Orange Corvette

So, I was awakened this morning by a colleague telling me that the streets around Guadalupe Schools where I work were closed, because the police were trying to apprehend a guy who had killed a cop during a traffic stop in Millard County. He had escaped and made his way to the neighborhood near our school, where he has family.

This caused problems for the school, both major and minor, and many phone calls were exchanged. I ended up having to deal with some of it while I was getting my hair cut; when I left, the stylist said, "The news says his getaway car was an orange Corvette. He shouldn't be hard to find in that, huh?" I laughed and promised that if I saw the car, I would let her know.

So, I made it to school, sneaking past the roadblock by using an alley connecting a couple of parking lots. Sure enough: as I came into the building, there was the car, parked on the street at the north end of our playground. Naturally, I called my hairdresser and left her a message: "I'm looking at the orange Corvette right now."

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, we fought to remain dignified professionals in the face of overwhelming curiosity. With each new development ("They're sending a robot over to the car!" "Why is that guy with the cell phone running away?" "I think the helicopter is landing.") we would stampede [trottrottrottrottrot] from one window to another. If the school had been a boat, we would have capsized it. At one point, I glanced toward my office window and saw a reporter hidden there, with a telephoto lens trained on the orange Corvette. He was oblivious to us, on the other side of the tinted window, but I could have opened it and handed him a sandwich. If I had wanted to. He had one.

At one point, my boss and a couple of other staff members and I went upstairs, thinking we could see more from the second floor. There is a fairly big window there, which faces out onto the playground and the Corvette. We could hear a couple of cops talking under the window, or maybe a cop talking on his radio. My boss cracked the window open, hoping to listen in. But the cop sneezed. "Bless you!" she said. Shit! We all slapped our hands over our mouths. Sure enough, footsteps under the window and a knock on the school door directly underneath us. Trottrottrot down the stairs to open the door. The police officer says, "We think you may have some schoolchildren near the upstairs window. We have snipers with high-powered rifles trained on this parking lot from every angle, so we need all the kids away from the windows." "Yes, sir, Officer, sir." "We'll take care of those kids right away." He seems to have forgotten that school had been cancelled. Or he was trying to be tactful.

Game On!

http://www.thegameondiet.com/

We're doing this at work, in teams of three; and I made it through Day One pretty well. Not a silly crash diet - this is a whole healthy lifestyle thing, but with the added incentive of competition and trash talk. I do love trash talk. So, yeah, I do have to watch what I eat, and there's an exercise element as well. Those things are actually not too difficult for me, although I am going to miss my heaping morning bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

BUT, there are rules about alcohol. Ah, shit.

And sleep. A 7-hour requirement! Every night! For me, that means in bed, lights out by midnight if I want my team to get points. I like sleep; but when am I supposed to read, bake, fix broken stuff, finish my Christmas cards (I know, I know...), clean the house or learn to use my new camera that Santa brought?

Simon likes the sleep rule. He has checked the small print carefully. It says, "In bed with the lights out." Nothing about sleeping, per se. [For Pete's sake, Si, my boobs are duct taped together and Panama is mapped in bruises on my butt and you want to WHAT?] Gosh, Si, I'd love to have sex, but I'm afraid I'm too busy peeing.

That's 'cuz of the water rule.

The water rule is the most oppressive. Three fucking liters of water a day. Lifting the water bottle to my mouth and drinking 3 liters of water is like hauling a ball and chain. It's torture. Is this really necessary? Proponents say stuff like, "Your body can burn fat more efficiently if it has plenty of water." or "Your skin will be luminous and you'll look younger." Yeah, well I drank water all day today and I do NOT look any more luminous than when I started. And I had to pee all day. I can't make it through my commute without needing to pee. I can't make it through a meeting. A phone call. A thought. The diet book dismisses this airily: "Oh, you'll get used to it." I think I was maintaining adequate hydration before, on coffee and Scotch.

Red Jello

That's what my father gasped to my older brother in the hospital today, when Charles asked, "Can you say anything? What do you need?"

Dad had a fairly major stroke this morning in church, keeling over in the choir loft. Luckily, there were four EMTs in the congregation, according to my mother. Who were mainly useful in extracting him from between/under the pews, as he was completely paralyzed at that point. Ambulance to the hospital in Berlin (Markesan is a small town - the nearest hospital is about 20 miles), then LifeFlight to Oshkosh.

[Dad's sister called me this evening; and when I told her of the day's events, she said, "Do you suppose they interrupted the service? Well, goodness, I suppose so. What a blessing he wasn't home alone, but in church, where he could pass out..in front of...all those people..." I could tell she was thinking, "Please let me die alone at home! Please let me die alone at home!"]

Medical miracles never cease. I learned that the rush was because there is a clot-busting drug which, if administered promptly after a stroke, can mitigate the damage in one out of seven cases. Geeze, I thought, when Charles phoned from the hospital with the news, 14% of cases? Not impressive, really. However, Dad was one of the lucky ones. Within minutes of the drug being administered, his speech began to clear, paralysis abated, and he got very cranky. No, he wasn't going to raise his right arm or wriggle his toes any more. He wanted to be put in a real bed and he wanted to take a nap. He's in the ICU at this moment, napping in a real bed.

I am delighted that his number did not come up today. I do think, though, that if a man's last words were"red Jello"...wouldn't that reflect a life well lived? I suppose that depends on whether he actually got the Jello.

Stout, Defined

Well, we can start with the adjective, which is how I feel. I took my fat ass with its map of Panama (still purple and black - it'll look more like Panama when it turns green, which it surely will...) to the rec center, though, and did 20 minutes on the recumbent stationary bike, which is the only form of exercise I can handle at the moment. Imagined myself sweating out the last of the anesthetic.

Then there's the noun, a bottle of which I hoisted while cooking supper. Sam Smith's, imported from the rainy isle of Great Britain. Smooth. My reward for ditching the Lortab.

Sneaking Back

I am depressed, and I can't blog. I promised myself I would start again in the new year, in an attempt to do things that make me happy again. So there.

I'm waiting.....

I'm not getting any happier...

I have wasted 20 precious minutes that I can't get back, staring at the screen. I could have been doing data entry! Or scrubbing a cupboard front! Actually, since I just got out of another surgery, I can't scrub cupboard fronts for a few days, yet. Something to look forward to.

Dr. Perfect was running late for this surgery, as always. This time his car wouldn't start. How can a fancy-pants surgeon's car not start? I always picture him swanning around in an Escalade with heated leather seats. Now, I'm envisioning him in a '78 Gremlin.

This time, he took fat from my ass to pad my bony post-mastectomy chest. Don't get too excited, ladies. No, my butt is no smaller-looking It does have bruises on it that closely resemble satellite photos of Panama.

Banishment Works

We call this the Mormon Pantry. A lot of houses in Utah have a set-aside space for big-time food storage, in keeping with LDS doctrine. Ours is a luxurious concrete room all its own in the basement, complete with customized shelving. The previous owners (who were Mormon) had this crammed to the gills with canned goods sufficient to survive the second coming. You can see that we just have some paper towels in there. Actually, this is also where we keep the beer. You just can't see it - it's around the corner. Sometimes when there's surplus ketchup, that'll go there, too.

I'm bringing this up because my kids have been skating on thin ice with me lately. Particularly with the squabbling. And the way Nathan whacks Sara. And the way she provokes him to hit her. And the mouthy stuff. And they were such cute babies...

I know a lot of this is normal sibling stuff. They are actually not as bad as my younger brother and I were. No one has suffered any blood loss, after all. Simon and his brother were also at each other's throats. But now, I'm the parent.

Other signs that my kids are on the slippery slope to Hell:

1. Nathan was playing with Sara and one of his little friends in the back yard, and Sara would not help him climb into a tree. He screamed, "YOU BITCH!!" at her. Hooo, boy. I had to send him into the house. I let his friend stay and continue playing with Sara, though, hoping that it would rankle. Then Sara went and stood under his bedroom window and threw paper airplane at it, to taunt him.
2. I had a house full of guests and did something clumsy - spilt something or dropped something. Nate said, "Can't you do anything right?!?" As Si said later, "Great. Now everyone will think that I talk to you that way!"
3. The final straw was "A Prairie Home Companion", when Garrison Keillor was describing "Why Every Parent Should Buy the Children a Kitty Cat". This is what you will get from a child who is not given the opportunity to cuddle a sweet little kitty cat. The there was a voice-over of this obnoxious, rude, foul-mouthed teenager.

Oh. My. God. And Simon is allergic to cats. So there is nothing to be done except to bring the thunder.

So, the next day when they were fighting on the way to Target, I pulled the car over (remember the crunch of gravel that meant your mom had really pulled over and you were going to GET IT?) and gave them what for. I scalded them with my searing tongue (Actually, to a grown up, that might sound kind of fun...No! Minds out of the gutter and on the task at hand.) I was mean. And I told them that there was to be no time-out in their rooms. Rooms are too fun. The next time one of them needed to be isolated from the light of humanity, exile was to be in the Mormon Pantry.

A-hah! That did it! I could see the fear in their eyes. So I added that I would not be sweeping the spiders out beforehand.

Nate whispered hoarsely, "Of all the rooms in our house, Mom, the Mormon Pantry is my least favorite."

And you know what? It worked! I am reminded of my friend Mary who told her kids all the years they were growing up that she had a wooden spoon in her purse that she would use to beat them. She managed to keep that going for about a decade.

They have been little darlings. Of course, I was waiting to prove that I was serious. Finally, Nate got carried away and smacked Sara's bum. I marched him to the Mormon Pantry and made him sit in there for 7 minutes. He sat quietly (I was a little bummed that he didn't whimper), while I waited out in the rec room.

Afterward, he declared it, "not so bad." He told Sara that it was nice to sit there and look at the soda cans. Maybe I should turn off the lights next time.

Chocolate Requires Instructions?

We were sharing a chocolate bar in the office today. Chocolate so fancy it comes with rules of engagement. We followed them to the letter. We did not want to miss out on any subtleties due to crassness or insensitivity. Here are the instructions.

Breathe...Engage your senses. Take three deep breaths, quiet the chattering mind, (Chattering mind? What chattering mind? Who has a chattering mind? Why do they want to quiet my chattering mind? Is this a death panel?) and be in the present moment. (Huh? Oh. Right.)

See... Don't be deceived by the looks of this bar - it's a milk chocolate of a new variety, blended with a bit of dark chocolate and forest green matcha to deepen the flavor and color.

Smell...Take three deep breaths. (Someone asks if two breaths would be OK. She is shouted down.) Rub your thumb on the chocolate to help release the aromas. (This also helps to melt the chocolate, and no permission to lick fingers is granted.) Inhale deeply. (This is the third time we've been admonished about our breathing. Geeze.)

Snap...Break the bar in two places. Hear a crisp, ringing pop, which indicates a well-tempered bar of chocolate. (We leaned in to hear it. It sounded like any other chocolate bar when you break it. Pretty much inaudible.)

Taste...Place a small piece (or a large one) of chocolate on your tongue and press it to the roof of your mouth. Within thirty secondss, the chocolate square will begin to melt around your tongue.(Realize that this chocolate tastes bad, and no amount of ritualizing of the experience is going to change that. Rinse it down with coffee.)