Levedy

A Letter to my Homeowner's Association

Advice: Do NOT mess with a pregnant, hormonal woman if you are an idiot.

Background: We hired a few laborers to remove some knotty, overgrown plants from our yard (remember the one that I gashed myself trimming?) and to recover the ground with decorative desert rock. The plants were ugly and the rock cover was a little patchy. The yard now looks like it SHOULD, DAMMIT.

(Name and address redacted to protect the incompetent boob who dared to fine us for sprucing up our yard without obtaining his permission first)

Dear Mr. PEAR-HEADED MORON,

Enclosed please find a copy of your requested Architectural Change Request Form for landscaping work done at (1313 Mockingbird Lane) on October 8, 2005.

As no change was made to the overall landscaping design, and no drainage or setbacks were altered, we felt that this form was frivolous. On October 8th we pulled out unsightly bushes (for which you have a history of citing us) and refreshed the rock groundcover to bring it back to the coverage and color scheme it had when we closed on the house in 2000.

We sought the advice and consent of our neighbors before changing anything. In fact, one of our neighbors joined in our efforts to refresh some of his landscaping as well.

We understand that, as a Community Association Manager, you must treat every homeowner the same. Minor landscaping changes must be dealt with in the same manner and with the same gravity as a homeowner's spray-painting his house tartan plaid with purple polka-dots. Your job as ombudsman places you in the unlucky position of keeping homeowners in compliance with community standards both reasonable and less so.

We do find it more than a little ridiculous, however, to threaten to fine us for removing bushes for which your inspectors have demonstrated a consistent distaste and fondness for citing. To go so far as to state that we should “replace the missig [sic] plant material” is laughable.

Our acacia bushes were an eyesore for you and a nuisance to us. Our community is better off without them. If you are intent on our re-planting it, however, we will consider planting an acacia bush in front of your office so that you may have the pleasure of maintaining a truly troublesome and pest-attracting plant.

Just try to hold off on fining yourself for improper upkeep.

Respectfully Yours,

Dimitri Rodis Jennifer McNamee
Homeowner Homeowner

Set phasers to fabulous

From the "Shoudn't he have done this years ago when people were sure he was still alive?" department:

Takei's gay

Interesting: he was in a Japanese-American internment camp from the ages of 4-8. Whoa.

Interesting little nubbin

I'm studying for my Greek class tonight, and I came across a saying that I thought was kinda cool.

In English, the meaning is "The sea is calm." The word-for-word Greek, however, is "The sea is oil." It makes sense if you think of a calm sea as a smooth puddle of olive oil.

My favorite Greek saying (still) is "When you shake hands with a Greek, count your fingers."

You’ve got a friend in me

I was feeling pregnant and mopey yesterday. I called my girlfriend April to see what she was up to. She sensed my doldrums and took me to PF Chang’s for lunch. We sat out on the balcony and gabbed like chickens. It was great fun. Then we bummed around Barnes and Noble for a while. We sat out on the B&N verandah (I with a hot chocolate, she with a Pumpkin Spice Latte) and gabbed like chickens some more. The Greek lessons are coming in handy, as we can gossip about people sitting within earshot.

I tutored and then joined my family for dessert at a nearby Italian place.

It was a nice change of pace, and I had so much fun that I forgot that I was pregnant and mopey.

You can't go home again

I’ve had the Huck family in my house for three weeks now. I realized the other day that my house doesn’t smell like my house anymore.

Actually – the upstairs still does, for the most part. The downstairs smells like another place entirely. It doesn’t smell bad, mind you, it just smells different: three different bodies, different laundry soaps, different kitchen smells, and a different cat.

It’s strange (and a little bit sad) to walk in your home and realize that, on a very visceral level, it’s not your home anymore.

Now I'm the Grandest Tiger in the Jungle

Sunday Dimitri and I went through our junk room to consolidate, purge, and reminisce through all of our childhood papers, toys, and other sundry crap.

I came across an old storybook that I used to love. In it was Little Black Sambo, one of my all-time favorite stories (it ranked right up there with The Poky Little Puppy and The Monster at the End of This Book) It tells the story of Little Black Sambo, a boy who gets systematiclly undressed to appease a group of vain tigers. The tigers fight over which is the grandest tiger in the jungle, race around a tree until they turn into butter, and Sambo takes home the butter for his mom to make pancakes.

Okay, so the story doesn't make much sense, but I distinctly remember reading this story with my mom and dad and I remember exactly where they inflected their voices and exactly how they made sound effects to go along with the story. (Forcing them to read it to me ten million times helps cement those sorts of memories.)

It never occured to me that the story was racist. It honestly never occurred to me that Sambo was black: I just thought that was his name. He was Little Black Sambo the same way that Snow White and Rose Red were character names. (If the three of them stood together, perhaps they made a living representation of the Angolan flag. (look it up if you like, but it's not really worth the punchline))

It also never occured to me that Curious George was a racist book. I never liked Curious George anyway. I always thought of him as a bit too namby-pamby for my tastes. And the man in the yellow hat? Well, we all know about him, don't we?

It's nice to know that kids aren't born bigoted. It takes a demented adult to twist a cute kid's story into something distasteful.

I tossed the book, but I tore out the story of Little Black Sambo. I just can't bring myself to get rid of it.

The Internet is For Porn

Last night Dimitri and I went to the Wynn to see Avenue Q. Dimitri got the tickets free (Hooray! My favorite price!) from a client who had already seen the show twice.

The show was hilarious. I will never get the FULLY NUDE PUPPET SEX SCENE out of my head. The play was created by and stars a lot of folks who have worked for Sesame Street for decades, and apparently they wanted to kink it up a bit.

It was definitely for adults. One song ("The internet is for porn") is sung by a cookie-monster sounding puppet who extols the marvels of masturbating online. There are two adorable teddy bear puppets (called the "Bad Idea Bears") who try to convince a character to take advantage of another drunken puppet and to hang himself.

The first song - "What do you do with a B.A. in English?" - had me in stiches, but the entire play is smart and hilarious. One of the characters is Gary Coleman (yes, THAT Gary Coleman) but he's played by a woman. The finale song promises that the bad things in life (like George Bush) are only "For now." The audience applauded mightily at that line.

The play was alternately touching and laugh-out-loud-want-to-pee-myself-funny. If you have the chance, you should totally see this one.

Just be prepared to see puppets do it.

Detente?

Sorry for the fuzzy picture - it was taken in a dark room while I was stifling laughter- hard to hold the camera still.

Low Moments in Phlebotamy

So I trudged my way to the phlebotomist’s clinic to get blood drawn on orders from my OB. I had to be wheedled and teased into it, because I dread needles. I had a BAAAAAD needle experience when I was a kid, and to this day, I cannot picture metal piercing my skin without getting queasy.

It’s so bad that I can’t even wear earrings anymore. The idea of tattoos makes me get shifty-eyed looking for emergency exits. The thought of a needle poking my skin over and over makes me want to....(flop, thud)

So I forced myself to go to the phlebotomist’s. As I get into the elevator to go to the second floor, I notice that someone has fastened large, padded blankets to three of the walls. I think to myself padded walls...how did they know that I was coming? I go to the office and sign in.

There was only one other (exceptionally walleyed) woman in the waiting room. It was a pretty standard medical waiting room, with the addition of a friendly sign. It said (I cannot make this stuff up)

FOR THE SAFETY AND CONVENIENCE OF YOUR FELLOW PATIENCE (sigh)
NO CELL PHONES
NO TALKING
NO USE OF BATHROOM
NO FOOD OR DRINK

THANK YOU

It occurs to me that my planned mental breakdown and the resulting shrieking, racing about with arms a-flailin’, calling for help, and wetting myself will be less than appreciated here. Time for plan B, I guess.

The lady behind the counter asked me a few questions, including my race. I raised an eyebrow, cocked my head to the side, and said “as white as they come. Practically albino, even. I don’t ever need X-rays: they just look through my skin” Anyone who has met me would never confuse me for a Roshanda or a Guadalupe or a Jiang Li. I will only ever be mistaken for a Mary Catherine O’Malley or an Ingrid Clausdotter.

The woman (If I’m as white as they come, she was as black as they come. The two of us looked like a chess set) looked up at me, saw my pasty Anglicanness, and snickered. I told her that I would sit in the corner and have a panic attack that would remain consistent with their rules for...ahem...patience.

As I sat down, the other woman in the waiting room started talking to me. At least, I think that she was talking to me. Both eyes were focused on opposite ends of the wall I was cowering against. She was telling me not to be scared, and that the nurses at the clinic were very nice. I swallowed the urge to ask if her eyes were like that before they sucked vital juices from her.

The nurse behind the counter agreed with the human flounder and told me that there was nothing scary about what they were doing (Ha, I say, Ha!) and I said that as far as I was concerned, the faster I was unconscious, the better, since they could stab me with anything they like at that point and I’d never be able to pick them out of a police lineup. The nurse chuckled in a tone that was decidedly spooky and told me to follow her to a room.

(insert butterflies here)

She sat me in a padded chair (They did not, unfortunately, pad these walls, an oversight which I am sure that they will remedy for my next trip) and proceeded to put a locking bar from one arm rest to the other, effectively limiting my chair escape attempts to either slithering to the ground or floating to the ceiling. I joked that she was seriously impinging on my ability to run screaming from the room. All she said was “Exactly.”

(more butterflies would be good here)

I told her that I was petrified of needles. I admitted my weird little thing about earrings, too. She clicked her tongue and told me “If you’re going to pass out, I need to know, okay?” I said (like a damned FOOL) “I think I’ll be alright as long as I don’t see the needle at all.” I squinched up my eyes, turned my head away and said “See? I’ll be (famous last words) FINE. Look at how well I can not look at what you’re doing (What am I looking for from her? A cookie?)”

She ties off my arm, pokes me with a needle, and I start breathing verrrrrry carefulllllllly. I think that I would have (no way, Jose) been alright if I hadn’t heard the whooshing. My blood was whooshing into the vial(s). I started to feel the same way that I felt when I hacked my thumb a few weeks ago. My heart wanted to beat out of my chest, my eyes started showing me fireworks and I felt that losing consciousness was a very valid, nay, perfect solution to the situation at hand. A small voice inside me said “Poppies: poppies will put her to sleep. Sleeeeeeeep.” It sounded like such good advice. Lucidity is for total losers, I decided.

I told the lady that I was feeling like I had been on the teacups ride ten too many times. She said “Can you give me twenty seconds? I need twenty seconds.” Three hours later, she pulled the needle out and a cold cup of water appeared. She and a big Samoan dude (also a nurse, or maybe I imagined him) led me to a room with a cot (Cots? Why didn’t they tell me I had a cot option? Bastards!) and told me that I should lay on my side so that I don’t choke on my own vomit.

In my own defense, I did not vomit.

I asked to see the vials that she filled, and there were like six or seven of them. MAN! Can I bleed!

Enough to whoosh, anyway.

I went out to the car and checked myself out in the rear view mirror.

No walleye yet.

Dark Dealings at the OBs

Friday was my first OB appointment. Dimitri came with me (awww.) He says he wants to come to all of my appointments with me (awwww.) Pretty standard stuff...urine pregnancy test (positive. duh) and pap smear stuff. Speculum and scrapes! Oh boy!

The best part of the appointment was getting to nose through supplies when the doctor was out of the room. There was a folder called "Occult blood samples" that really caught my eye. Occult blood samples? Cooooool. If I kept looking, I would find a dark, hooded robe and some sort of cauldron or something.

Then I found a sample collector thing that was specifically designed for fecal occult samples. Okayyyy.....a little bit gross, but still cool about the occult thing.

Dimitri shooed me out of the exam room before I could pocket any more items, we said goodbye to the doctor (who was very nice, considering she's involved in a cult) and had an early lunch at In-N-Out Burger.

Much to my chagrin, an online medical dictionary cleared things up for me:

occult: concealed or hidden from view, as, for example, occult blood in stools

Drat. Maybe next time.

-changing subject-

ACTUAL PHRASES UTTERED BY ME THIS WEEKEND

"Andrew, don't chase Ruby with an axe"

"Andrew, do you hear the cat hissing? Stop trying to pet her."

"Andrew, you may not play with the toilet brush."

"Andrew, put down the axe and leave Ruby alone."