Le Monde de Fromage de Kate

I have a tendency to remember you Anniversary BEFORE and then forget it when it actually happens (at least one out of two times, anyway). I hope you have your cotton and china (I personally, on my second Anniversary, covered a pottery sheep (for eight – ’cause it was eight or two, depending on how you looked at it) from the dollar store with cotton balls. He didn’t get it. I do NOT blame him). Remember back, oh so long ago, when we were all so young:

Emma, Zoe, Ashley and India, August 14, 2004

(The bozo who surreptitiously put himself in the back

of the “girlie” picture is, of course, Charles)

It was a lovely day, indeed. But then there was this utterly CRAZY lady who officiated and who cried at the drop of a proverbial hat (and damn you, Charles, for making EVERYONE cry with the most incredible vows that you wrote on notepaper from the lodge; that’s not fair). Rumor has it that in the olden days the Crazy Lady was a performer and should have known to PULL HER FREAKIN’ WILD PIRATE HAIR BACK so that she didn’t look bizarre in every other picture as she tried to furtively pull her hair out of the way (and ended up, for all posterity, caught in various photographs looking like she was doing ’80’s dance moves). But she still managed to done get them hitched:

See? They are WEDDED – most successfully and legally. And, evidently, they throw off pretty damn beautiful genes, too, as evidenced by their progeny.

In the last two or three issues of the Bas Bleu catalog, the book Zaftig: The Case for Curves has been heralded as “50% OFF!” (On the webpage they don’t have the little “attention-getter” or “call-out” thingee (a professional publisher’s term, I assure you) in bright red declaring the sale price.)

I have NO contention whatsoever with the book and the idea of the celebration of women with “some meat on their bones” (that would be rather silly, as I’M A HUGE FREAKIN’ AMAZON except not so tall as I used to be – DAMN!). I was pleased to see that the description of this tome is upbeat and positive:

It’s about time! Zaftig celebrates women who are ‘confidently voluptuous’ via full-color reproductions of paintings by Rembrandt, Correggio, Renoir, Klimt and others, as well as quotations from those who appreciate beauty with flesh and curves. (The title comes from the Yiddish word meaning ripe or luscious.) This lavishly-illustrated art book offers an argument for feminine substance–and an attack on the cult of thinness. How nice!

How nice, indeed! Here’s the conundrum. Can a book celebrating the voluptuous – the “ripe and luscious” – be HALF OFF? I think it’s ironic. I think it’s a contradiction. I think too much.

Last Thursday was CHOCK-FULL. Chock-Full o’ what (you have to use “o'” – I promise – even if it’s NOT “Chock-Full O’ Nuts”)? CHOCK-FULL O’ SURREALITY, I must say. But I shan’t go into all of that right now. Let’s just talk mobile phones.

Yes, indeed, my new phone is NAKED as the day it was born. (?) So much for my new MODEST – not TOPLESS – phone. It has a POUCH, because evidently it is a nascent marsupial of some variety. But, in order to USE the handset, one must remove it from the cozy safety of it’s pouch; there it is in a nude, vulnerable state (believe me – it is in imminent peril because I WILL drop it – not deliberately, but it will happen); it’s in DANGER, I tell you.

The Marsupial’s Pouch

Okay, secretly, I still think it’s SUPER-COOL. And, yes, I realize that the mere fact that I would employ that term means that I am, indeed, NOT “SUPER-COOL.” I don’t care. My phone takes WEE, TINY MOVIES. That is, I believe, why it cannot have “leathers,” actually. The top of the phone pivots so you can play mini cinematographer. And it takes a WEE, TINY Micro SD/Transflash card – so WEE!!!

AND I have a wireless Bluetooth headset. This means I can walk about looking COOL (or pretentious, I’m not sure which, but I’m going with COOL at this juncture).

My new naked phone is also an MP3 player, can take voice memos, plays TV and movie clips (I’ve been watching little snippets of The Daily Show) and can launch The Space Shuttle (the BEST one, you can be certain) from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Okay, doubt what you will, but my phone can also be a SPY. Here is one of it’s possible disguises (I’m compromising National Security – but since it’s Monday, how could I possibly make it any worse?).

Oh, ye unsuspecting civilians, you may THINK it’s just a fuzzy-wuzzy lady bug, but in truth, IT IS A DEADLY PHONE. BEWARE: It may also be disguised as a teddy bear or a panda bear. I’m not kidding.

More later.

And in case you think that I am again going to regale anyone who’ll listen with sordid tales of my personal hygiene (or lack thereof), this is NOT that kind of mint. This is the “Mint” that tells you if you’re popular or not (NEWS FLASH: I am NOT popular) in terms of blogerage (don’t fight with me, it’s a word. Or it will be – HERE I COME OED). But I am getting more and more UNPOPULAR. I do not like this trend. I might choose to doubt my recent “Mint” statistics (saying I had ONE – count ’em – ONE unique viewing last week and I know I had at LEAST three…), but they are probably close enough. I am now OFFICIALLY taking suggestions and/or requests.

Oh, my faithful readers (all two or three of you), PLEASE MAKE REQUESTS. Or, you can give me CRITIQUES: Too many pictures of my adorable nieces and nephews? Not ENOUGH? Too much cheese (can there BE such a things?????)? Not ENOUGH (she says, hopefully)? Entries TOO LONG and full of NOTHING PROFOUND (although that was the MISSION of this blog, I’m willing to reconsider, after all, I, TOO WANT PEACE ON EARTH (?))? Too SHORT? Would you like Dickens’s style serial drama about wee, repressed parentless children and porridge and deranged people who run poor houses and orphanages? Something more SORDID (well, that’s what I have the mostly secret “bleu” page for, but it’s ended up being largely DEPRESSING above all)? Something sweeter and more HOPEFUL (though today I might give you anatomical indications about where you might put that HOPE – but that would be the PMS talking)? Speaking of PMS, TOO MUCH INFORMATION? I wait with my ears as open as possible (apart from the mucus, but I can’t be BLAMED FOR THAT). Hmmm – PERHAPS Ma Monde suffers from TOO MUCH ALL-CAP EMPHASIS (as well as the RAMPANT over-use of the parenthetical statement).

For my Anniversary (I must say “mine” – things haven’t been “ours” in a long time, you must agree), for my Fifth and my Twelfth, like I’ve said, “Depending on how you look at it,” I am getting a “No More Tears” phone. The phone I’ve had for more than two years now – well, the phone I did have and its Evil Twin, The Refurbished Warranty Replacement Phone – have been topless for a LONG time. I always get my mobile phones little leather outfits, not in the S & M spirit one might suspect, but rather in the protective motorcycle “leathers” sense. Yes, I drop the poor things, and I think that the their wee leather coats protect them to some extent. But this phone witnessed a lot of…the “End,” by means of myriad text messages and oh so many conversations full of things that I’m sorry I said or I’m sorry I heard; I’m sorry about many things. And my easily incited tears always got caught under the plastic screen protector and trapped damaging moisture under the top part of the little “outfit.” After wiping that damn thing off the umpteenth time, I finally just took it top off. And somehow, in one of many moves, I misplaced it (probably, PERHAPS, subconsciously on purpose because I was not brave enough to put the thing back on again lest it somehow brought on upsetting conversations). Come on – I’ve never denied that I’m crazy and selectively superstitious.

I think I told you this: Over a year ago I was sitting at a Friend’s funeral. And I was feeling JEALOUS. He’d been remarried right before he’d been re-diagnosed with cancer, and his new wife saw him through that horrific time. And I had the narcissistic GALL to sit and be jealous that I’d felt all alone during my worst times. But that was a wake-up call. I was so DISGUSTED that I could sit there and think THAT and wallow in SELF-PITY when we were mourning my friend and his lovely, still essentially NEW bride, had to figure out how to say goodbye to him after three years of wondrous hell. That’s when I thought ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH! I still was/am trying to figure out how to forgive myself and to forgive you, but I finally was able to acknowledge that we had a lot of beautiful, intimate years – time that some people never are privileged to find or to know – and that even if I was still hurt or angry or CRAZY AS HELL (working on that one) I really needed to move on in my thinking. I had moved on in many respects, obviously, but to decide that I didn’t have to live an absolute and that I could acknowledge what I was so grateful for what I once had, I could choose to remember it, and even though sometimes it might make me feel a little lonelier (in comparison) I had the opportunity not to denigrate or erase it. And it doesn’t mean dwelling in anything – I was dwelling in my feelings of abandonment and I will always have to be careful of that bugger. It just means that I can feel lucky for something in my life that had so many moments of inexplicable beauty and humour and love. And, YES, it means that I will get a little melancholy on MY Anniversary. I was always the more nostalgic one, anyway, so give me a break. Don’t worry – I’m not going to give you any wood* (that’s for the Fifth) or silk/linen (for number Twelve) – or the “Nontraditional” gifts of silverware (Fifth) or Pearls (Twelfth). Besides, I already have the pearls, thank you very much (you never timed anything “traditionally,” did you) and though now the idea of sending you an anonymous “spork” and a napkin strikes me as rather droll at the moment, it’s a little too late. Let’s just go with the idea that it’s the thought that counts.

So tomorrow, I’m getting THE HELL OUT OF THIS HOUSE and getting that phone. It will be SUPER-COOL and NOT half naked. I’ve also made a decision. I found a bunch of rolls of film, and I know that our actual “Wedding” pictures are among them. I was debating about developing them, but I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to do it. We had an BIZZARE and BRILLIANT Wedding, damn it, and I’d like to remember it. I will make you copies of the pictures. I sincerely hope you’d like to have them. Signed, A Bear Bean (OKAY – a Bear Bean BUBBIN)

*Who thought up this stuff anyway? WOOD????

The recent upgrade to Movable Type 3.31 was utterly SEAMLESS. Well, to be fair, it was seamless for ME. That’s because in the midst of all sorts of other chaos with which I was dealing, my Web Guru, my Cyber Hero, my CODE KING quietly fixed all my broken templates. The best part is that I always get an email WHILE he’s fixing everything that APOLOGIZES that the upgrade broke some of my templates. And the template are crazy because of ME. In fact, one day recently I was posting a new entry. I went back a number of times to fix little bloopers and oversights here and there in my writing (I have to do this about three thousand times because I only have AFTER-SIGHT not FORESIGHT) and every single time I looked at my blog it had changed FOR THE BETTER. One of my favorite new things is that I now have WIDGETS!!! I’m still figuring them out, but I love them dearly just because they are WIDGETS (made, I can only hope, in the Widget Factory that was always in the mathematical story problems of my youth). My most and best favourite Widget right now is my “Tag Cloud.” I don’t know why or what for or where or WHATEVER – it just pleases me to no end.

Something else happened that I really probably should fix, but I am holding on to a clandestine hope that it’s NOT a mistake and that I somehow have become hip without realizing it. No one needs to point out the low probability of this – just let me pretend for a little longer. See, the label (title and/or alt) of my Flickr image of Paisley now says, “My Pics are a WIP.” I don’t think this what I wrote originally (and find this conclusion well-supported by the fact that I haven’t the vaguest CLUE what “My Pics are a WIP” means). BUT I think it sounds rather “cool.” Try it on for size, “My Pics are a WIP!” Say it again! Isn’t that fun?

Sadly, it either means NOTHING or it means something that I don’t INTEND for it to mean; perhaps “My Pics are a WIP,” is somehow vulgar, and any obscenity on my part is usually very intentional. I still think I’ll leave it for just a LITTLE longer… Then, on a slightly cheerless day I’ll change it back to what I’m fairly certain it said (something about Paisley saying or thinking that my images were “number one” – very prosaic and decidedly NOT hip).

And I don’t care.

It makes me do this (but I cannot pull off the ENORMOUS cuteness quotient):

On the night of the banquet, I arrived in Park City for the 50,000th time in five days – this time WITH luggage AND having showered, damn it. I arrived just in time to meet the caterer and give her her thank you gift and her metal drink tubs (the card was BLANK and I explained that it would have said lots and lots of nice things and she very sweetly told me that she could always use a thank you card) and to walk into the banquet JUST as it was supposed to start. (It was NOT the BANQUET FROM HELL yet; those were the innocent days – the days when I thought I’d SEE the bill before I was charged and the days when I believed the the bill would not be based ENTIRELY IN THE REALM OF IMAGINATION.)

I’d been there approximately two minutes when my Father turned to me and said, “So and So and So and So solved the very difficult equation of [INSERT ENGINEERING PHRASE THAT – ESPECIALLY IN A SLEEP-DEPRIVED STATE TO A NON-ENGINEER – MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN “BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH”] and I promised a little prize and an award. Do you have anything?” I looked at him blankly for a minute. He continued, “We’ll call the prize the Anderson-Schulz Flory Award. Do you have a something – uhm, a certificate?”

Mind you, at home, it is not unusual for my Father to say, “It’s So and So’s birthday and I need something in two minutes.” My Mother and I are prepared for this regular occurrence.. We have the Kate and Karen gift shop, with an assortment of little presents as well as accompanying gift bags, wraps and bows. I can put together a gift basket in two minutes flat – LESS than that on a good day. This impresses my Father. I have also stopped him as he is leaving the house with – I kid you not – a HALF-EATEN BAG OF CANDY which he intends to give to some neighbor family as a gift. Oh, the multitude of times that Man has been sent out the door with a REAL little gift/token as opposed to the some weird crap he pulled out from under his bed (he keeps candy there – don’t ask). Perhaps this has given him the wrong impression. Perhaps he thinks my Mother and I can perform GIFT MAGIC.

But at the banquet, I could only gawk in amazement . He WAS sleep-deprived, but not NEARLY to the extent that I was.

Here’s the connection to the Healthy Back Bag – oh the the perfect ergonomic design and it’s capacious interior…. I was cruelly mocked for using this bag. YES, it is an OLD PERSON BAG. So what? I have back trouble (don’t worry – I shan’t launch into a treatise on my rheumatism and my gout and the vapours and whatnot) and it seemed like a good idea. Finally, after years of faithful service, some of the teeth on the zipper to the main compartment gave way. I stood in the shoe repair shop, tears welling in my eyes, begging, “Could you REPLACE the zipper?” But NO, it’s embedded into the design in a way that makes replacement impossible. So now, in keeping with womanly folly throughout the World, I have multiple handbags. At the moment they are mostly summery clearance items from Steinmart and Tuesday Morning, but I still have MORE THAN ONE. This means when you switch things about that NOT EVERYTHING MAKES IT INTO THE OTHER HANDBAG. Granted, I had my multi-tool, but I DID NOT have my pocket knife (it’s PERSONALIZED) or my tiny level. Nor did I have my electronic three-language (four?) translator cum calculator. Most importantly, it means I DID NOT HAVE THE TINY TUPPERWARE KEYCHAIN WITH THE HELPFUL EMERGENCY MEDICATION.

Had the smart-ass in me been awake, I might have said, “Wait one moment Father – let met examine my on-hand awards selection. Okay, I have ‘Best Performance as a Jewish Religious Authority after recovering from a serious Beard Mishap,’ I have the ‘Life-time CRAZY Hair Achievement Award’ – wait that’s mine – I have the ‘Most Engineer-like Faux Pas at a Social Function,’ but that’s not really the right one, ‘Best Malapropism on Tuesday,’ but it’s Thursday, anyway – WAIT – I have the ‘Anderson-Shulz…’ – Damn! I have the ‘Anderson-Schulz Mc-Flurry Award.’ So close. Wait – I will take my multi-tool, cut out a piece of the tablecloth, quickly pen an award (in CALLIGRAPHY – suitable for framing, NATURALLY), decorate it with a little lip gloss from my extensive collection (a story for another time), embroider it with dental floss and THERE YOU HAVE IT! And let me thumb through my envelope full of gift certificates from all regions of the country – PERFECT – I have one for Washington State AND one for Houston, Texas. How lucky! Let me check on my wallet-sized Periodic Table of the Elements and see what the appropriate Noble Gas is for such an occasion….

OKAY – I do – IN TRUTH – carry a wallet-sized Periodic Table of the Elements and have done so for at least twenty years. Mind you, it’s an old enough version that’s missing some of the newer synthetic/atomic/nuclear elements like “Mister Burnsiom” and “Tela-Tubbium,” but I could STILL whip the thing out and tell you in a few short moments that the atomic number of Tungsten (the symbol is “W” by the way – HA) is 74. So there. Awards and gift certificates, no dice (literally – no dice – though sometimes a finger puppet, a rhythm egg and TINY face cards). Cash, upon occasion…

Part II, The REVENGE

Truly, I did not swallow any dental instruments, but :

• I worked for months and months (on and off) planning little “Welcome to Utah” gifts. I poured Utah honey into thirty-five smaller jars from the big jugs (because it was less expensive than letting THEM do it – and they promised me it wouldn’t introduce bad, wicked bacteria), I distributed Redmond RealSalt into thirty-five small shakers, I obtained two varieties of “Salt Water Taffy” that made in Utah. I typed up the nutritional and background information. I obtained attractive twine (yes, some twine is more aesthetically pleasing than other varieties) and tissue paper AND Chinese food take-out containers in which to put the “Welcome to Utah” gifts. Unfortunately, at the last minute, the course notes and such (done on Engineer time – which means the ABSOLUTELY LAST MINUTE POSSIBLE – I think ALL the course notes were printed by the THIRD day of the FOUR DAY COURSE) prevented me from actually putting the tags and the jute ribbon and the names and all on my “Welcome” gifts. Therefore, I “Welcomed” a handful of people to Utah as they LEFT the State and/or Country and still need to mail the packages to some others who had earlier departure dates. Had my Mom not rescued me (and the people and what I will be nice and call the “languorous” Kinkoes – they seem to work hard, but it is at a pace so UNBELIEVEABLY SLOW that I think any group of simians – take your pick – could have far exceeded their speed without a single opposable thumb amongst them) everything would have gone all to HELL and there would have been NO course notes and NO “Welcome gifts.” Nor would there have been thirty-seven copies of the seventy-four introductory pages (TWO introductory pages) that had ALREADY been copied and were ready to insert. Mind you, it wasn’t her fault – my Dad just stacked them on top of the other pages that needed to be copied. She was beginning to think that the introduction was a WEE bit long-winded – 2,738 copies makes a tall stack, after all.
• Oh yes – another lesson. I reiterate – it’s IMPERATIVE to check if the overflow lodging has air conditioning, ESPECIALLY if it’s unseasonably warm – even in the mountains. One might find themselves sitting at the very expensive “boutique” lodge dealing with all the late check-ins (which was MOST of the check-ins – wait – ENGINEER TIME. If I had a freakin’ nickel for every time someone said “I meant to be here earlier…) and have the most pleasant surprise of a guest walking back from the over-flow accommodations next door saying, “It’s 86 degrees over there. Is there air conditioning?” I wanted to say, “Of COURSE – I would be a BLITHERING IDIOT not to have confirmed such a thing.” So I confirmed it right that minutes. Alas, no air conditioning. This is when I got VERY creative on an extremely large sleep deficit. So and so and so and so were NOT taking the first half of the course, so Dr. A and Dr. B could have those rooms for several days and I could put several graduate students (and it WAS ladies first) in another room for the same reason. Soon my well-organized rooming list (which I’d worked on for months) looked was obliterated with red ink and all my sinister, well-laid plans to put big oil people in the same suite as the bio-fuel conservation people were shot to hell (it was to be SCIENCE to see what would happen – I figured either WWIII – wait, too late – forgive me my Republican friends – WWIII.5 or World Peace and an end to the energy crisis). But that wasn’t the lesson I was going to mention. I was going to say that the ONE person you inadvertently assume is a MAN is going to be a WOMAN. And they are going to be the one flying all the way from NORWAY. I checked every name that could have gone either way (gender-wise) – even if I had a fairly good inkling – EXCEPT the “guy from Norway.” Why didn’t I check? WHY? I don’t know. Is it the presumption of my Scandahoovian bloodlines? Well, in this case, being a descendant of King Frostti Snarlsson (sp?) of Kvenland did me no good whatsoever. In fact, I think it made me subconsciously a Norwegian KNOW-IT-ALL. The name does appear masculine, if you say it in a stupid American accent. When someone from NORWAY says it, it is so strikingly feminine and lovely and only someone who wanted a son with profound gender-confusion would use the name for a BOY. So, at about 1:30 a.m., after I’ve called back to Utah Valley and said, I’m just waiting for the “guy from Norway” – I feel like I should wait for the “GUY FROM NORWAY,” a lovely blonde woman will walk up to the front desk. I don’t remember who I guessed she was, but as soon as she spoke, I KNEW what I’d done. I believe my eyes, as big as saucers, gave away my little faux pas. If they did not, then whatever blustering stream of consciousness I launched at Dr. Skagseth no doubt did (at the end of the week she sweetly said, “I hope I didn’t scare you too much”). Bless her. I stared at her, I stared at the rooming list – I was thinking I CANNOT PUT THE WOMAN WHO CAME ALL THE WAY FROM NORWAY INTO A SUITE WITH A STRANGE MAN – granted, everyone had separate bedrooms and bathrooms and such, but STILL – she’d had horrible taxi difficulties, fourteen or so hours in the air, and evidently an unsightly wreck on the highway (it almost sounded pretty when she said it, but still…) – I could NOT PUT HER IN A SUITE WITH A STRANGE MAN. Luckily, I had an epiphany. We’d had co-workers from Canada cancel and then UNCANCEL and I’d added a participant in the meantime (trying to recoup the income), so I told them they’d HAVE to share a suite – at least they knew each other – and they didn’t arrive until the next day. So I did my five hundredth room switch of the night and put Lovely Ms. Norway in with Lovely Ms. Chinese-Canada.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you why it might be wise to carry a variety of award certificates (suitable for framing, naturally) and random gift certificates in your purse. Let me take that back – I’ll tell you why I need to carry award certificates and random gift certificates in MY purse. And all y’all – those who mocked me for my capacious “Healthy Back Bag” – I curse its untimely death and I curse YOU (a little).

Last week was the Fischer-Tropsch Short Course which I’ve been coordinating for my Father. Consequently, the past week was very, VERY long Indeed, it was protracted, lengthy and incessant. I did learn a few VERY important lessons:

• I am too old and questionably medicated to sleep only a few hours at a time for more than a couple of days.
• ALWAYS, ALWAYS CHECK IF THE OVER-FLOW ACCOMADATIONS HAVE AIR-CONDITIONING.
• Don’t tell the wrong people at the restaurant that your credit card number is on file because despite promises that you will get approval on everything before the banquet and when that doesn’t happen you’ll get approval of a final invoice – you’ll get approval of ANY charges, for that matter – because they will charge you credit card without any invoices and they will overcharge you by at least $1,000. Then they won’t return your calls. So far I’ve only had to use the phrase “Affidavit of Unauthorized Charge” and “over-charge” and such. I fear I may get to the point where I shall be bandying about phrases like “litigation” and “sue your sorry…” Never mind. It’s just a shame that the one really nice, helpful person who is not at fault will no doubt get caught in the middle of it all.
• If you don’t shower for a disgusting amount of time (and this is NOT the standard un-bathed status of the hiding, depressed person – this is in PUBLIC because you’ve not had time to do so and all your clothes are an hour away) far too many people will know about it. This COULD possibly be because I become even more stream-of-consciousness garrulous when I’m sleep-deprived than when I’m not, and I probably told everyone myself.
• If you wear linen pants until you are so vile you should be hosed down, holes will mysteriously appear in the seat of said pants. Whether or not my own body dissolved my trousers is a mystery. It does lead to an interesting discussion: I used to be a purist about many things. I thought perhaps I should “change things up” a bit, and now I wonder. Now I have to pluck my eyebrows (or wax them), have regular haircuts, dye my “roots,” and yes, pay attention to what my underwear says. I’ll discuss my limits in this respect another time, but let me tell you that when you discover that you have large holes in the seat of your pants you will, by some cosmic fluke, be wearing underwear that says, “Wish on THIS!” on the back. I wish I were kidding.

Yes, I could go on (and on) and usually would (okay – JUST SHUT UP AND GIVE ME THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT THAT I DON’T ALWAYS GO ON AND ON AND ON AND ON…), but I am reminded of something that gives me some good perspective. You see, I COULD have swallowed a dental instrument during a root canal.

These are called a Gates Gliddens.

Ah, but no one could do such a thing! WRONG – Shirleen could do such a thing. Don’t get me wrong – she only swallowed ONE Gates Glidden. She went to the second appointment for a root canal (because, of course, the first appointment couldn’t be easily completed for some reason). Then she somehow swallowed a dental instrument. She did know she’d swallowed something, but presumed it was a piece of temporary filling. Then they began quite anxiously searching for the instrument. The dentist said, “You COULDN’T have swallowed that; it’s never happened before.” But it’s Shirleen. Shirleen has the “Luck O’ the Irish,” except it’s not the stereotypical “Luck O’ the Irish,” it’s more akin to the ironic potato famine sort of Irish luck. This explains a great deal about her health, her love life and why I was not entirely surprised when my Mom came home and said that Shirleen had swallowed a dental instrument. After it was confirmed that she had swallowed the Gates Glidden, the dentist did the quickest temporaryfilling EVER and the receptionist took her to the hospital where they endoscopically removed the sharp, pointy thing – TRULY luckily with no perforations anywhere.

So I just keep trying to remind myself, “I COULD have swallowed a dental instrument.” Of course, this not only serves as a reminder that things could be much worse, but that I’m long overdue to visit the dentist…