Bugs... I Hate Bugs...

...You know, like Indiana Jones and snakes? That's me with bugs. Snakes? No problem. They don't even have any legs. But bugs... who said six or eight legs was normal anyway?


So tonight I was making my way back from Manteca. My son had spent the weekend at grandma's, so we did the "meet you halfway" thing. I was running low on gas and pulled over to a gas station in Gustine, or thereabouts. And as I was pumping my gas, Something dropped out of nowhere right down my shirtfront and into my cleavage, beg your pardon. So I'm thinking, that's weird, what was that? I did a quick check and couldn't see anything. I did the little dance where you flap your shirttails and spin around. Nothing. Hmph. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just some piece of trash and it fell out.


So I get back in my car and turn back onto Highway 5. You know Highway 5? Remote, godforsaken, nothing for miles Highway 5? And as I'm driving, I feel something creeping in my right sleeve...


Of course, I react. I reach over and grab my sleeve and there is definitely Something In There. I shudder. The car shudders. And suddenly I realize what a precarious situation I'm in.


Did I mention I was driving on Highway 5? Dangerous, reckless driver filled Highway 5?


And. There is Something. Alive. In My Clothing. With Me. And. I. Can't. Pull. Over.


And it's seven miles to the next turn off.


Seven. Miles.


There are moments in life where I'm quite proud of myself, and I believe I deserve some bragging rights here. I stay calm under pressure. It's what I do. Calm. I mean, I ask you, could YOU drive Seven Miles with Something Alive in Your Clothing with You?


So I grip the wheel with a kind of grim determination and try to ignore the slight burning sensation spreading out from the spot where I think IT may have bit me, and I'm running worst case senarios through my head, thinking, Okay, Black Widow, if IT is a Black Widow then I've got one hour to get to the hospital and get the antidote... How far is it to the nearest hospital? About one hour... Shit. Not good. Don't Panic. Don't Panic. No, IT can't be a Black Widow because Black Widows don't wait on the ceilings of gas stations and then drop on you... BUT Brown Recluses could. Shit. Maybe IT is a Brown Recluse. Oh. That would be Bad. Those are Very Bad Spiders. Might not kill me, but IT's bite is very poisonous and very painful... Shit. Don't panic. Can't be a Brown Recluse. IT can't be. If a Brown Recluse bit me I would be in severe pain. And I'm not in severe pain. Am I. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. Maybe I just imagi...


And then IT wiggled...


Nope. Didn't imagine IT. IT is still there...


All this for SEVEN MILES.


And I'm thinking. I Will NOT let this thing beat me. I am bigger than IT. I am smarter than IT. I refuse to let some Stupid BUG get the best of me. My name will not be associated with a 10 car pile up on Highway 5 because of a Creature that is 1/nth my body weight.


Finally, we get to Santa Nella and I pull over behind a gas station. I calmly (Calmly, I say) remove my seatbelt. And then I rip my shirt off.


My son, the wiseass, quips, "Well, that was hot." Oh, and did I mention, his 16-year-old best friend is also in the car with us. Ask me if I care. Modesty means nothing in the face of Something Alive In My Clothes With Me.


So I raise up my arm and I ask my son if he can see anything, any swelling on the back of my arm, and he says no...


Then I hear a buzzing coming from my lap... I look down and there crawling out of my shirt is...


A BEE.


A Bee. In November. A fucking BEE. In My Shirt. With Me. For Seven Miles.


We dove out of the car. I felt along my upper arm, and sure enough, right at the crease near the pit was a small protrusion. This was where I really lost it, I'm sorry to say. I just couldn't bring myself to pull out the stinger myself. Oh, but this is me, remember. Me losing it is putting my head down on my arm and taking deep breaths while saying to my son, "I really can't handle this. Please take the stinger out." And he did.


Next quest: Capture the Bee. IT was still in the car. Fortunately, IT had decided to make friends with the dome light, so capturing it was a simple matter of popping a Starbucks cup over the top of IT and throwing IT, cup and all, into the trash.


My son says, "Good thing you're not allergic to bees."


And I says, "I AM allergic to bees."


But not the deathly, stop breathing and go into convulsions kind of allergic. I'm just sensitive. I swell up like a balloon. The last time I was stung by a bee, I lost the use of my entire arm. But that was when I was a child. I haven't been stung by a bee in years. WTF? What was a BEE doing lurking around a gas station at night in the middle of November?


Maybe I shouldn't have thrown that cup away.


Maybe IT was an African bee.


Maybe I'm going to die after all.


Is my right arm tingling? Is it going numb?


It's going to be a long night...

Steve Reeves is God

It was "Spookfest Friday" at Dann & Maurine's and we indulged ourselves in two Popeye cartoons, one really *awful* science fiction (and I use the term lightly) serial, and two Steve Reeves movies: Morgan the Pirate and The Thief of Baghdad. The dialogue was terrible (and poorly dubbed!), but the eye candy was *totally* worth it. (Actually, Thief of Baghdad was creative and fun--not bad for 1961).

Allow me to artfully shred that shirt a little more, Mr. Reeves... More body oil?... Why, certainly...

22 Days til the Burn!

Guinness & Midol

How I spell "Relief." ;-)







24 Days til the Burn!

Mammorama

Well, after years of avoidance, I finally went through with it. I had a mammogram. You see, my plan was, if I waited long enough, the technology would advance to the point where the experience wouldn't be nearly as uncomfortable as the stories made it out to be. And believe me, there are stories. Women talk.

So, okay, I'm beginning my fourth decade. There's no going back. A woman's gotta do what she's gotta do. I braced myself for the worst.

The nurse led me into a small room with a machine that really did look like something out of a science fiction movie. This thing looked like it could flat iron my hair, transport me to Venus, and tell me the time when I got there. The nurse said to me, "Just pretend you're a model and we're going to take some pictures." The nurse, who was maybe a little over half my height, took another look (up) at me and said, "You really could have been a model." (It was the "could have been" that tweaked me just a bit).

I've noticed something about nurses (in my vast experience of about three or four trips to the hospital in my lifetime), especially the older ones. They develop their own style, their own little catch phrases for putting patients at ease. I'll never forget that one nurse I had when I was in labor with my son. "Just stay loose as a goose, loose as a goose." For an hour she said this. I was ready to knock her "loose as a goose" at that point. Thank God she went off shift. I was in labor for 20 hours and I don't think I could have handled it. Twenty hours of labor is one thing; twenty hours of "loose as a goose" and one might be capable of murder.

So, anyway, this nurse, the one who was giving me my mammogram, says to me that a lot of women are nervous when they come in, so she handles it like a photo shoot to make them relax. And you know, she wasn't far from the truth. Because it was "lay your arm here" and "turn your head this way" and "lean in" and "imagine you're Cleopatra." It did indeed feel just as awkward as a professional photo shoot. (You know the ones where you think "This is either going to look really weird or really spectacular." And then you see the picture later and it either looks really weird or really spectacular.) Perhaps the only difference was when she asked me if she was hurting me. Photographers would never ask that question. Beauty knows no pain.

It wasn't that bad, really. It was a bit of a squeeze and there were moments of discomfort, but it didn't last that long to be truly terrible. I'm not saying I'd rush out to do it again tomorrow, but maybe it won't take me a decade to get there next time around.

Delusions of Homestead

My friend Isabel has been staying with me temporarily until she gets settled in the area. She started out as my housesitter (well, apartmentsitter/bunnysitter) while I was gone this summer, and when I came back it just became convenient for her to stick around. She got a job at the local bookstore and now she's looking for a place to live.

The thing is, it's been kind of nice having her around. She's good company and one of the easiest people to live with that I've ever known. So we have kind of sort of been toying with the idea of finding a place to live together.

I checked out Craigslist and found that anything with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms is well into the $2000's per month. Reduce it to 3 bd/1 bth and it's marginally less, but still not affordable for our means.

Today, there was this little place that put up a rent sign that was right across the street from her work, so we went to check it out. It was more than amazing, it was uber-cute. It didn't look like much from the front but inside was a little 2-bedroom place with a studio attached out back. We got all giggly and excited thinking this was "our" place.

The bad news: $1400 for the 2-bedroom; $900 for the studio; $3000 if you want to rent the whole place together.

So that was the proverbial that. Isabel observed, "It's kind of like falling in love with a man: We always fall in love with the potential." Ain't it the truth.

We didn't stay down for long. We went to go see our friend Bruce play his guitar with a band in Felton. Had a beer, listened to some good music--funny how troubles slip away.

But what troubles me is that there are actually people out there who can watch $3000 of their money slip out the door every month for a rental.

I've Got My Sistahs in Me

Today, my sister treated me to a "Spa Day" in Los Gatos, and I have to say, It. Was. Fabulous. Everything was all trickily fountains and soft music and glowing candlelight and big overstuffed chairs with rich upholstery... and that was just the "library." (Hell, I'd pay good money just to go and sit in their library every day).

I know I try to play it off like I don't need the frills, like "People spend money on this? Pffh." But after an experience like this, I am reminded I really am a princess at heart. If I were a Woman of a Certain Means, I'd be in there every week. Maybe every day. (Okay, maybe that's a little excessive).

After our glorious spa experience, we met a couple of our girlfriends for lunch. This was something like a Very Merry Un-Birthday for me, because I will be turning 40 in a few weeks. One of the girls asked what I want 40 to be for me and, well, I'm already doing it, aren't I? Some people do triathlons or buy sports cars or throw big parties. I decided last year that when I turned 40, I wanted to be on the other side of the planet. And I will be. I believe I will be in Copenhagen that day. I also bought a ticket for Burning Man, but that seems very distant right now. My trip is looming so much larger as the date of my departure gets closer.

What do I want 40 to be for me? That will take it's own post, I think. There is so much I want to learn and do and explore and be. But more than that, it means so much to me to be able to share those experiences with my friends. Aye, they are lovely all.



10 Days til Lift-Off

Delusions of Swimwear

The trouble with shopping is that, after walking glassy-eyed and slack-jawed through a mall designed to push one's senses into information overload, one might actually believe, for one brief shining moment, that one might actually fit into that charming little bikini dangling on the rack.

Can you say "delusions of grandeur," Boys and Girls? I knew you could!




15 Days til Lift-Off

Adventures with Alcohol

One "Daisy Duke" sends Tinkerbell flying...

Two "Daisy Dukes" knocks her on her ass...

Splitting Hairs

I like to say my hair has a split personality; that's why I can't get rid of these split ends! [snicker!]

First, the "Hag."
When I wash my hair, it goes all curly crazy--not exactly Shirley Temple ringlets, that would be too easy--oh no, my hair acts like each individual strand has a mind of its own and wants to pick its own direction. Wearing it long, at least I have gravity on my side: eventually, it has to tend toward a downward slope. When I've cut it short, there was just no controlling it. Curling irons, blow dryers, endless hair products: all useless. It's all I can do to get a comb through my hair without breaking it. It's like carding wool, it really is. Eventually, after a couple of days, it starts to calm down and then it becomes...

The "Princess"
This is when my hair becomes almost manageable. I can braid it or style it as I please and it behaves itself, for the most part. I can manage to get a brush through it without too much difficulty.

Brushing, of course, creates its own problem. I like to joke that I have more hair in my brush than most people have on their heads. [weg] Brushing also tends to loose all kinds of strays: wild tangles run rampant through my house, capable of lifting objects and possibly small children. It's a sad commentary that when company's coming I must actually consider combing the rug. I shed worse than any family pet I've ever had. In fact, a friend of mine once told me that while sitting in a business meeting, he looked down and found a stray hair on his shirtsleeve. He started pulling on it and it just kept going and going... So let that serve as a warning: Check your clothing! There may be interlopers lurking...

I have to take a moment to sing the praises of modern beauty products. When I was a girl, I wanted long, straight, red-brown hair-- like Princess Leia! I swear to God!-- and now, with the miracle of modern science, I can! Every 8-10 weeks, I go into a salon and this brilliant woman not only colors my hair the exact shade I like [I'm "artificially going natural" a la Carrie Fisher], she spends hours flat ironing it so it's absolutely perfect. It is complete excessive indulgence on my part, I know, but I love it. My hair feels like silk for days.

Then I have to wash my hair, and the Hag is back. But you know, she's okay, too. I am willing to embrace my Hag/Princess duality.

Woman Power

Wednesday night I invited a girlfriend of mine out to this book promotional event offered through the Commonwealth Club: This is Not the Life I Ordered by Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risely, Jackie Speier, and Jan Yanehiro.

As you might suspect, this was a really woman-heavy event. The few men that were there could be pegged immediately: Tech Guy, Backstage Manager, Somebody's Husband (there were about half a dozen of these), and the two old codgers from the Muppet Show (they show up to everything, don't they?). Women from all walks of life filled the room. I'm sure the estrogen levels were through the roof!

I do not mock in earnest; this was a great event. These women had some startling tales to tell. Remember Jonestown? Jackie Speier was there. She was part of the congressional delegation sent down to investigate. When the whole massacre thing went down, she was shot five times at point blank range and left bleeding on the tarmac of the airstrip for 22 hours before the rescue teams arrived. And that was only the beginning of her story...

Each of these women have lived through a tremendous amount of grief and tragedy, and yet here they were standing before us, bouyant, successful, and alive. Their emphasis, and that of their book, is that to survive women need to do what they do best: network and talk. But what I really appreciated was their focus that this idea was on not forming a pity-party network. Yes, we all need to vent; yes, we all need sympathy in times of grief; but what we need most of all are simple, practical steps to guide us through the grief and beyond. This is about using the support of our friends to survive and thrive.

In their book, they quote the late great Marlene Dietrich: "It's the friends you can call at four in the morning that really matter."

Yeah.

Take time out to smell the flowers...

...but don't get too close!

Last week, a beautiful bouquet of flowers was delivered to the theatre; however, due to a lack of communication with the florist, it was delivered too late to be given to the artist it was requested for. So they were given to me. Very nice!

So I have this huge, gorgeous bouquet of lilies in my office, and they smell absolutely fabulous. They are so intoxicating that I just had to go over and smell each blossom. And you know what, they each have a slightly different scent! Neat.

So I turn back to my work, and next thing I know, I notice that I have this powdery, orange-yellow dust all over the back of my hands. Then I turn around and look in the mirror and the same powder is all over my face! It's pollen, of course. But when I go to wipe it off, I find it has turned my skin bright yellow!

This is what I get for taking time out to smell flowers!

(Actually, I am finding that with a little bit of water, the yellow is mostly coming off... mostly.)

And now my mind is drifting toward the fate of certain Hollywood starlets run afoul of flower pollen: Dorothy in the poppy field, for example; or perhaps when Judy Robinson is duplicated by the plant people...

If you happen to find that my office has been taken over by a giant lily, you will come by and make sure I get plenty of water, won't you?