caused me much heartburn and dissatisfaction, and doubled their own fulfillment cost (since they had to replace them all for free). For shame! Seriously. Whatever. Plus, I wasn't even sure I was going to get them all before Christmas thanks to the inevitable mail crunch. Scary! My fingernails are chewed down to nubbins thanks to them, even if they did make it right in the end.

The Ugly -
This is the icing on the cake. MyPublisher.com DOES NOT HAVE A CALL CENTER FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. Can you believe that? This is 2008, people! You can't expect customers to be happy if they can't call you - but that is even doubly true when they have a valid reason to rip your head off. Instead of pleasant phone service, customers have to send an email into a giant black hole and hope they get a response. After spending a bajillion dollars on their product in the first place. It's the kind of moment you have when you think, "Well, I guess I shoulda just flushed $500 bucks down the freakin' toilet." I hate it when that happens. That's a horrendous user experience considering the investment.

Sigh.

Other people I know have used Shutterfly and seem to love it. I may try that instead next.

One thing is for sure - I'm gonna keep making more and more books, and probably always thinking of new questions to ask that I never did...or learning new things about myself. I recommend that EVERYONE should undertake their own version of "The Project" - especially if you still have access to the faces staring back at you from each picture.

Just don't use mypublisher.