Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

My Health Plan

Summer is long gone but for the liver spots on my face.

I am hoping my liver spots will just connect to each other, resulting in a beautiful overall dark complexion. I am not without a low-cost beauty plan for my sixth decade. With Obamacare hanging so precariously in the balance, we have to be creative.

My adjunct plan is to eat more butter so my heart will give out before The Melanoma gets me. Right now, I think The Melanoma and The Heart Attack are neck in neck. So to speak. Actually, also literally: my neck is literally lost in my other neck.

So I have been thinking about getting some work done. It came to me this summer when we put a new roof on the house, painted the exterior, rebuilt the back deck, widened the stone steps in the yard and remodeled the upstairs bathroom. 

I took a good long look in the mirror and said to myself, "you could use a new roof, too, Missy. There are patches on your top where nothing is covered. And your exterior is definitely showing cracks from age. Your siding is full of rough edges and splinters."

Let's not even get started on what my back deck looks like. My planks are totally warped. Fuck.

And as for my upstairs remodel? Well, my foundation is dangerously sagging. And possibly moldy. Some days I'm afraid to look under my bra.

Still, I've been pretty lucky so far. The past 59 years haven't left me with too many signs of age. I follow the adage, "after 50, you have to choose your ass or your face."

Yes, my knees give out every once in a while, and my hands look like they need ironing, and I make little "oy" noises when I get up from a low chair. But, all in all, it's been okay. 

At least I still have my fart muscles intact. I haven't yet begun to do that guerilla farting thing that my sister does where out of nowhere, she farts. She claims she can't help it, that she doesn't even know it's coming. And I suppose I am inclined to believe her but, honestly, if I were afflicted with Guerilla Fart Syndrome, I would lie about it.

Karen is a delicate little flower;  she hardly eats anything so her farts aren't much to deal with. Her little guerilla farts are no more than a delightful unexpected blast of coronets heralding the coming of the king. 

When GFS hits me, I can do that thing that Robin does, I suppose. When he feels a fart coming on in public, he moves quickly through the crowd and then makes a speedy exit. He calls it Crop Dusting. It's gross. If you ever find yourself with Robin in a crowded room and he suddenly begins to power walk towards the door, beware. Especially if it's Taco Tuesday.

Anyway, back to me.

I think I would like an Eye Job first. My eyelids are bunched to the point of my having to stake them up just to put on makeup. I should tape little Venetian blind pull-up cords at the corner of my eyes. 

After my Eye Job, I think I shall have one of those surgeries where they take fat from one place and put it in another place. Like Somalia, maybe. Because there's no place on my body that needs extra fat. Too bad we can't do Fat Donation Drives for the Red Cross. You lay down, donate your fat and then they give you cookies! And you eat, like, two dozen of them. And you make more fat! Which you donate to starving people. Hakuna Matata.

I better get to DC while the debate is still on. I think this can work.

I Got Here The Old-Fashioned Way: I Urned it.

I have a little plot of land in tony Lake Oswego. It's up in the hills, very pretty, in a nice neighborhood within walking distance to Starbucks and Bellagio's pizza.  Which will be very convenient when I move there, since I won't have a car as I will be dead.

I own a cemetery plot. Well, I'm one in a communal plot for eight. I will finally have the commune I've longed for all these years. It's a small commune - roughly the size of a nice orchestra box at the Hollywood Bowl. Which is what I imagine the Afterlife will be like. A pleasant summer evening at the Bowl. Swan Lake. Or Theodore Bikel. Maybe Mozart. Hopefully not Kenny G or some shit like that. Oh God, what if the Afterlife has a Kenny G soundtrack? Fuck. 

Five of us are already signed up for the plot:  Robin, my sister, my BIL, me, and a very nice woman from my congregation who sings alto in the choir. I think the four of us lucked out with this woman - she seems to be our kind of people; she wears colorful jewelry and enjoys bad language. She calls me "Roomie" when she sees me at temple, which warms me to her every time.

I hope she likes to stay up late. Our cemetery plot is going to be the party plot. But not the obnoxious  kind of party plot. We'll be the insufferably erudite kind of party people, you know, we'll laugh uproariously but it will be at, say, a clever bon mot in Aramaic or a reading of Ionesco's "The Bald Soprano" or something. All the other ghosts will roll their eyes at us but secretly they will wish we had invited them.  Which we will not, because if you start inviting all the hoi polloi in the whole cemetery, you're gonna lose your cache. Well, perhaps we'll invite Linus Pauling, who's buried there. He's defo only a third tier celebrity, but he created decent buzz in his time. Plus, we could score some good Vitamin C from him.

I'll finally get to spend more time with my sister once we are dead and sharing a cemetery plot. That'll be sweet. We used to share a bedroom when we were kids and that was a shitload of fun. Karen is the one who taught me to put books in my underpants so our parents would hurt their hands when they spanked our butts. Which they never did (spank us), but still. I was a nervous child and I wanted to be prepared, in case. I used to walk around with books in my underpants whenever I did something wrong, just in case. I still do.

I'm not in a hurry to get there, however. I still have shit to do here. I need to get a freestanding toilet paper holder for the new bathroom because the contractor forgot to make space on the wall for one. And I need to return the six bathing suits I bought for water aerobics last June, each in descending size, because I was certain the inches would be falling off of me after every 55 -minute class this summer. As it is, the first bathing suit still fits fine, but whatev.

I'm almost 60 years old. My body is what it is. I am going to focus on getting my personality into shape now. I let my personality kinda go to hell when I had my boobs as my calling card. And, frankly, flashing my cleavage when it's down at my waist isn't gonna get me the swag anymore. I say if a woman has to pull down her pants to flash her cleavage, it's time to work on her personality. 

I just hope I fit into my size XL urn. 

 

Let Us Number Our Minutes

What with Yom Kippur being just around the corner, I have taken a moment to reflect upon my life. And so, in the spirit of numbering my days, I gone back and calculated a few things. 

I present to you, my Jewish year 5773 in minutes:

Minutes I spent this year telling Robin I don't want a dog, under no circumstances should he bring home a dog, and fuck him if he gets us a dog: 287.

Minutes it took me to love Phila: 1.

Minutes to forgive Robin for bringing home a dog: I'll let you know.

Minutes it took Phila to retrieve my brand new Wacoal bra from the dirty clothes hamper and then bury in the backyard when I wasn't paying attention: 2

Minutes I spent crouched under my bedroom window listening to the gardeners laugh and discuss my bra when they found it under the lilac tree the following week: 45.

Minutes I had to spend hearing them say, "ai yai yai, es por una ballena": 50

MInutes I died from embarrassment when I looked up the word "ballena" and found that it does not mean "ballerina", as I had hoped, but instead, means "whale": 7

 Minutes I have spent this year waiting for the fucking printer to print: 5,000.

Before I realized that it wasn't connected to my computer:  5,002. 

Minutes I have spent this year in the cracker aisle deciding between regular Wheat Thins and Reduced Fat Wheat Thins: 1,250.

Pounds I have lost due to eating Reduced Fat Wheat Thins: zero.

Minutes I have spent this year attempting to balance on one foot and put one foot into my underpants and not fall over: 36500.

Minutes I have spent this year figuring out if my bra was inside out or right side in before I wrapped it around my waist to put it on: 365 x 4.

Minutes I have spent this year trying to hook my bra from the back: 400,000,000,000.

Minutes I have spent this morning hoisting my bra around to the back and then up to my boobs after finally just hooking it in front like an old lady:  shut up.

MInutes I have spent this year looking for my phone to see if I've missed any calls: 10,000.

Calls I have returned after I see I've missed them: zero.

Minutes I have spent this year hiding while watching someone I know come to my front door, knock, and finally go away: 30

Minutes I have spent this year doing Pilates: zero. 

Minutes I have spent this year looking for rogue old crone chin hairs on my face: a million.

Minutes I have spent this year in front of the bathroom mirror, tucking my arm flab in to see what my arms would look like without the flab: 100.

Minutes I have spent this year doing arm exercises: 1

Minutes I have spent this year worrying about melanoma: 674,344,980,000,000,001

Minutes I have spent in the sun this year: 674,344,980,000,000,000

Minutes I have spent this year in the shower not remembering if I've already washed my face: 3500.

Minutes I have spent during sex this year thinking about the new bathroom tiles: 22.

Minutes I have spent during sex this year thinking about my hair: 28.

Minutes I have spent during sex this year thinking about the situation in Syria: 11.

Minutes I have spent during sex this year thinking about sex: 1,000.

Minutes I have spent during sex this year thinking about food: 999.

Minutes I have spent during meals this year thinking about sex: zero.

Minutes I have spent this year ordering the same sleeveless linen blouse from JJill  this year because I forgot I already had the exact same one in my closet: 4. 

MInutes I have spent staring at my dog today while trying to write this post: 331.