Now Norma Knits

59. This is a Fun Game! Really.

On this strange day that should be the last day of February, but isn't, I'm reaching deep into the well now, folks -- the well of creativity, it's running dry. But when I was reading blogs an idea popped into my head that I thought would be fun to try. I'm going to visit some of my usual reads and lift a line from each one. Let's see where it takes us, shall we?  I'm not going to identify the blogs, because all those links could do me in after a long day at work and the gym. So let's see if you can recognize your own writing, or someone else's. Tell us in the comments what you recognize. 

1. I'm sorry, but there is never a time when burning people alive is the right answer.
2. Nothing makes me start eating healthy again like being sick.
3. Reminiscent of Cookie Monster or some other such Muppet, I’ve woven this sample with leftover placemat warp.
4. i try not to gloat too often.
5. And then I was killed in the middle of the day at SPA!
6. In my perpetual quest for The Perfect Ass, I came across this.
7. The tulips in my garden are only just starting to peek their little leaf tips out of the ground, so it will be quite a while before I have tulips in the yard.
8. You can see I made the sweater long enough to cover my rear.
9. Now, blocking is not one of my favorite things to do.
10. Due to circumstances beyond my control (chocolate monkeys) the poor husband had to wait around until this week to see any progress.
11. Without them, I'd sleep away my days and talk to myself more than necessary.
12. If you could see what size it is, that wouldn't impress you.
13. Everytime I pull this out of my project bag, I think how much I like the color and the pattern, so why haven't I finished it?
14. Neither one of us can walk by it without stopping and going in and just standing there feeling the color.
15. Knitting? What knitting?
16. They’re watching NASCAR, and teaching my godson Levi to be all manner of redneck.
17. Yikes, I couldn't watch; he adjusted her alright.
18. Step back or you'll get burned by my crazy hot streak.
19. Clearly, this is the sort of woman who believes that making a toddler pull a plow through a cotton field builds character.
20. He did say that we were not the scariest group he’d ever had, but admitted we were close.
21. I guess I know where she gets her ditziness from after all!
22. I, like you, have only the tools of  begging, suggestion and bribery at my disposal.
23. I have spent the entire morning in a tizzy.
24. I have been gazing up at the sky for as long as I have had a neck.
25. It really looks like someone purposely took off his pants before boarding the train.
26. Hmm, a Bachelor of Arts diploma from my alma mater in International Relations.
27. If I had the ingredients handy, I’d be baking little cakes right now instead of knitting.
28. It is the process (it is!) and the process continues (albeit a little behind schedule).
29. When you have committed yourself to posting every effing day regularly, finding new ideas or themes to help things along is always a good thing.
30. I seem to have lost it, along with mojo and enthusiasm, inspiration and some pluck.
31. If, on the other hand, you've been waiting impatiently to see this slide show of garments knitted for stuffed animals, figurines, and taxidermy, well, you're just nuts.
32. It is, apparently, entirely possible to love New York and leave it.
33. I immediately started looking desperately around for a Slow Down button or a Stop button and couldn’t find either so I just kept chugging slowly, painfully away, unable to stop.
34. Bonus Visual Question:  I didn't knit this, but someone in blogland did.  Who?

58. Random Wednesday

1.  This is only the second time since November 1st that I have not had at least one post prewritten, and I had to come up with something on Tuesday evening for Wednesday. It must, therefore, be time for a Random Wednesday post.

2.  This is the 1,227th post in this blog.  I am too lazy to go back into my prehistoric blog to find out how many entries I wrote in that one before switching to this one in fairly short order.  The number 18 sticks in my head, so maybe that's it.

2.a)  I used to be phenomenally good with remembering numbers.  Heard a phone number once, knew it forever.  Your Social Security number?  Ditto.  Driver's license number?  Yep. Your address? Yeah. Account number?  Uh-huh. (This was tested recently. I had not ordered anything from a court reporting supply company for approximately, oh, 15 years.  I recently had to order something from them. The lady on the phone taking my order asked me my account number.  I hesitated for a second, then I said, "It might be..." I remembered it. Freaked me out a little bit.)  Now I can't even remember my own cell phone number. (Well, that's a bit of hyperbole, but not by much.  My brain done got all full up, apparently.  Or I stopped trying.  I think that's it. Also, things have gotten too easy.  There are cell phone numbers I "dial" every day.  But I don't dial them.  I hit "send," and it's all remembered for me. I don't need to remember them, so I don't.  I've almost never seen the number, so I have no way of remembering it. I sometimes worry, "What if I lose my phone?  I won't have ANY IDEA how to call this person."  It's those little worries that will be the death of me someday, I'm convinced.)

3.  Since I've been working out in the gym and weight-training in earnest, my appetite has moved from healthy to RAVENOUS. Consequently, I have put on four pounds. I'm not too worried about this, because I know if I want to, I can do something about it, muscle weighs more than fat, it's mostly in my butt, which was flat and needed a little oomph anyway, yadda-blabbity-yadda. I'll start tomorrow. Right now, I'm hungry.

4.  I've noticed that quite a few of my high school classmates work out at the same gym I do.  They look old.

5.  I've recently learned the interesting fact that some people's pet peeve is the fact that people have pet peeves. This was as illuminating to me as the time when we realized in this blog together that the legal term "term of art" is really itself a legal term of art.  How fascinating are circular things like that, hm?

6.  Everyone in little Vermont is excited that this year is the first year in the history of recorded time that the results of the presidential primary election here could actually make a difference. Usually by the time our primary rolls around, it's quite the moot point. We matter! We really, really MATTER! It's like Horton Hears a Who all over again.

7.  I just logged into Ravelry, and 1,526 people were logged in.  Huge!

8.  There are 259 feeds on my Bloglines list. I don't always almost never read them all, and thank goodness they don't all update every day. An admission: I also sometimes just click "mark all read."  I think it's time for the periodic trim-down, huh?

9.  While waiting for a class on Monday, I saw a guy doing a Rubik's cube.  He was pretty good.  All the girls were staring at him.

10.  I saw a student walk out of a class wearing a commercially made hat that was EXACTLY the same as the Snowball hat I made for Abigail.  Exactly the same pattern, and with no pompom, but clearly not hand-knit.  Did I mention EXACTLY the same pattern?

11.  I'm going to sell off some more of my stash.  Paring down is a part of my master plan.

12.  I just ordered 8 more skeins of Noro Silk Garden. I realize this makes No. 11 sort of a hollow gesture. 

13.  We're in the midst of another bear of a snowstorm.  Yesterday Xianglian said, "I hope this will be the last storm of the year.  Do you think it will be?"  I said, "NO!"  And at exactly the same time she said, "It's already the end of February," another student and I said in stereo, "It's ONLY the end of February!"  May, baby.  That's when we can be almost sure the snow is over for the season.  Almost. Maybe. 

14. Since I started using Catalog Choice, it seems like I'm getting more catalogs than ever.  Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive about it.

15. I did that silly quiz that says what year you belong in.  It said 1965 for me. 

In February of 1965, I had a newborn to take care of. In fact, it's quite spooky that I went looking for a 1965 picture TODAY.  I'm guessing this was taken EXACTLY (within a week, literally) 43 years ago.  Gail's birthday is February 18th. Freaky. She weighed 10 lb., 9 oz. when she was born, which in those days was quite something. See what I mean? Numbers. How should I know that? I was five, for fucksake.

I did look quite happy, though, did I not? (That's me on the left, in case you didn't recognize me.)  According to the quiz, that's when life basically stopped for me. (Well, NO, it does NOT SAY THAT. It says "what year do you belong in."  Tell me to get over myself!)

Within a few months of this, my father died and my life became very different indeed. This is, I believe, the last recorded (and actual) smile on my face for many a year to come.  As in, almost two decades.

OK, that was much more random and weird than I intended. I had no idea this post was going to develop a life of its own.  Sorry.  But it did, and it's staying put.

16.  There is a cool new tool called "matte" in Flickr toys.  That's what I used around that photo, and it made it look so much more fabulous than it did originally. 

57. U is for Ubiquitous. Oh, Wait. We're Not On U Yet.

Between the mopey Saturday and the Academy Awards on Sunday, I was able to finish the next Noro Silk Garden striped scarf to add to the ever-expanding sea of Noro striped scarves in the knittiverse. If we laid them all end to end, I wonder how far we'd reach.

This one definitely IS my favorite.  So far. 

Noro Silk Garden Colors 267 and 255 -- Heathery and soft and subtle, a clever and unexpected mix of warm and cool colors. How good is Noro about that? Nobody does color the way Noro does color; I know I've said that before.

I cast off when the scarf reached 66 inches. There's a little bit of each skein left. I wore it yesterday, and it was good.  It was GREAT.  But I like my scarves lonnnng, so I wish I'd kept knitting for a while longer. I might just add some to it, but probably not, now that I think about it.  It's done.  Onward and upward, right?

It's a good thing it's done, too, because I seem to have misplaced the one I wore most of the winter. Hopefully it's only a temporary loss, but if not, I like this one even better anyway, and I think it's more flattering against my skin tones.  And there is still plenty of winter left here for wearing it. Another doozy of a snowstorm is supposedly in the works for today and tomorrow.

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And look! Isn't the Internet grand?  Your CHEEZ questions answered, and answered and answered some more:

The winner for most politically provocative cheese name goes to the Barick Obama. The cheese is square (or brick as the name states) in shape, and is both a washed curd, and washed rind cheese. After whey is drained from the curd, it is rinsed with water. This both increases the cheese's moisture, and makes it less tart. Next the rind is washed to bring out the earthy flavor in the cheese, nicely supplementing its natural vegetal character.

~DiBruno

(see my post yesterday if you don't know what I mean about the cheese)  And I gotta tell you:  That cheese is STINKY.  It's delicious, but it is most definitely stinky.  I didn't realize that that is what was stinking up my car when I first had it in there.  Then it was stinking up my refrigerator.  Then I read the above articles and a few other things that talk about how stinky it is.  So last night I opened it, and nearly got bowled over.  It was truly delicious, but wow.  Stinky.  Too bad we're not yet at S in the ABC-Along.  I'm afraid to know what I'm going to smell like  tomorrow.

56. Glimpses Into My Personal Correspondence

Dear Cara:

I'm so sorry I missed your surprise baby shower on Saturday. I keep hearing what a wonderful party Ann put on, and now I'm even more super-sad that I missed it and missed seeing all you fun people. I moped all day Saturday.

Well, anyway, here's something you would have opened had the storm not kept me from getting there:

Don't worry, you would not have had to FAKE-exclaim delight. They would not have looked like those big shapeless blobs.  That's the way they looked pre-felting. (cell phone in photo for scale) 

I showed the first completed one in my blog the other day:

...and nobody guessed what it was.  I don't know why.

But isn't felting marvelous?  I wish I could transform my face and body as easily as I can transform a felted item. Just stick me in the bath, whirl me around, give me some hot agitation and friction for a few minutes (stop that), and out would pop a new, shapely, firm, smooth version. But I digress. This is not only about me.  It's also about you and That Baby to Be.

This is more like how they would have looked when you actually opened them.

Cute, hm?  (See the cell phone hiding under that one in the first picture? See how much the little boot shrunk and firmed and shaped up?) They make me think of felted galoshes. Don't let the babe splash too much in mud-puddles with them, though -- wool gets wet! 

Well, I know how you feel superstitious about having baby items in the house before the baby arrives, so I'll wait and send these after.  Hope you had a good time at the shower even without me and got loads of nice gifts.

Love,

Norma

P.S.  They are called "Fat Baby Booties," designed by Bev Galeskas.  The pattern was in Interweave Felt, Special Issue 2007, and I'm told they also appear in her book, Felted Knits.  It's an absolutely brilliant pattern. I was heard to exclaim and known to write to my friends several times during the knitting of these, "Boy-man, I have nothing but respect for these designers, I tell ya.  How do they know how to turn plain knitting stitches into three-dimensional objects? How do they do this?! Totally brill." 

I used Patons Classic Merino wool, and I knitted the medium infant size. It took three goes through the washing machine to get them felted the way I wanted them.

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Dear Sandy:

I spent all day Saturday moping around because I could not make it to your house Friday night on the way to our little planned adventure to go to Cara's shower on Saturday. Frickin' weather. I must be building up some seriously good future traveling karma is all I can say. 

Well, here are photos of part of what I was going to bring to share with you Friday night, each carefully chosen because, well, it's all from Vermont, but also because of each one's name.

Our favorite.  Because we dream of being cave-dwellers.  I can tell you, since I ate a lot of it this weekend, that it's damn good cheese, too.

No knitter's selection of artisanal cheeses is complete without a shepherd's cheese.

In Vermont, a Champlain Triple is even better than a Champlain Double.  All right, we won't go there. I know how this subject makes you uncomfortable.

In Vermont, companies don't shy away from getting political. Surprised?

So how did I spend my mopey Saturday?  Well, I moped, silly.  I went for a mopey workout, I knitted mopily, I steeped myself mopily in k.d. lang and Nora Jones, and then I mopily ate cave-dweller's cheese and drank smoky wine while having a date with George Clooney.  After that, I stopped moping. George will improve my mood every time.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. Sometimes a good mope is good medicine. But I missed ya wicked.

Love,
Norma

55. Not An Infomercial

Gagzh, I apologize for what I'm about to write for sounding like an infomercial, but in my emails responding to several of the comments about comments and blog-hosting problems the other day, I really did start to sound like an infomercial for Typepad, and here I am doing it again.  I'm sorry, and I sort of hate myself for it.  But when people say, "I have no choice but to use Blogspot's nonexistent comment system," or "My blog host doesn't email comments to me, and until I can afford to switch to another host...."  etc., I feel I must just go out on a limb and say this:

Typepad's basic service is $4.95 a month, with two months free if you pay for a whole year. So $49.50 for a whole YEAR, working out to $4.12+/- (okay, so say $4.13) a month. That is all-inclusive:  No outside comment hosting.  Comments emailed to you with a nifty subject line and easy way to respond to your comments should you choose.  Unlimited photo albums. No outside host needed to host your photos and slow everything down. (But should you choose to use Flickr or whatever, you can.) No complicated melding of two or three or four different platforms. No upgrades or add-ons to be responsible for.  When they upgrade, most of the time we don't even know it.  They do it in the middle of the night and they republish everybody's blogs for them when that happens.   They give us a notice that they will be down for service between some certain hours in the middle of the night, and it usually doesn't affect us in the least. It may affect some readers or bloggers in Moscow or Japan or Australia, I suppose, for a limited period of time. Once in a while there is a glitch, and they have been down once or twice, but in the four years I've used it, it has been practically 100% problem-free.  That's pretty damn remarkable, I think.  I can't claim to compete with that level of perfection in my personal life, my work, or my hobbies -- can you?

If you want a couple of extra features, such as having more than one blog and the ability to prewrite and time the posts ahead, then you might want to upgrade to the next level, which is $8.95 a month or $89.50 a year. 

I have the "Pro" level, which is $14.95 a month or $149.50 a year. With my usage, I probably should be on the next-higher level, but Typepad has never clamped down on my bandwidth or anything of the kind.  They've never threatened to shut me down because of over-usage.  Nothing.    I actually keep wondering when they are going to clamp down on that loophole, and I've run over my bandwidth for so many years I almost feel guilty. 

In fact, my upgrade to the Pro level was VOLUNTARY because I felt guilty overusing it so much.  But they never, ever pressured me. I even wrote them and asked them about my double- or triple- over-usage of the monthly allowance, and wondered if something would happen to me like I'd heard other bloggers say had happened to them -- that they woke up one morning to find their blog shut down because they had gone over their bandwidth allowance. They wrote back saying that at this time (it was over two years ago), they were not going to be policing that, until they could come up with a reasonably priced alternative to offer their customers. 

I think they are pretty nifty folks. (I should probably shut my big mouth, because by writing this, I'm probably bringing this error in business practice to the attention of their Board of Directors and screwing us all, but I'm going ahead and saying it anyway.)  I'm still pissed that we don't have a rich text centering button, but I can live without it considering all the other goodness that is Typepad.  I have now four blogs running (the Red Scarf and Magic 28 ones aren't that heavily used, but if I wanted them to be, they could be) and several photo albums.  It's super-easy to upload stuff to the albums, super-easy to make links and stuff in the sidebar, and super-easy to upload photos in the blog, with several built-in options for how the photos appear -- left of the text, right of the text, at the top, just where your cursor is, etc., and what size, and whether you want a pop-up window that is clickable to show a larger photo.  This is all done with a click-check of boxes.  There is no code to put in for any of this. I'm so used to having my photos (and those of other TP users) clickable for larger, that I'm always surprised when I click on a photo in another blog and it either does nothing or it has a big delay and then brings me to the same-sized photo in Flickr. 

At $11-something a month, I consider it a pretty cheap hobby and of course it is none of my business (so you don't have to tell me that it's none of my business, because I already know), but I wonder why wouldn't someone consider spending $4.13 a month if they're going to bother to blog? I know free is cheaper than $4.13 (I studied economics once), but not that much cheaper. (I got an A.)  I'm being gratuitously obnoxious.  (This you already knew.)

I wonder even MORE OFTEN, why would someone bother to spend money on ANY service that requires outside hosting of things like comments and photos and requires doing upgrades that screw up everything from time to time, and all other kinds of headaches like all that coding and piecing together various elements and stuff. I'm sure I'm missing something.

Now, if Typepad sends me some sort of kickback for this unintended infomercial, I'll be sure to let you know. Typepad, if you're reading, I'll just be happy to have my rich text centering button, but if you want to send a kickback, I wouldn't mind that, either. I'm no dope.

54. Curses! Foiled Again!

This was supposed to be the first of a few posts I was writing from the road.  Beverly, Massachusetts, to be exact.  But nooo-o.  Picture me stomping my feet and yelling, "Life is NOT FAIR."  Because that is exactly what I'm doing.

Travel and I just don't seem to be getting along this winter.  Yesterday I was supposed to be driving down to spend the night with Sandy, then the two of us were headed out on an adventure even a little farther south after that. We did wonder why we were only going a little bit south and not the Caribbean.  Perhaps that idle wondering was what did us in, because THEN THE WEATHER HAPPENED.

And the roads were nasty.  And .....

Sigh. 

After I made the final decision to not risk traveling after my class in Burlington, and before I started home, Abigail sent me a text message to say that a semi truck had jackknifed on my exit ramp, so I should consider an alternate route.  That I did, but it probably wasn't what she had in mind by "alternate route."  It involved staying in Burlington 'til they had the accident cleared up.  I stayed for a leisurely lunch, a coffee, liqueur-soaked-enrobed-in-dark-chocolate dried cherries, and a trip to the mall to look for earrings to complement my Best and Favorite Necklace, the silver-and-beach-stone one that I mentioned a few weeks ago. 

I got two pairs, neither of which are exactly what I envisioned, but they'll do until I get what I really would like. I'd like the lines of the earrings to be more like the lines of the pendant. There was something there that sort of resembled what I was looking for, but they were a bit too heavy for my poor little delicate earlobes. I may or may not have mentioned that the reason I had my ears repierced is because the original holes had all but ripped through the bottom due to having been pierced too low on the lobes originally (having used a sewing needle -- don't ask) and due to my super-delicate skin and probably wearing wire earrings too much.  So I'm sort of limited for a while to lightweight post earrings until the new holes get well established.  I look at it as a new adventure, and an excuse to buy new earrings. 

I told the lady at the little jewelry cart where I shopped that these were my consolation prize for disappointment over a canceled trip.  She said, "Awwwwwwww, I'm so glad WE are your consolation prize."  Heh.  I do try to hate people, but sometimes they really are sweet. 

53. D is for Dictionary

My unabridged. Those two words just about give me goosebumps. No, no, you don't need to send the men in white coats, but I have always had a rather unnatural affection towards my dictionaries. I have collected them since before high school. I of course have a medical and a legal dictionary.  I have one on firearms, I have some on prescription and non-prescription and street drugs, and slang and jargon in various fields.  All of these things were essential tools for a court reporter.  I have a Latin dictionary and a Spanish and a French and three or four British dictionaries.  One favorite is called "British English, A to Zed."  I've stopped buying them because everything, and I do mean everything, is so easily available online now. The end of an era. It's rather sad, but I am also a pragmatist. The well-loved and well-used unabridged dictionary in the photo was published in 1996, and it's outdated already.  It might be the last one I ever buy, although things change, and I've probably got another 50 years to live, so never, ever say never.  But readers take note:  If I meet an untimely death, please try to make sure that I'm buried with my dictionaries.  Deal? 

(Is anyone else getting the feeling that M is going to be for mosaic? I do seem to love that little Flickr tool that is found here.) 

52. Jeezy Creezy. A Rant About Comments

First off, a little update on the eyes:  Thanks so much for all your comments -- the good, the bad, and the ugly about your experiences and opinions about the laser stuff.  I appreciate it -- it was helping me formulate ideas and start to make decisions, BUT:  I had a message on the phone when I got home from work yesterday that they don't recommend surgery on my eyes "based on my numbers."  I always knew I was special.  Either that, or someone in their office reads my blog and said, "Don't go near that Norma lunatic with a 10-foot pole!"   Either way, I think I'm actually relieved.  :)

So, onward and upward?  You decide:

It's so unlike me to get involved in controversy and say what I think, so I know this will come as quite the shock to you:  I'm going to share some pet peeves with you.  It has to do with blog comments.  I know this will strike some nerves in not such a good way, but I'm going to say it anyway.  I'm thinking that maybe people might not realize what might be slightly annoying to others about the practice of dealing with comments, so therefore we ought to air some of them. Maybe it's just me who's annoyed, and y'all can tell me to fuck off.  But we have long established that our blogs are not democracies and they are our places to air our peeves.  Right?  Or am I out in left field again?

Well, if I am out in left field, I'm just gonna cut to the chase and dive right into the deep end anyway. Let me see if I can mix up some more metaphors while I'm at it.

Nah. Fuggedaboudit.  It's been so overdone.

In no particular order, here are a few things I'm not fond of about the way some bloggers handle comments. 

1. Contrary to what this dude says, I don't like it when you answer me in your own comments. That puts the onus on me to come back to your blog, which, since I write and manage my own blog and read and comment on 260ish blogs on a fairly regular basis, is a rather burdensome task - even at the speed at which I read and type. (Thank goodness not everyone updates every day.) His reasons for doing so are to, he says, "have a conversation," but I think he really means to say it helps to pad one's own comments. 

I know some people don't do it for that reason -- they are doing it for their own ease and as a time management technique for managing their own blog.  I get that -- I really do.  I just don't like it from my perspective as an active commenter. There is one notable exception I make to this rule, and that is only because I have a longstanding relationship with that blogger and I was a reader and commenter on that blog long before many others and long before my own blog became well established. Old habits and fondnesses die hard.

On the day not long ago that Deb discussed this, I must admit I kept going back to read what was going on over there, and it began quite the tete-a-tete between me and that guy in HER comments. He opined that having private email conversations with your commenters is rude to the others, to which I took quite a bit of umbrage, as you can imagine. He said that comments should be open to everybody to know what everybody else is saying. Umbrage, umbrage. I feel he, like the rest of blogworld, totally doesn't get us and how interactive we are.  Me getting sucked into that ridiculous string ate up my whole fucking day, and by the end of it, I was no longer amused.  He maintained that if I'd subscribed to emails of the feeds, it would have only eaten up HALF my fucking day, because all the emails would have been there clogging up in my email box for my convenience, so I wouldn't have to keep clicking over there if I didn't want to.  Love that logic. 

(He must be forgiven, though, because he's relatively new at this compared to us, and he's a "pro" blogger, which means he, unlike me, gets paid to blog. Clearly I'm doing something wrong.)

He advocates those follow-up emails to comments on other people's blogs to follow the comment threads. When I told him I already had all the email I could deal with and had enough to respond to my own comments and read and comment on all the blogs I interact with, without also monitoring everybody else's comments, he informed me that I needed to get out of this nightmare I was creating for myself and subscribe to a feed-reader.  Hahaha.  You mean like the ones I've subscribed to since the beginning of blog time?  (Bloglines and Google Reader)  I won't rehash all that happened in there. You can go read it yourself if you want a chuckle.  In the end, we succeeded in educating him that we are not a bunch of dumb bunnies, us knitbloggers, and since he's a Canadian and was beginning to get a bit bowled over by our numbers and our tech-savvy and our numbers of commenters and our unique ways of interacting with each other, Deb sent him, for one last dose of mind-boggling, to the Harlot's site, just for kicks.

2.  Save yourself the finger-work and the "ink" by not bothering to send me an email that says something to the effect of "Thanks, Norma!"  to my little comment.  I already know you appreciate the comment -- I'm a blogger, remember?  I LOVE my comments and my commenters -- I know we all do. I try to respond to most of them, but nowadays I can't. I feel that to open an email that just says, "Thanks, Norma!" or "Haha!" is, well, kind of like opening a Christmas present that's empty.  It's not worth wasting the paper and ribbon.  I know you appreciate the comment.  If you want to write me something, I love that -- you know that -- but honestly, it's kind of unnecessary to just say, "Thanks, Norma!"  Should I then write back and say, "You're welcome, Chrissy!"  Then you'd write back and say, "Don't mention it, Norma!"  Then, "It's my pleasure, Chrissy!"  "You're too kind, Norma!"  "No, you are!" "You!"  "No, YOU!"  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz konk.

3. If you answer a comment, please include the text of the original comment. If I get an email from you that has the subject line, "Your Comment," and no date of the entry and no topic, and you say something vague like, "Yes, I agree with what you said.  I didn't know so many people would be interested in that when I wrote it," especially if you respond to your comments several days after it was posted, I will more than likely have NO IDEA what you are talking about.  I then will become totally vexed, and you know what that can lead to. Me vexed = never pretty. If you do that, it's really not so different than just not having responded to my comment, so you might as well not bother.

4. This does not apply to any of us who are regular readers or bloggers, but it's a peeve anyway.  This happens on ancient entries and it's very clear it's done by people who are extremely new to the internet (is that possible anymore???? but yet it is!) and even newer to blogs.  I get maybe three emails a day that say something like, "Please tell me where I can get this pattern," or "Please tell me where I can buy wild mushrooms," or some ridiculous thing like that.  Nothing identifying what entry they're talking about, what pattern they're talking about, what esoteric little something I might have written about in passing on what day how many years ago. Oy.frickin'.VEY. 

You got comment peeves?  Lay 'em on us. 

51. Hmmm, Should I Blog This? Yeah, It's Wednesday, After All

All About My Laser Eye Screening Appointment

The very definition of WTF.

I went to be screened as to whether I'm a candidate for laser eyesight correction.  It was the stupidest appointment I've ever gone to.  Well, maybe not -- I've been to some doozies.  Every time I go to a doctor, I just shake my head and wonder. I think I must wear a sign on my forehead that says, "This woman has shaky confidence in doctors*. Please do everything you can to make her DISTRUST THEM MORE." 

Lord help me stay healthy so I don't have to endure any more of their stupidity, but I know if I do need one, I'll be damn glad they're there. Such is the plight of a woman who knows everything about everything and who is the No. 1 hypocrite on the planet. (Maybe not No. 1, but definitely in the Top 10.) It's a cross I have to bear, I fear. 

I guess they don't charge for these initial screening appointments, which may explain some things.  I'm making that assumption since they did not ask me for my insurance card or number.  Although come to think of it, I think they might have asked for the name of my insurance company when I first called to set up the appointment.

They had me sit down in the waiting room and fill out papers about insurance releases and stuff, so maybe nowadays all they need is a name, date of birth, and Social Security number to figure out what insurance you have? That doesn't seem right. Maybe it was an oversight?  Who knows. 

So the woman who comes to get me is one of those super-cheerful types that I abhor.  About my age, I suppose, but seeming older, and yet also seeming 13.  A lot like a friend of ours, but not as smart as the friend.  Hyperthyroidic, and like a Disney insect, the way she buzzes around all cheerful. Oh, I'm such a bitch. 

So she asks me to take out my contact lens.  Singular.  She repeats this many times throughout the appointment, as apparently she believes one is a len, and two are lens. 

I have just been reading the paper in their waiting room, so I want to wash my hands before I touch my len(s).  Judging by how this put her off her stride, this was apparently something they've never been asked before.  So we accommodate my extraordinary hand-washing request in one room where there is a sink, then she has me go into another room to ask me some question(s). 

She has me sit down in a comfy chair and asks me ONE question:  Why do you want laser?  I answer because I wear soft contacts, but they are quite uncomfortable for me. I deposit a lot of protein on them and have to change them at least twice as often as recommended; therefore, they are very expensive, as well. And I'm a very active person (I left out "vain") and therefore glasses are not appropriate for most of my day, but I can't wait to get home and take out my lenses and put on my glasses.

Okay, we'll take you to this station and measure something. That takes one and half seconds. Okay, now we'll take you to THIS station and measure something. Two seconds. Back to the first station. Another three seconds.

I'm sooooo onto them:  The walking between stations makes it seem very exciting, eventful, and important. She pushes lots of buttons that make little beeps, then writes things down. She pushes far more buttons and makes far more beeps than the number of measurements.  Sound effects are very exciting, eventful and important, and therefore meant to be impressive and nice and billable. But they forgot to get my insurance information.

Then we go back to the room with the chair.  And she asks me to fill out a form.  WITHOUT my len(s) in!!  She says, "Yes, I know. It's  kind of strange that I'm asking you to fill out a form without your len(s) in."  I say, "You're going to have to help me."  I could not read the form whatSOEVER. Maybe that is part of the diagnostic????  WHY??? when you're in an eye doc's office and you have just taken out your len(s)?????? Is this to prove that you have trouble reading without your len(s) in?  Nut(s), I tell ya. 

And guess what the form is!  It's about drugs and allergy information and health history.  Holy Fuck.  You want me to fill out this form BLIND???  Yes, I am allergic to aspirin and ibuprofen, and codeine, too, but I've just scrawled "aspirin" and "ibuprofen," in my blind state, so large that there is no room for "codeine," assuming I even remembered the codeine, which I didn't, in my blind and befuddled state. Yes, there is one "medication" (a hormone) I take. I put everything all on the wrong lines and have to later put an arrow to indicate no, I didn't mean to say I'm allergic to the medication/hormone I take, and NO, I don't take aspirin and ibuprofen. She seems impatient and says, "That's all right." She has to read for me the lines about sex, date of birth, diabetes, high blood pressure, glaucoma, etc.  Do I even know if she's read them all???? Do I know if I've given them the info they need????  This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever done in MY LIFE -- well, except for that time in my first few months as a court reporter when I had a big glass of wine at lunch with the judge and therefore showed up intoxicated for the afternoon arraignment session.  Ah, yes, those were the good old days.

Anyhoo. My len(s) brain surgeon tells me [I'm still blind, talking to her, because I don't have my len(s) in] that because of the highly peaked shape of my eyeballs (You've heard of the Coneheads? Apparently my eyeballs are coney like coneheads.) I'm sort of borderline whether I could be a candidate for this surgery, and proceeds to tell me about two surgeries that I might be a candidate for, speaking to me in specialized shorthand lingo as if I knew what she was talking about (I did not, but I also didn't see the point in asking someone who refers to the plural of lens as "lens." I did not feel a high level of confidence that she would know WTF she was talking about, or even if she did, that I could trust it. I figure I'll ask someone else later.) 

One involves debridement of the eye tissue.  I can tell you right now that my answer to that one will be NO FUCKIN' WAY.  I'm scared enough of this shit as it is.  I've finally gotten up my nerve to go in there because people have been telling me it's changed their lives in such a GOOD way, and it was SO EASY, and this doctor is THE BEST. 

No way are they going to be debriding anything off my cone-shaped eyeball(s), thank you very much.

Then the other is the "best" one, the "newest" procedure.  It's bladeless (Hello? I thought all laser was bladeless! Doesn't the laser light do the cutting? Not that she told me ANYTHING about the procedure itself until I asked some questions at the end. Then I gave up. Gah.)

She tells me this procedure is approved by NASA, approved by the military (contrary to what she apparently thinks, these two things do NOT inspire confidence in me -- in fact, just the opposite), approved by the FDA (that one doesn't help me, either), and it has the most precision, and great for nighttime sight, etc. She's talking about flaps and it's like carving a pumpkin and putting the top back in the pumpkin, all in perfect precision.  (Don't say the word FLAP to me in the same sentence with MY EYEBALL, please.)

I get very nervous.  So I ask her, "If it's the newest procedure, is there enough experience with the procedure?"  Oh, yes.  It's been around for 10 years.  Then which is it???  By giving me the hard sell, throwing around NASA and the military and NEWEST PROCEDURE, I was getting the feeling it was experimental and I was getting ready to not walk, but RUN, out of there, as soon as I collected my len(s).

So the long and short of it is she's going to "put my chart in front of the doctor" and have her evaluate whether I'm a good candidate and get back to me.  I'm waiting. Today is the third day, so it's anybody's guess when I'll hear from them.  Sheesh.  I'm not so sure I'm in any big hurry, though.  I really have been afraid of this stuff.  So many people tell me it's nothing to be afraid of and 99% or greater have perfect success. I finally got up the nerve to go check it out.  Call me an alarmist, but it's MY EYE(s)!!! 

Well, anyway.  Never a dull moment.  And aren't we all glad of that?

---------

*To be fair (but why start now?), this was not a doctor.  It was some sort of intake tech.  Or maybe it was somebody they just invited in off the street. Or maybe it was an episode of Candid Camera.

50. That's What I'm Talkin' About

I bought this CD yesterday, and this is the first track. Thanks for the recommendation, Margene! Funny, a bit before Christmas I was having coffee with someone and "Constant Craving" was playing.  I said, "What ever happened to k.d. lang?" I guess she's been busy and she forgot to send me a personal note. (Heh.) I looked at the new CD the other day in Starbucks, but didn't pick it up. I'm glad I did yesterday. And then I listened to her version of "Crying" and a few others on YouTube. Yeah, that totally did me in. Her voice should probably be a regulated substance.

I dream of spring.

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And because tears should always be followed with laughter, I can't resist following up with this precious Dame Edna interview of Katherine Dawn. (It's quite long, but it's worth it.)