deus ex mama
i am in an awful, bad, no good mood today since i have to go get a biopsy next week. so, instead of barking at everyone, i share a link to a really funny page sent by my pal Jacks (thanks, Jacks!) of really awful, bad, no good bridal wear. i'll write about our trip to milwaukee to the all-star game another time.
ohy G-d, if you are out there, PLEASE don't make me listen to neil diamond singing “comin' to america” or lee greenwood's “g-d bless the USA” anymore!
rather than deal with the tremendous security and absurd crowds downtown yesterday, we went to mclean to see some fireworks. mclean, for those of you who are not familiar with the place, is a ritzy-titsy part of fairfax county. it is where a lot of members of congress live (like the kennedys, for example), a lot of people with a lot of money and not as many sensible ideas as to what to do with it. it isn't like i live in a poverty-stricken area — not by a long shot. but when you compare my neighborhood with mclean, we seem positively middle class. boo hoo. anyway, it is pretty close to where we live, and it sounded like a more down-home type of celebration, so off we went.
it was easily 100 degrees out on the football field where the festivities were taking place. BC bounced in the moonbounce, and BC and I were put in a plastic bubble and had to negotiation around cones in a perverse obstacle course. it was probably a thousand degrees inside the bubble, i might add. people must be completely spastic, or else BC and i must be an awesome team, because we easily negotiated the twists and turns with BC only falling down once. i saw grownups dragging their kids along in the bottom of the bubble. sheesh. BC also had something that supposedly looked like balloons painted on her face (which is STILL on her face, in bits and pieces, this morning.) The tattoo on her arm lasted all of maybe 30 minutes before she peeled it off. we all shared a snocone, and BC danced much of the evening away on the track. my lord, she is cute. anyway, you know, i only saw two people smoking the whole evening. as BS noted, smoking correlates with education, and this is probably a more educated populace than most.
however, you might have not known that thanks to the music that the DJ — Nards was their name! — played. you know, i could go another thousand years without ever having to hear lee greenwood OR neil diamond's “patriotic” fervor. and i love broooce — and everyone knows it — but you just don't put “born in the USA” on your patriotic countdown unless there is a bit of tongue in cheek going on. and judging from the intelligence level of the folks spinning, i don't think that would be possible. apparently, “surfin USA” and livin' in the usa” are also patriotic, in case you were wondering…
anyway, you know me — bitch, bitch, bitch about music. back to the fireworks. we said the pledge of allegiance (and BS and i both omitted “under g-d” just because we are annoyed with the supreme court) and off we went. the fireworks were lovely. of course, BC was fine with them, despite how close they seemed and how boomingly loud they were, until she heard this little boy behind me whimpering and crying through the whole thing. i think there is an unspoken rule in the world of preschoolers – if one of your comrades is in pain, then you must share the pain and cry, too. while she didn't cry, she was scared and after awhile, she buried her painted face into my neck.
and it took literally 30 minutes to get out of the dinky little high school parking lot. no one moved, despite the fact that i saw lots of glowing lights motioning people to go. what was up with the fairfax county cops who were working that night? i'm glad i don't pay their salaries or else i would probably be sending a nasty-gram out. and i have major, major respect for cops, so you know i must be pissed to even think that.
wah wah wah. i am glad that july 4th is over. i love patriotism, but let's get back to normalcy already.
so today, we are talking about work. an unnamed person says that his boss is really nice and supportive and wonderful (really.) in front of BC. so BC chimes in, “don't call somebody boss. that means he's STUPID.”
“what, honey?” i ask.
“boss. it means stupid.”
the person i was talking with was in hysterics. and although i have had some amazing bosses (some of whom i am still friends with to this day), i have had some that resembled that remark.
well, i had a feeling it would be a good day. i mean, they only charged me $.03 for my gazpacho (the woman behind the deli counter was a little, uhm, inept, and i didn't look at the price tag she created until the checkout chick said, “uh, hahaha, GIRL! you are only getting charged 3 cents for this thing — Giant's fault!” — and you know, i offered to take it back and get it relabelled correctly, nerd girl that i am, and she told me not to bother). at kinkos, something wasn't going right with my copying experience, and so the she-man (Pat?) behind the counter just did it herself and did not charge me (ok, so not a huge expenditure either, but i was still pretty shocked that it was gratis.) i discovered the 38B bus that literally delivered me from Ballston straight to 22nd and K and back again — for FREE, since today is an horrific air quality day here in our Nation's Capitol and so metro is trying to get people into busses and trains and out of cars (once again, tree-hugger girl opted to do her share for the air)… and it just seemed like too nice a day for bad news, despite the 100+ degree heat and the #%$#@% tourists everywhere. maybe i should buy a Lotto South ticket?
i went to the radiologist. he did a really, really speedy check, but he couldn't find anything. i don't know whether i should be ecstatic or worried (i mean, 3 people HAVE found lumps there, so it is a little strange), but i choose to be ecstatic. so you should be, too 🙂 thanks for the support, jokes, and good wishes. this sort of thing really tweaks me, given my family history, and it is awful nice to know you are in my corner, regardless of how annoying i become 🙂
btw, taking the 38B was interesting. the homeless woman who is a fixture outside central library was on my bus. since it was free, i think she was just taking in some A/C and sightseeing, although she got off the bus near clarendon. i hope she stays cool. her skin is incredibly ruddy, and she was coughing up a lung, which was incredibly unpleasant, but hey, everyone needs to be somewhere. then, the man who had a little alcoholic halo around him boarded around rosslyn. sitting downwind of him was also incredibly unpleasant — i think a shower is probably in his plans somewhere around late october, by the smell of it — between his BO, his alcohol, and his cigarette smoke reverb. but, like i said before, everyone needs to be somewhere, and when its a free day on metro, it is party time on the bus.
was L'avventura, a masterwork by Antonioni. i am still thinking about it. very bleak – very empty people. and not a linear work, which is probably why people back in 1960 freaked out over it. you never find out what happened to anna (no, i am not giving anything away bu telling anyone that), and you never really grasp whether any of these people have any raison d'etre. they are intensely shallow, and that is intentional.
amazing.
after the last week of harrowing fun, i went to the breast surgeon today up in chevy chase and now have lovely ink drawings all over my boob. i feel like a work of art. she doesn't think definitively that it is anything bad, but she isn't sure, so between my family history and everything else, she would rather be safe. so, she is sending me for a rush-rush ultrasound on wednesday, after which she will decide whether i need to have a biopsy or not. (hopefully not, of course.) in addition to what i had found, she actually found a lump i didn't find, which was a little surreal. since a) thursday is july 4 and so nothing will happen then, and b) i can't do anything about it next week, i am not sure what the rush is about, but i suppose if i get good news from the ultrasound, then i will be pretty darn pleased.
and that is what i know.
today, i meet the surgeon in chevy chase to find out what next happens to the lovely lump/mass thingy i have in my breast.
(ok, you idiots out there, uh huhh huh, she said breast.)
i am really, really hoping that she meets me, takes a look, maybe even an ultrasound, and then says “get the hell outta my office.”
apologies to everyone, everywhere. i am just not very chatty at the moment. hopefully, later, i will have some happy news to report.
our daughter loves the song “i wanna be a lifeguard.” we have heard it twice already, and i am afraid this could continue all afternoon if i let it. she is dancing around the family room, pretending to swim and shake her groove thang. this, and the dead milkmen's “punk rock girl.” what a combo.
i think i should get this on film at some point. for future blackmailing purposes, of course 😉