Do This Thing, This Type of Thing

In the summer, the sun comes up earlier and I wake up earlier. School is out so I can leave the house a little earlier; normally I have to wait out dropoffs at the nearby high school before I can leave the house. Schedules are a little looser and pressure is a little lighter, so I don’t feel guilty getting to my desk a little later than normal.

These three factors lead me to stop at Starbucks before work on summer mornings. Some days I’m not even tired, I don’t even need the jolt of caffeine, but the routine and the morning indulgence give me the tiniest pleasure.

I’ve gone there every morning this week. I order the same thing every time — a grande iced coffee, unsweetened, with the tiniest bit of room for a splash of half and half. The past three mornings, the same guy has been behind me in line, and the past three mornings, he has ordered the exact same drink as me.

Were I a single woman living in an urban area, and were this man of a stature closer to Ryan Reynolds than Ray Romano, this would be a perfect, PERFECT romantic-comedy plot.

Scott and I spent the bulk of the morning imagining meet-cute ways these two characters could interact:

– New barista is behind the counter one morning. She doesn’t recognize our male lead. He orders “The usual” but she looks at him blankly. Our female lead, who is behind him in line, blurts out “Grande iced unsweetened with just a little bit of room, silly!” and then looks mortified when he glances back at her. Perhaps she can even totter out of the story in some ridiculously trendy and pricey designer stilettos.
— Toward the movie’s end, our female lead is running late for work. Our male lead is next in line, but about 10 people separate them. He’s just placed his order, but after glancing over his shoulder and seeing her walk through the door (something tells me it’s raining, her umbrella broke, and she’s soaking wet and flustered), he turns back to the barista and says, “Actually, make that 2.”

There were more, but these were my two favorites. We are going to start casting this blockbuster early next week. I’m thinking Isla Fisher for the female lead, Chris Pine for the male lead. Unless you had a better idea.

“Whenever He Says, ‘Girlfriend, Here’s a Pen, Call Me ‘Round 10′ I Picture Him THROWING the Pen at Her”

Internet, I had a lovely 4th of July weekend. It was full of dancing (not my finest dancing, but, still, dancing, which I haven’t done any of since March), silliness, and fun. I haven’t been quite myself recently — insomnia has sprung up — but it was exactly what I needed to get back to feeling like myself. Rather than going into details, I’m just going to share a few photos.

There was dancing. I DJed. I didn’t give people a single moment to catch their breath.

There were fireworks, but most important, there was this game, in a bar, where you shoot things. Wildebeast and kudzu and, if you were really good (we weren’t ever), panthers and giraffes and lions. And you could be a jackass and shoot meerkats and lemurs and beetles. I mostly did that. I want that game in my house.

More later.

I Need It Because I Want to Make Iced Coffee at Home

Me: Do we have a cheesecloth?
Him: I’m not really sure what that is.
Me: Me either.
Him: Is it an unmarried woman?

Nothing Could Bring Me Closer, Nothing Could Bring Me Near*

Today at work, I limped to the vending machines. I’m allowed to take a few unassisted steps a day and today I decided to spend them on a bag of Sun Chips and a bottled water. I had two crisp dollar bills in my pocket.

I went for the Sun Chips first. Dollar in, B6, and the coils turned and turned and turned and three bags of chips all got stuck there, just waiting, but not a single one of them fell.

I cursed. I slapped the glass. I pushed the machine a little bit, but I knew immediately that that was a ridiculous idea. My strength has always been in my legs, so I knew instantly I was running at half-capacity.

So I put the second dollar in the machine and hit B6 again, thinking that I could go without water if it meant four bags of chips for the price of two, but the machine told me to pick another option. Three times.

I stood there and thought about it for probably 30 seconds, and then pressed A6, which was the Doritos, directly above the Sun Chips. I don’t really like Doritos, but I thought maybe, just maybe, the Doritos would fall and knock down the Sun Chips. My mind, always handicapping, put the odds of it working at 50-1.

In probably a tenth of the time than it took Mine That Bird to win the Derby at those same odds, the Doritos fell and knocked ALL THREE bags of Sun Chips into the vending space. I was thrilled — and I was even more thrilled when I realized that not only had my 50-1 gamble paid off, the machine had also given me four shiny quarters in change. Four bags of chips for the price of one. Enough for that bottled water, too.

I limped back to my desk, and I admit, there was definitely self-satisfied grin plastered all over my face, because LOOK AT ME, I STUCK IT TO THE MAN, four bags of chips cradled in one arm and a bottle of water in the other. En route, one of the guys on the sports team looked at me, smirked, and said, “Hungry, eh?”

*REM, ‘Leave’, currently on repeat in my head for reasons I will explain later. Probably on Twitter.

If I Stumble They’re Gonna Eat Me Alive

My recovery is not going awesome. I am still not able to get a full bend or to fully straighten from my leg — I’m missing about 15 degrees of mobility in both directions. This fact that has my surgeon “concerned” and suspicious that I’ll need a second surgery to remove scar tissue. (I’ll know in a few weeks, after some more healing, a lot of anti-inflammatory medication, and another MRI.)

In the meantime, physical therapy, in particular, is not going awesome. There are apparently two schools of thought when it comes to regaining mobility after surgery:

1. Long, extended periods of stretching (10-20 minutes) with light weight.
and
2. Short, quick bursts of extreme pressure. This basically amounts to the PT trying to push or pull my leg into a fully straight position as hard as she possibly can, and is generally excruciatingly painful.

The PT I’m seeing is using a combination of both twice a week (and I spend an hour or longer do the stretches at home the other five days a week), and neither is particularly fun (nor do I really think either is particularly, you know, WORKING). At this morning’s session, she decided to mix things up — normally I start with the long, extended light-weight stretching — and go for the full-court-press first.

I have to admit, I screamed.

Normally I’m able to just writhe and grimace and ball my fists, but today I wasn’t ready for it, and I screamed. (The last time I was there, the PT told me how she tore her ACL in high school and used to cry at every single therapy appointment. Till now, I have been too proud to let myself cry on the table, but maybe I need to start crying mercy.)

Anyway. I screamed. I am relieved that it was a just a gutteral, angry, animal scream and not an expletive, because there was a sweet, grandmotherly woman at the table across from me having her shoulder iced. While I was panting for breath, she looked over at my PT with tears in her eyes and said, “Is that really necessary? You’re obviously hurting her.” I wanted to get off the table and hug her as hard as I could (without hurting her shoulder). Mercy, there was my mercy.

The PT smiled gently, ignored her and tried it again. Twice.

*******************

On a related note, these five songs have been on repeat in my head for the past three weeks. They seem fitting for some kind of I’m-feeling-sorry-for-myself knee surgery mix.

Help I’m Alive – Metric
Mr. Pitiful – Matt Costa
Could Be So Happy – Heartless Bastards
Be OK – Ingrid Michaelson
The Way We Get By – Spoon

*******************

Really? AUDRINA FUCKING PATRIDGE?

They See Me Rolling…

Yes, that’s me on a scooter at Target. Shopping for a chair to put in our shower. So I can shower.

When cats get older, and they start getting sick and decrepit, they stop cleaning themselves (i.e., licking themselves). They get ratty and dull from lack of care, and it shows.

I AM AN OLD, SICK CAT. That is the best way I’ve found to describe how I have been feeling post surgery.

My skin is flaking off endlessly.
My hair is a mess.
My clothes are whatever I grab first from the closet that’s either shorts or a skirt or a dress, because it’s not worth trying on 20 things to find something “fun” and/or “cute.”
My daily routine is basically, go to work, shower, do PT, go to bed. No energy for anything fun.
My MINI hasn’t been driven in 2 weeks.

Everything about me is just a little dimmer, a little less me, and a little more frustrating. I am trying to keep the self-thrown pity parties to an absolute minimum — and I swear this isn’t one of them (imagine me saying all of this in a Bethenny Frankel tone of voice, because after a marathon of Real Housewives of New York, I’ve totally stolen her every mannerism) — but riding around on a scooter in Target? That almost makes all this pain worth it.

Things My Husband Must Be (Rightfully) Sick of Hearing at This Point

Baby, can you bring me … (Percocets, a pillow, ice, a magazine, the remote, a glass of water, my laptop, a book, etc.)?

If you have a sec, will you … (Go get the mail, make me food, change the cats’ water, etc.)?

Will you help me (put my pants on, wash my feet, get in the shower, get out of the shower, etc.)?

Can I have a ride to … (the surgeon’s office, physical therapy, the movies, work, home, etc.)?

Chris Pine is so fucking hot.

JJ Abrams and Nikki Catsouras

Photos by Mark Seliger / The Catsouras Family

Sometimes, Scott and I will be watching a movie or a TV show and a face will look familiar, so we’ll go to IMDB and look at that actor up to see what else they’ve been in (oh, right, that’s Matt Albie’s assistant from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip!). Or one of us will wonder who the last horse was to win the Bluegrass Stakes and then go on to win the Kentucky Derby (it was Strike the Gold, in 1991, confirming our theory that it had been a long, long time), and we’ll do the research necessary to get the answer in less than 2 minutes.

That’s one of the great things about the Internet — access to endless amounts of trivial data that years ago would’ve required a trip to the library to learn — but two glaring examples of that being a very bad thing revealed themselves to me recently.

The first is the new issue of Wired, the Mystery Issue, and in particular the column by guest editor JJ Abrams about ‘The Age of Immediacy’ and the lost art of discovery. This is a long blockquote, but indulge me, because I really thought this whole essay was brilliant (as I do most JJ-related things):

“…the spoiler: that piece of information meant to be kept secret, like the end of a movie or TV show or novel. Spoilers give fans the answers they want, the resolution they crave. As an avid fan of movies and TV myself, I completely understand the desire to find out behind-the-scenes details in a nanosecond. Which, given technology, is often how long it takes—to the frustration of the storytellers. … Spoilers make no bones about destroying the intended experience—and somehow that has become, for many, the preferred choice. … In some cases, spoilers don’t just prevent the intended experience of something, they prevent the very existence of it. I guess the question is, who among us has the self-control to choose not to go for the easy answer?”

The column ends with a hint that the entire issue is filled with hidden puzzles (in addition to the obvious puzzles) that readers will find only by carefully paying attention — through a difficult, trying process of discovery … but imagine the feeling of success and triumph at the end, at I FIGURED IT OUT!. I hate to admit it, but my first reaction was, “Wow, I should check online to see if anyone has figured it out yet!”

Luckily, at that moment, I wasn’t near a computer. I didn’t Google it. The next two nights I stayed up until 1 a.m. in bed with a pencil and an annoyed husband, trying to find and figure out the secret puzzles. I couldn’t solve any of them — I eventually gave up because the whole process made me feel dumb — but I didn’t cheat, either. So, if nothing else, I take solace in the fact that I didn’t break JJ Abrams’ heart.

I can’t help but think, though, that JJ Abrams’ heart would break if he knew about Nikki Catsouras. She was a deeply troubled 18-year-old — a brain tumor as a child left her impulse-control mechanisms compromised, which ultimately, her parents believe, led her to try coke and steal her father’s Porsche, which she crashed minutes later.

Gruesome photos of the crash scene showing her nearly decapitated head were leaked and multiplied online soon after, despite her family’s repeated attempts to block them. Those sites cater to morbid curiosity and call themselves things like ‘Porsche Girl Photos Revealed’ — all the while mocking her as a spoiled rich bitch who got what she deserved. Her family knows differently, and now they live in fear of accidentally stumbling upon these photos online — her younger sisters are forbidden from using social networking sites as a precaution — and they’ve racked up huge debts in court, issuing cease-and-desist letters and fighting to have the photos taken down. (Their case is an interesting, and difficult one — what constitutes a violation of privacy? Did I violate the family’s privacy by including the image of Nikki, a family photo they released to the media, at the top of this post?)

The Catsouras family recently opened up about the story to Newsweek, and acknowledged that by drawing attention to the case, they are potentially enticing more gawkers to seek out the ugly photos. “The fact is that we will never get rid of the photos anyway,” Lesli Catsouras, Nikki’s mother, is quoted as saying. “So we have made a decision to make something good come out of this horrible bad.”

What breaks my heart — and turns my stomach — is that you can see the fallout every time Mr. or Mrs. Catsouras makes a public statement or appearance. It doesn’t take long for terms like “Nikki Catsouras” and “Nikki Catsouras accident photos” and “Porsche Girl Photos” to pop up in the top 10 on Google Trends (sometimes, if you get up early enough, she will just be there, lurking, in the top 100, for no reason I can find other than the sheer power of the viral Web). I have no doubt those terms in quotes will quickly become the most searched on this blog — and I hope the people looking for them will be bitterly disappointed. Not only that, I hope they’ll feel ashamed — I hope they’ll think twice about Nikki’s family, and choose, as JJ Abrams would encourage, to exercise some self-control.

Don’t look, or look away. Discovery is a good thing — but, ultimately, there are some things that none of us should be able to see.

Now I (Still) Walk With a Limp

I had my first post-op surgery appointment today, and if there’s anything this whole process has proved, it’s that I am not good at the sight of blood, especially my own. (The first time Scott helped me removed all my bandages so I could shower, I took one look at the incisions, broke out in a cold sweat, ripped off my shirt, said “Quick, get me a trash can” and parted ways with my breakfast.)

Today’s appointment was a lot of pressing and poking and “Does this hurt” and “YES” and then more pressing and poking. It was exhausting. And then the surgeon — who really, truly is amazing and awesome and so amazingly nice — was really excited today to show me some photos from inside my knee during the procedure.

The first one I saw was just white — glossy, shiny white. And, from what I remember, the conversation went something like this:

Surgeon: So this is inside your knee, the back of your kneecap. Looks good right?
Me: Uhhhh…
Surgeon: Are you going to pass out?
Me: Uhhh…
Scott: I think she’s going to pass out.
Surgeon: Yup, she’s going to pass out. Lay back! Lay back!

For the record, I did not pass out. But I did come very close.

Meanwhile, I am improving. I have my first physical therapy appointment tomorrow — my parents are driving four hours to take me to it, because Scott has a meeting and they wouldn’t hear of me taking a cab to it (seriously, how can we possibly not have any unemployed friends to help out?) — which is the big concern now, because I have, over the past six or eight weeks, lost the majority of full bending and straightening ability in my right leg. I won’t be cleared to drive until I get a good bit of that mobility back, and I will be on crutches for at least six weeks, maybe longer, with full 100% recovery at three months, at the earliest. On the bright side — handicapped parking! On the down side: While it’s too early to announce my official retirement from hockey, if I’m completely honest with myself, it’s unlikely. I cannot imagine going through all this again — it’s easy enough, and fun enough, to swim and lift weights and go to the gym like regular people do. We’ll see, though.

Happy 10th Birthday

Indiana Mousekowitz turns 10 today. My gift to her was spending the entire day on the couch, my lap available whenever she wanted to snooze on me, my hands available whenever she wanted some petting. I think she figured out, though, that I’ve been at home and on the couch non-stop for five days straight now, because she’s starting to ask what else I got her.

Indy’s usual perch, directly above where I’m resting (so she can keep an eye on me) and directly below a floor lamp (so she can stay toasty warm).

In honor of her birthday, I’m going to share the letter I wrote to the local humane society where I adopted her. I’d been meaning to write it for years and years, and I finally sent it off to them a few weeks ago — 10 years seems like a nice time to have finally checked it off the list.

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is now almost 10 years overdue, but I’ve written it in my head frequently during the past decade. In the fall of 1999, I moved to the Northern Virginia area, a fresh graduate of Penn State University, with not much in my possession besides a degree and a nine-month-old gray tabby named Reno. Together we moved into a rented townhouse, and Reno quickly let me know that he was bored, and that he needed a feline friend.

I came to the Humane Society shelter on a Saturday morning, purely looking for another young companion cat for Reno. I met a little black kitten named Montana who seemed perfect – their names fit perfectly together! – but before going downstairs to fill out the paperwork, I popped into one last room to peek at two kittens, a pair of siblings named Vincent and Debra. I sat down on the floor to greet them; Vincent was shy, but Debra climbed into my lap, put her tiny front paws on my chest, and began nuzzling me. Needless to say, she came home with me less than an hour later. Penn State was playing Indiana in football that day, and I quicky realized – the name Debra didn’t seem to suit her, but Indiana sure did. Reno was thrilled to meet her, and the two quickly became the best of friends.

While I walked into the shelter that Saturday simply looking for a companion for Reno, I found so much more. During the past 10 years, Indiana (who quickly became Indy) has been a love monster, my constant companion (she’s sitting on my lap, nuzzling my chin as I write this) and my absolute best friend (don’t tell any of my human best friends I think that). I am forever grateful that your organization raised her, loved her, gave her a chance and ultimately brought us together – my life has been filled with love, joy and laughter (for a cat, Indy is a bit of a klutz) thanks to her, and you, so, as thanks, I am including with a donation of [redacted]. I hope you can use it to care for another cat that will bring happiness into its owner’s life the way Indy has mine.

With Utmost Gratitude,

Meredith R

Happy birthday, Miss Mousekowitz. To many, many more.