Giant Dwarf vs. The Good, The Bad and The......Aaaaahhh

It's been a shit week. Really. I understand that this is my job, but there are some days when you can't pay me enough to deal with these people. Those are invariably the days I stay late, which comes with no additional compensation (I'm salaried...the great social worker trap). Here's a sampling of my world:

People with no money who expect me to find them a room at the Ritz....and pay for it.

Police officers who are unable to follow simple directions.

Drug addicts who squander every treatment option available to them until all of those opportunities are gone and then expect me to find them a room at the Ritz....and pay for it.

Teenaged girls who think that their parents' lifestyle is incompatible with theirs because the parents don't supply them with crystal meth.

Teenaged boys who think their high school is an open bar.

Parents who think it's okay to take massive doses of painkillers while tending to their children.

And I get to deal with all of these things with a barely usable iPhone issued to me by my department. I spend half my day saying "can you hear me now?" and it's NOT FUNNY. (However, what may be funny to some of my co-workers is watching me frantically tapping on this tiny appliance to get the damned thing to work.)

So, after three days of constant, non-stop human misery and soul-sucking, another one of my very entitled patients came in today: she was placed in a facility yesterday, decided she didn't like it, so returned to the emergency room so I can find her a place at the Ritz....and pay for it. When my boss called me to tell me that she was my next patient (it's a bad case when my boss is involved), I heard her name and almost had a panic attack (I've known this patient the entire time I've worked in the ER). I had already yelled at the idiot cops who came in and couldn't wait 5 seconds for me to find a patient for them. And I already read the riot act to yet another addict. But this woman was going to put me over the edge. After four hours of making calls and negotiating with her, I finally put her ass in a cab and walked back to my office, directly to my desk phone and frantically searched for the telephone number of the massage place.

Which brings me to the "aaaaahh." Massages may seem like a luxury, but lemme tell ya: this one was treatment. By the time I got to the massage room, I was talking a mile a minute and completely lost my ability to self-soothe. I was so utterly stressed that I could barely tolerate even a small human foible and realized that I came into work today actually seething. My new hero, Zvi, listened patiently while I enumerated my multiple injuries, both physical and emotional, and essentially turned myself into a needy patient.

And then he laid hands on me.

In the best possible meaning of that term.

There were parts of my body I didn't even realize were affected. It almost didn't matter if he actually loosened a knot; this guy's presence was in itself healing and he transferred some really good energy to me. Basically, for an hour (and a fee), I got to slow myself down (my breathing and my thoughts) and let someone take care of me for once without having to give anything in return (okay, yes, the fee, but a very small price to preserve my sanity).

So, if I believed in drinking alone, I'd raise an actual glass of wine in a toast: To my patients, who give me perspective, and to Zvi, for smoothing that perspective out.

Giant Dwarf vs. A Household Appliance

This all started with me organizing my financial documents. As usual, I had an appointment with my financial planner (aka my cousin) and waited until the last minute to organize my papers. So I called her, rescheduled the appointment, went and had a lovely lunch with a friend, and then went through each and every paper and made a big, giant pile of "Documents to Be Shredded."

Which I did. The Spazz gave me a hardcore, asskicking shredder for my birthday last year (yes, I am THAT old), but the downside to it is that it is very heavy. I'm still recovering from a knee surgery, so heavy lifting is kind of difficult, but it has to be done. And so, as I was dumping the bits of shred into a big trash bag, several bits scattered all over my just-vacuumed floor.

So I pulled out the vacuum again and this is where my story really begins.

As you know, I am a self-hating pack rat. I am constantly on the road to recovery but there are some things that I just can't get rid of (see my first entry: Hello Kitty Sandwich Maker). Several years ago, I went with my friend Gail to the Oxnard Strawberry Festival. I remember eating strawberry pizza and strolling through the gazillions of craft tents. Gail bought some kind of angel doll for her mother while I became mesmerized at the fairy princess crown stand. Some maternal genius created fairy crowns made of multi-colored ribbons and wire and I was sucked in. They were simple, but still very pretty and I found myself buying one and wearing it at the festival.

Those of you who know me should be laughing by now. My facebook quote says "I'm a fairy princess" specifically because of the irony. I am a potty-mouthed, jeans and boots wearing gal who wears little to no make-up and snarky t-shirts. But something about that fairy crown touched something deep inside me, a place dark and rarely seen by the outside world.

Does every girl want to be a fairy princess?

Where is this going? is your reply.

Yes, right, the household appliance. So I have kept this fairy princess crown since that time, which was at least 7 years ago, if not more. I never wore it. I've loaned it out for costumes, but mostly it hung on my doorknob. Recently I discovered that Lady Chewbacca Noelle (my cat, so named by my theatrical gay friend) loved this "crown" as a toy, so I and various visitors have run back and forth in my apartment, dragging the ribbons on the ground for the cat to chase.

(This activity did not provide enough exercise for any of the parties involved: Chewy is a 13 year old Himalayan with a smushed face so she runs out of steam pretty quickly when less and less air can get through those tiny little nares. The Giant Dwarf has a bum knee that appreciates her cat's low activity requirements.)

Just a couple of months ago, on a particularly hot evening, I discovered that if I put the crown around my air fan tower, the fan would blow the ribbons out and completely put Chewy into a trance. So that is where I left it.

Near the area where the little pieces of shred had fallen on the rug.

So I fired up the vacuum cleaner and began to suck up the rogue bits of paper when, all of a sudden, I heard a pop. What? I looked around. It didn't take much time for me to discover, to my horror, that my fairy princess crown had been swallowed by my gluttonous Eureka.

But it wasn't totally swallowed. It was stuck in the brush part, and at first I thought I could save it (for the love of goddess, it's a bunch of ribbon and wire!), but as I studied the machine, I realized I would have to remove it forcibly (and with scissors) to prevent me from having to buy a new vacuum cleaner.

So what occurred to me while I was cutting my beloved fairy princess crown to pieces was how so many of us stay connected in some way or another to a treasured part of our childhood. And how every girl, no matter how old, should have a fairy princess crown.

No, make that a Fairy Queen Crown.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Spazz

First, I need to change a few pseudonyms. A. has requested to no longer be referred to as "Chatty Cathy" and stated his preference for "Spazz." I wholeheartedly agree. Spazz, I'm sorry I called you Chatty Cathy. Spazz is much more suitable.More on that later.

Also, it pains and embarrasses me greatly that I referred to my youngest brother as the "Prince." While this is somewhat accurate, given that while he attended school in Amsterdam, my family dubbed him the "Prince of Prinsengracht" (which was the street where he lived) AND he was also accused of princely status by a guy on our bus who saw my mother and I loading our bags while my brother stood around doing nothing, his newest and most accurate moniker is "The Thinker." What amazes me is that, while I was talking about pseudonyms for my blog and announced that my brother would be the Prince, neither he nor his fiance bothered to correct me and remind me of his more fitting nickname.

The Thinker is so famous for this name that we have sent him photos of the famed sculpture, as well as taken multiple photos of him in the "thinking" position. We even bought him a baseball cap from the Albert Einstein exhibit that reads "Thinking Cap." He is so famous for being "The Thinker" that it was pure folly for me to call him by any other name.

However, my other brother remains "The Golden Child." That won't change. He never reads my blog anyway so I don't have to worry about protest or alternative name requests.

So back to Spazz. I like it with two "z"s actually. Isn't that how they spelled it in Meatballs? In any case, when I wrote about New York, back in July, one of my blog fans (who also happens to be my best friend) expressed discontent as to having been omitted from the chronicle of my vacation. So I'm going to tell you about what the vacay was like BEFORE New York. In fact, this entry is about just getting to the East Coast without losing my mind.

Spazz and I have been together two years. There's a whole backstory to that, but it's not the time for that now. The vacation we took in July was our first real vacation together involving air travel and more than one overnight. Bless his heart, Spazz was excited and happy about the trip and never expressed any anxiety or neurosis. I cannot say the same for myself.

I have been flying on my own since I was 15 years old (as a passenger, of course). I am prone to anxiety and neurosis, am aware of it, and thus turn into a raging control freak when I travel. When I travel alone, this bothers no one. When I travel with others, I feel the need to warn them. It's only fair.

Here is what I do on my own: For Southwest flights, I arrive to the airport 1.5 hours ahead of time. If I have a bag, I stand in line to check it (and let me publicly thank Southwest Airlines for continuing to offer their one-bag-flies-free policy). I determine which gate I need to go to, I get in line to be validated by the first set of TSA agents, then I get in line to go through the xray machines. Usually it takes two pans for my things, and I take off my shoes at the most opportune moment right before going through the body scan but doing my best not to hold up the line.

This is what you do right? It's not unusual. And, like most people, but not ALL, I do not chat with anyone. Not other passengers, not the TSA agents. I am not here to make friends. I am here to travel.

After I am cleared out of xray, I hit the news store to buy a People magazine. I do not love People magazine; in fact, over the years, it has become increasingly insipid (though nowhere near the level that Us has sunk), but this is my ritual and I stick with it. If I'm at LAX, my next stop is usually the McDonald's for the yogurt parfait. I then take my stuff, find my gate, sit and eat my parfait, then read the magazine until we board.

We board. I sit on the aisle because, no matter how long the flight is, I have such a tiny bladder that having easy access to the bathroom is more important than the view. I check the safety card. Yes, I do this. It's another long-time ritual and I know on United Airlines that the child in the illustrations has been drawn with one truncated leg.

Once the row is filled, I pull out either the flight magazine, the People, or my book (Giant Dwarf's Life Rule: Always Bring a Book) and read. I do not make eye contact with anyone in my row. I do not talk to them. I do not want them talking to me and my body language is quite clear in sending that message. It's not that I'm unfriendly; in fact, people who know me may even be surprised that I would be so reserved. It's just that this is one of the few times when I have time to myself with few distractions, so I just want to read and, when the pilot says I can, listen to my iPod.

That is how I travel. I just want to be left alone and get from Point A to Point B. And from Point B to Point C, if that's the itinerary.

As you can imagine, Spazz, by virtue of his nickname, is not a silent traveler. In fact, he is rarely silent at all. The Spazz has a rather large reserve of unbridled energy and has difficulty sitting still, let alone not talking.

I anticipated that this would be a problem when we traveled together.

I warned him several times prior to our trip. I instructed him, probably not delicately (I'm not known for that....friendly, yes; delicate, no), to please not talk to me while we are flying. I informed him that I travel in a very particular way and that I was not to be disturbed if he also wanted to have a nice vacation. I hated to do this, but I knew that I could not take 5 hours of flying and conversation....with anyone.

(A few years ago I flew with a relative on a 3 hour flight and was reluctant to give these instructions. I will never get those 3 hours back.)

Now, the way Southwest set up the itinerary, our first flight went from LA to Las Vegas. From there, we had exactly 30 minutes to switch planes for our flight to Providence. If you thought I was anxious about my quiet space, you should have seen my downright near-breakdown in anticipating this short time to get to our next flight. Talking to me while I was contemplating how to move through an airport I didn't know was NOT A GOOD IDEA.

We boarded in LA. Already, Spazz was making fun of me reading the safety card. I anticipated this. Everyone makes fun of me for this. At least I know where my emergency exits are.

The short flight to Vegas was peppered with the Spazz interrupting my reading, poking me and otherwise PURPOSELY annoying me. I barely got through the book reviews in People. I thought to myself that if he is like this on the next flight, if we even make it on the next flight, I will have to kill him.

Now bear in mind I am also traveling with a bum knee. The plan was for Spazz to run ahead of me to the next gate and make sure they're aware that I am limping behind him. We deplane in Vegas and head to our next gate. We have less than 30 minutes. The next gate turns out to be only two gates down. We had plenty of time. The Spazz has taken many opportunities to remind me of how much of a complete spaz I was with all my worry and hand-wringing. I deserve it, but how could I have known it would actually be easy?

We board in Vegas: the plane was connecting from a previous departure city so it was pretty full. You know what that means, right? It's Southwest, there are no assigned seats and the only seats available were NOT TOGETHER! I was walking ahead of the Spazz and silently, in my head (I hope), screamed "Yes!" and pumped my fist.

The Spazz, of course, made friends with the lovely older couple sitting in his row and chatted with them during the ENTIRE flight. And I flew peacefully, book in my lap and iPod buds in my ears.

If I wasn't in the middle seat (foiled!), the flight would have been perfect bliss.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Big Apple

Oh my god, it's hot. New York hot. The kind of hot that actually slows New Yorkers down. So much so, that I was actually walking faster than native New Yorkers during rush hour. I just wanted to get to the next air conditioned location, so I was moving fast, dehydration be damned.

Now, I've definitely lived in weather like this before. Which is why I live in Los Angeles. So here's my take on my nearly first 24 hours back in the Baked Big Apple.

1) It's one thing when the City is dirty. It's a whole different thing when the City is hot and humid and dirty. It smells bad.

2) $2.75 for a papaya juice (which I KNOW is not ALL papaya juice) at Gray's Papaya is grossly overpriced.

3) New resolution: I will not waste my money on roadside hot dogs here when there are so many better places to eat.

4) Sluggish New Yorkers need to get out this crippled Angeleno's way. You're moving too slow and I'm dusting you with a bum knee.

5) I get mean when I'm uncomfortable. Let me make a public apology to A. (who from now on will be known as "Chatty Cathy") for being a complete asshole to him.

6) Chatty Cathy doesn't want to open his map and look like a tourist, however, he thinks nothing of talking incessantly on the subway about all the things he wants to see.

7) How did Carrie Bradshaw walk all over New York in 4 inch heels? I was wearing my Keens, which are practically orthopedic shoes, and my dogs are seriously barking.

8) When I lived here in 1988, taking a cab was against all things holy to me. Now, in 2010, at my age and with my trick knee, taking a cab is now considered injury prevention.

9) H&H Bagels are still my favorite. However, lesson learned today: Don't allow Chatty Cathy to go off in search of disinfectant wipes while you wait in a bagel store; it's hotter inside than out.

10) While a museum is nice and air conditioned, the gazillion screaming children swarming the place make the whole idea less attractive.

11) A planetarium is a great place to catch a snooze. A 24 dollar nap narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.

So this is all I can squeeze out of my brain so far. I write this while icing my knee and cooling down in my brother (the Prince) and his girlfriend's high rise apartment. I'm working up the energy to meet the Prince in Times Square for a show tonight. I don't care if it sucks, it just has to air conditioned.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Dancing Patella

No, that's not a typo. I didn't mean to write paella. Although that sounds rather delicious right now. I did, in fact, mean to write patella. My patella, to be exact.

I have a bad patella. It really does dance, and it's not supposed to. When I was 14, I went to a party at my ex-boyfriend's house (yes, you read that right) and while he was tickling me, I bent over and turned and my patella just popped out of it's little home in my knee. And then it stayed there for what seemed like many, many hours. Besides suffering the pain of having a body part displaced, I also suffered ( and to possibly a greater extent) the sheer embarrassment of tiny, bespectacled, ethnic me being on the floor, with my kneecap sticking out of my leg, surrounded by the population of my high school's somewhat anti-semitic master race football team.

It gets better.

I called my dad.

My father arrived, a short little nebbish of a man (who at that time was known for being Woody Allen's döppelganger) amongst the gigantic football team members and one of their fathers. My father proceeded to make various calls to figure out where I should go next, since we were HMO members and we needed to be instructed as to which mode of transportation and which type of treatment would be payed by our insurance. Apparently, an ambulance is indicated in these situations; at least it was back in the '80s, so I was whisked away from the neanderthal party by EMTs and brought to the hospital, my father following behind.

Have you ever had a body part reduced? Without anesthesia? I have. I'm not sure if I can compare that pain to anything else. Using at least 4 swear words does not suffice in describing that pain.

Back then, the treatment was to immobilize the knee for 6 weeks. I'm pretty sure that was a bad idea. It was another 7 years later when it happened again, except this time the patella went back into place on it's own. And for another 6 weeks, I got to be immobilized. It's extremely attractive to be walking around your college campus with a full leg immobilizer over your pants (you can imagine how much worse this was in high school). Thank goodness everyone else at my college was as much a nerd as I was.

Ten years later it happened again and this time, the orthopedists had already figured out that physical therapy was the way to go. Since that time, I've had 4 more patellar dislocations and have been to 4 different PTs.

So let me get you up to speed here. My brother was visiting last weekend and we all decided it would be fun to go bowling. I hadn't bowled in years, and tend not to take it seriously when I go anyway. I know I suck, so why try to win when I can just have fun? Right? Well, Golden Child just had to give me pointers and warn me that I was going to have an injured wrist or shoulder if I kept bowling the way I did, so I took his advice: I used my knees.

That was a mistake.

After bowling a strike, and then two spares, my foot slipped under me, ball still in hand and I heard the familiar but still terrifying "POPs." Simultaneously, I felt the pain. A lot of it.

I went to the doctor a day and a half later. He took one look at it and said "that's it, we're doing surgery." He had been willing to negotiate in the past, agreeing that I had legitimate reasons for avoiding surgery, but now he was done with my hemming and hawing. It's time. There's too much damage.

I've tried to go back to work since then. I was back for a day and a half, and it was still painful. I've taken off three days of work (which I really hate to do....that's my vacation time I'm using). What I don't understand is why people want to be off work during the day. Granted, I don't have cable, but watching daytime TV in your pajamas all day is very undignified. Of course, so is limping around at work and using a cane, and then later getting an allergic reaction to the naprosyn that's supposed to reduce your swelling.

Yeah, it's been that kind of week. Tomorrow, my boyfriend is coming over to help me do my laundry because I am not able to get up and down a flight of stairs with a giant basket of laundry. This may cause me to write another blog installment. Stay tuned.

Oh, and if you see my brother, don't take any bowling tips from him.

(The following is a piece I wrote last year on the first night of Passover; I sent it to all the relatives I was able to email and they loved it. Many of them encouraged me to submit it to the local Jewish newspaper, which I did. Apparently, the Jewish Journal does not think I am as brilliant as my relatives do. So I'm posting it here and now everyone who reads my blog (all four of you) can enjoy it. Happy Pesach!)

Why is this night different from all other nights?

April 8, 2009. I decided this year to only attend a second night seder along with an off-timed seder on the 4th night, when my cousins came down from Northern California to have a seder with their son and new daughter-in-law. So, I figured I'd just kind of do something for myself this first night of Passover. I worked my regular shift and miraculously got out of work on time tonight. I went home, changed into a pair of jeans, a pullover hoodie and sneakers, and set out to walk to the library and get some Pinkberry for dinner. I’m sure my mother is already appalled at this whole plan.

I was only a block or two away from my apartment when I stopped to make a call. An elderly man approached me and asked “boyfriend?” I said no, I was only texting a friend. He asked me my name and when I told him, he instantly recognized it as Jewish and asked what my Pesach plans were. I told him that I was going to a seder tomorrow night but that tonight I was just taking a walk. I asked him where he was going and he pointed down the street and said “temple.” At least, that’s what I figured out that he said later. At the time, I couldn’t understand him and just thought he was headed to the retirement home on the next block. He said to me, then, that his name was “Chaim” and wished me a “Chag Sameach” and kissed me on both cheeks. For some reason, I believed the guy spoke Hebrew.

In any case, I finished my text and continued walking. I went to the library and instantly found the book I was looking for, which meant I spent another 20 or so minutes futzing around, acting like it was a giant bookstore all for me. When I found a second book (how can you check out only one?), I forced myself to leave and then headed to Pinkberry. Not exactly a traditional Pesach meal, but it’s unleavened and, by this time, I was really, really hungry.

I walked toward home, eating my Pinkberry and thinking thoughts about the seder I was not at. I reviewed some of the traditional parts of the seder in my head and began to look forward to attending Melinda’s big seder tomorrow night (these thoughts included, of course, what I would wear). As I passed by the temple, people were leaving after the service. At the corner, I ran into Chaim again.

Chaim was glad to see me and, in very broken English, invited me to come back to his home with him. I don’t know what made me think it was okay, but something made me feel good about this and after I protested that I was improperly dressed, Chaim insisted and I followed him home. It turned out that he only lived about three blocks away from my apartment.

We arrived at his building and walked up three flights of stairs. Chaim kissed every mezuzah on the floor on the way to his own door. I didn’t know what to expect, but by this time, I was realizing that Chaim was not Israelli at all and didn’t even understand the little bit of Hebrew I was speaking to him. Chaim is Persian. And so was his wife, who was not only surprised by my arrival with her husband, but a bit peeved as well (and really, who could blame her? If my husband came home with a strange woman and insisted that she spend dinnertime with us, I’d be pissed off too).

Chaim instructed me to take off my jacket and take a seat. Neshmat, his wife, had already set up a very simple seder table. Kedem grape juice and a kiddush cup, and a plate with the ritual foods. There was both the usual square matzah as well as the Israeli-made round matzot. The charoset was so chopped it looked like chocolate ice cream. And, as Persians do, scallions on the seder plate.

Chaim read the whole service in Hebrew, including the Four Questions. At one point, he asked me to read a portion in the Haggadah and when I couldn’t figure out which passage he wanted me to read, he and his wife had a big argument. Finally, I read what I thought he wanted me to read. We dipped celery into vinegar, hit each other with the scallions during “Dayenu” and he made us Hillel sandwiches with the delicious charoset. Neshmat stared at me throughout, with understandable suspicion, but when I caught her looking at me, we just smiled at each other.

Chaim would interrupt the telling of the Exodus with his attempt at explaining the story in English. This is where it’s lucky to know the story before the performance. Neshmat served dinner of chicken in soup and traditional crispy rice. There were radishes and parsley to add to the mix, which Chaim proudly declared were just bought at the Persian market. Chaim grabbed some paper towels for me as napkins, and we finished eating in silence. By this time, Neshmat warmed up to me (and I was less suspicious of the whole thing myself) and she became generous and sweet. Chaim showed me photos of his family and told me that they were coming tomorrow night for a family seder. They have three daughters and a son, plus a grandson and granddaughter.

We finished the meal and somehow I knew the evening was over (though it helped that Neshmat pulled out the carpet cleaner). I had nothing to share with this lovely couple, having come from a walk and only having money on me, which I knew would be an inappropriate gift. So I decided to show them photos of my own family which they seemed delighted to see.

I kissed Neshmat and Chaim on both cheeks, and Chaim led me out to the elevator. Before I left, Chaim gestured upwards to G-d, indicating that the invitation was not only from Chaim but from Hashem as well. And what is truly amazing is that I could not communicate with them in their language nor could they in mine. But it turned out to be a wonderful (albeit awkward) and very enriching experience.

By the way, Chaim got through the whole seder, including the dinner, in one hour and fifteen minutes. Seriously.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Mall

I hate shopping for clothes. And this is not just because, after I turned 40, my metabolism came to a screeching halt and I gained more weight than I did during my freshman year of college (and that was A LOT of pizza). No, I’ve disliked clothes shopping since I was a kid.

Let’s start with my stature. Not my community stature; my physical height. I am short. Not 5’3” or 5’4” short......and stop your bitching, those of you who are that tall.....5’4” was my ideal height. That’s how short I am. And, as noted in my previous post, I am well-endowed in certain areas. This makes me completely unsuitable for “off-the-rack” (please note that I first heard this term from a very heterosexual man while shopping for a wetsuit at a surf shop).

Shopping for clothing is an excruciating process for me. First, I have to decide if I am going to go alone or with a friend. If I go with a friend, I feel like I am torturing them and coercing them into a day of pain; I also feel I have limited time to adequately hate myself in the dressing room. If I go by myself, I have no one’s opinion to help me make decisions and I have no one’s shoulder to cry on while in the dressing room. It’s my own personal Catch-22.

Which makes clothes shopping an extremely rare occasion for me. Believe it or not, and despite the weight gain (thank you, Lycra), I've had two of the pairs of pants that I wear for work for over 8 years. Seriously. They’re two colors of the same classic design, unlined pants I bought at Old Navy ON SALE. When I need a new pair of work pants (I can’t wear the same two pairs every day, of course), I practically have a nervous breakdown at the thought of having to go to a store, try on several pairs of pants, and make a decision which will be permanent after I take the pants to the tailor (I’m short, remember?).

As a mental health professional, I suppose it would be appropriate to study my family of origin and explore my early experiences with shopping and consumerism. This is easy. My mother is one of the best shoppers in the world, but, unfortunately, has a completely different taste and fashion sense than I do. I can’t tell you how many hours my brothers and I spent in discount clothing stores with my mother and her friends and her friends’ kids (to this day, when I see Daniel or Shira or Iris or Penny, we all reminisce about playing games under the racks at House of Bargains). We lived the guilded-ghetto shopping life but not all of us received 'the gift."

Despite my brother’s devastating experience of having all of his Matchbox Cars (stored in the Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkin box) stolen while he was waiting for my mother at a department store, he has also become an excellent bargain hunter. (Though, he rarely does shop at department stores, and now I see the connection.) I once sat with a group of the Golden Child’s friends who were joking about what he could buy for a dollar: a pair of jeans, a jacket, underwear, shoes.......the list went on and on, until someone yelled out, and almost completely seriously, “and a house.”

The Golden Child is an expert at comparison shopping and finding deals. Now, not everything he purchases is top-quality, and there was the famous incident where he talked me into buying a stereo from a roadside flea market: the seller told me to come back the following week if the console didn’t work and he would give me my money back. Oh, I came back the following week alright. But the seller wasn’t there. I was furious, called my brother to yell at him, to which he calmly responded: “so I was wrong. I’ll give you the 30 bucks.” That was only a partial consolation, though, because now I was stuck with a piece of dead stero equipment. So, a few weeks later, I threw it in the trunk of my car, drove 500 miles and left the console on my brother’s doorstep.

Let it also be duly noted that my brother, a physician, wears jeans to work. And not fancy, dark designer jeans. No, I ‘ve seen him wear frayed, faded jeans, that he did indeed buy for a dollar, to work, along with one of his many cheeky t-shirts. Am I jealous? Fuck yeah. Not only can he wear jeans to work, he can find jeans, for a DOLLAR, that fit him perfectly.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Telephone

The phone rings.

I avoid it.

It continues to ring.

Like the kind of arts geek I am, I have programmed my landline to ring Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so now I'm humming "Ode to Joy" as I look at the Caller ID.

(Caller ID is the best invention since sliced bread. I resisted it for years until I had a scare from a potential stalker, and then signed up immediately. I have not regretted that decision since.)

I LOVE the idea that I can screen who is calling me and pick and choose my conversations.

That being said, I still hate talking on the phone.

Unless I'm in the car.

I just can't connect with people over the phone. Now, if it's long distance and I hardly talk to the person ever, I can waive my phone-aphobia and have a conversation, if only to catch up. But, if you call me every night (and this means you, A), I cannot be a witty conversationalist. I'm just not capable of it.

When I tell a story, I need one of two things: A live, present audience or a computer screen. The latter includes texting, another technology I resisted until only a year and a half ago and then It. Changed. My. Life.

When I'm on the phone, especially at home, I've got other things to do. The dishes need washing, the bills need paying, the cat needs petting. The TV needs watching and the email needs reading. I don't have time to talk on the phone, and, if I do need to talk on the phone, I will be distracted.

At work, if I'm on hold for a long time or I'm having a long conversation, I play Solitaire. Really. It calms me down and I'm able to concentrate on the conversation and not be rude to the caller. For some reason, I don't have Solitaire at home. (I must remember this when I replace my computer; if there's no Solitaire in the bundle, that will be a deal-breaker.) So I suppose it makes sense that it's easier for me to talk on the phone while I'm driving; I'm doing two things at once (of course I wear a Bluetooth....I'm no scofflaw!) and I'm sufficiently distracted from the conversation to actively participate in it.

So, if you call me at home and I seem insensitive or rude or distracted, or all three, know that it's not you. It's me. And I'll just have to end this call and email or text you so we can set up a time to hang out.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Kitchen

My boyfriend gave me a magnet that says “I only have a kitchen because it came with the house.” This is so true that most people I know see that magnet and say “Doh! I wish I found that for her first!”

In my kitchen, I am a stranger in a strange land. My mother was never fond of cooking, and I inherited that gene. I am, however, riveted by the Food Channel.

My confusion in the kitchen is further enhanced by my having the tallest cabinets in the county, mocking my 5’0” stature as only kitchen cabinets can. I can only reach the bottom shelves, which means that everything I eat is shoved into two tiny spaces. During my recent clean out (see my previous blogs), I found food there that I had forgotten had existed. In fact, I learned then that even canned food expires.

So here are some more things that my kitchen has taught me over the years:

Oranges do not keep for more than a week and often, if you don’t even try to remove one from the bowl, they will develop a fuzzy little mold that will slowly spread to the rest of the fruit in residence there.

Cheese will also get a fuzzy coating, but this has not precluded my consumption of the cheese. After all, isn’t mold good for cheese?

Hummus has a shelf life and it’s best not to challenge that.

You cannot keep a Lean Cuisine frozen meal in the back of your car for two hours, come home and re-freeze it, then microwave it and eat it without getting sick.

Speaking of frozen, I was surprised to learn that things cannot be frozen forever and still taste good.

It’s easier to scramble an egg in a frying pan than a wok, but if all you have is a wok, then it’s doable.

By the way, eggs last longer than I thought they would in the fridge.

Wine does turn to vinegar (or something worse, I’m afraid) if it sits for a few weeks after being opened.

Bread can petrify after a few weeks in the refrigerator. I can still toast it and eat it though.

Spaghetti sauce doesn’t last as long as eggs in the fridge. Previous jars have made it abundantly clear that if I don’t eat the entire thing within a week it will become it’s very own science experiment.

I had been told that olives last forever in the fridge, but I have since discovered that I had been misinformed.

Carrots, however, can last a very long time in there.

Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies have been able to live in my freezer for over a year but the experiment was aborted after my boyfriend discovered the stash and ate the three boxes containing the study subjects.

A good knife really does make a difference, even if you only use it to cut apples every night.