Category: truth is stranger than…

The face of a criminal

Behold the face of the unrepentant criminal!

Last night, after giving kibble to the rabble rouser, I took a glass from the cabinet where we keep dishes, poured some soy milk, and went to the other room to enjoy the cold glass. I suppose I didn’t firmly close the cabinet door…fine.

Several minutes later, I heard some clanking noises from the kitchen and said to The Good Man, “what’s she into now?”

He said, “we didn’t leave any dishes on the counter, so I can’t imagine…”

I got up and went into the kitchen.

The Feline had made her way into the cabinet where the dishes are kept and was prowling around in there. When I barked, “get down!” as I do when she’s somewhere she ought not to be, she wigged out.

And in her haste to comply and quickly extricate her anything-but-lithe form from the shelves, she managed to shove the stack of bowls out of the cabinet and crashing, shattering to the floor.

She then scampered off a good distance, then stopped to lick her paw as though to say, “what?”

I found myself…mad. Really mad. Not kick the cat mad (in no way at all), but mad.

The Good Man rightfully reminded me that she’s a pet, you can’t reason with her like a child, that being mad is fine but really comes to no good end, that this is just what this particular feline does.

Sure. Didn’t help. I was still mad.

Not mad enough I didn’t let her sleep on top of me, like usual, but still, this morning…I’m peeved.

I’m probably more peeved at myself for leaving the door open than anything.

I once had a therapist say that being mad was more about yourself that it is about the person (feline) you are mad at.

So. Breathe in. Breathe out.

*sigh* So I guess this weekend we’ll set out into the world to buy a new set of bowls. Ain’t gonna be no soup in our house for a while!

Aw man, Popeye is stoned again.

From today’s ABQJournal:

“New Mexico Motor Transportation Division officers have discovered 1,200 pounds of marijuana packed in cans labeled as Pacific Green Spinach…”

I actually think that is a little bit ingenious….except for the part about “An alert inspector noticed that only a few of the cans were labeled, and that the weight printed on the side of the cans didn’t match the actual weight…”

Oops.

Perspectives

I’m going to do something that I pretty much figured I’d never do. I’m going to post a photo of myself, unretouched, without any makeup or clean up whatsoever. I’m doing so because it helps make the point of my story.

I find myself the unwitting victim of a sociological experiment.

As mentioned here, I had some heavy dental work done on Monday. The tooth is healing fine, still a little cold sensitive, but all in, healing well.

However, in the process of giving numbing injections so the dentist could work on my tooth, he accidentally hit a blood vessel in my cheek.

So, as expected, the vessel bled out leaving me a bruise below the skin, which, due to gravity, has traveled to my jawline.

As this week has progressed, the swelling has gone down and the tooth has improved but the bruise has gotten blacker and meaner looking.

I’m feeling fine but my face is a mess.

Today, I ventured out into the world to try to find some new spring clothes for work. Because I am a cheap ass b*stard, I went to the “discount fashions for less!” type of stores to shop. Make my dollars go farther.

Fascinating sort of clientele you get in the low, low price kind of stores.

The kind that yell at the fitting room lady because she miscounted their stack of clothes. The kind that shout angrily to all in the store, “C’mon honey, let’s leave, the line is too long, this is ridiculous!!” (both of these stories are true).

Yeah, so I’m out in the world looking at work pants and minding my business. Me being me, inside my own body, I don’t see the bruise on my face unless I look in a mirror. What I do see are people’s reactions to me. I am continually reminded I have a beat up looking face.

I am reasonably certain that a fair percentage of the society I have encountered thinks that some guy has hurt me. At least I suppose that is what they think…I can’t read minds…much.

It really freaks me out that someone, even one person, would think my husband might hurt me like that. It makes me feel defensive and, yes, angry.

I guess I can’t blame them in their assumption, but what a sad commentary on how we live our lives. The whole Rhianna/Chris Brown thing is top headline news right now, so everybody has an opinion.

From a sociological standpoint, here’s what is interesting. Today I went to six different stores and encountered fellow customers, fitting room attendants, store clerks and cashiers, all of them women.

Older ladies, say 50 and above, looked at me with sympathy. I got a kind of “I’ve been there, honey” look, and they would treat me with kid gloves. Called me “dear” and patted my hand.

Younger women, 30 or less, treated me with disgust. Most wouldn’t meet my eyes or would narrow their eyes at me when I approached. I even had a young lady, another customer, look at me, stare at my bruise, then turn her head and say “ugh!”, shrug her shoulders and walk away.

I don’t know what this means. I do know that it is kind of freaking me out. It’s also playing hell with my self-esteem.

As a woman, I have a profound bit of fear and healthy respect for women who have lived through the torment of an abuser in the form of a boyfriend or a husband. I am not that woman. I want to yell to all who will hear “It was my dentist, for chrissakes!,” but really, at the end of the day, no one cares. We all just want to cast a judgment and go on about our bargain shopping day.

Decisions!

A couple weeks ago, The Good Man and I took the Fabulous Mom-in-Law out to dinner at a really beautiful San Francisco restaurant (if you know the area, it is located at the Marina, at Fort Mason, right on the water, with stunning views of the Golden Gate.)

As I enjoyed the “wine pairings” with my meal, this meant that it wasn’t long before I had to take myself and my walnut sized bladder to the ladies room.

With business complete, I went to flush the toilet and was presented with…a choice.

The top of the toilet had a button that was divided in two. One side said .9 The other side said 1.6

And I thought to myself…is this a .9 or 1.6 sized event?

Hell if I know!

Well, TMI and all that, but I determined it was really only a .9 sized event so I pushed that one. Then, when that was done, giddy with all this decision making and wondering how big a 1.6 flush was, I hit the other button.

Then realized that this ingenious toidy is supposed to save water. So what did I do? Gratuitously flushed, that’s what I did. And used up 2.5.

Oh the humanity!

As the old saying goes, you can dress me up, but you can’t take me out…

(This is not my picture, but it was *exactly* like this)

Replacement Parts

Sorrowfully, I had occasion to visit with my dentist of twelve years today. He’s a good guy and when you have that kind of trust with a dental professional, you don’t take it lightly.

The reason for my visit today wasn’t an easy peasy cleaning and check up, no. A couple weeks ago I bit down on something hard and felt pain shoot up the side of my face.

That *can’t* be good.

So I was unsurprised when the good Doctor told me I had three cracks in my tooth. The same tooth that was home to not one but two fillings.

Feeling myself headed for “you need a crown”-ville, my dentist looked at my xrays and said, “good news, we can use the machine.”

The Machine?

What the [insert dental-fear inspired curse word here] is “The Machine?”

I guess if you need something more than a drill and fill, but something less than a crown, they have this cool device that takes a scan of your scraped out tooth, then creates a puzzle piece-like filling that slips right in there.

It’s milled out of a block of dental porcelain right there onsite, same day.

So the dentist drilled out my tooth, and then I read a magazine while the machine churned and groaned and soon enough, they showed me the little piece of tooth looking porcelain. Add a little dental glue and ta daa! New tooth!

As The Machine worked, my dentist talked about science’s ability to make new body parts, like my homemade tooth. He said, “I laugh when people get up in arms over athletes using steroids to increase their body’s capabilities. In ten to twenty years they will be making new joints, ligaments and tendons, you name it. Athletes can be created, and steroids will be looked on as quaint.”

I replied, “That’s weird, man. In a good way, but weird.”

Oh well, in about an hour and a half all in, I was fixed up and sent on my way with a droopy drool-y smile and a bit of ache in my freshly manufactured body part.

Weird.

Image from The Searcher’s Flickr Photostream.