Just like a Slattery

2011 is drawing to a close and because I am terribly superstitious, I have been rushing around making ready.

I have taken the trash out, gotten money for my pocket, changed the sheets on the beds, cleaned out the refrigerator, and thanked the people who have made my life easier this year. The dryer is running right now so there won’t be clothes to wash tomorrow.

2011 was just plain weird and hard, for me and my friends and my family.

But there were so many blessings – new babies, new friends, new jobs, new homes.

Every year at this time, I say that if there’s even one person luckier than I am, I want to meet them. This year it’s double-special-cranky true.

I hope that 2012 brings you everything wonderful.

My godson, Ezra, only knows the last names of his friends who get in trouble a lot.

Really, do you need to know the last names of the other ones?

I am sitting here like some crazed pajama-clad Madame DeFarge watching “Say Yes to the Dress.”

A bride has come back to the store because her fiancé has dumped her, leaving her with a $6000 gown that she can’t wear out to dinner or to prom.

I don’t believe in a litigious society, but I believe I’d be getting my money out of the reluctant and former object of my affections one way or another.

Back to my knitting.

As you were.

It being the end of the year and my deductible having been met, I have been busy seeing all of my -ologists.

Today was the gynecologist.

Inexplicably, the magazines in the outer waiting room at my doctor’s office were limited to Cycling World and WebMD.

I’m not overly interested in the finer points of Cycling, and I am not a person who needs to be reading about what could go wrong with the human body while sitting in a doctor’s waiting room.

In the back of one, there was a little mini-interview with Kathy Bates (someone once told me I’m almost a perfect mix of Kathy Bates and Janeane Garofalo – I should have known right then) about her bout with ovarian cancer.

In another, there were nine signs of cancer you should not ignore. I had seven of them.

You can imagine the panic rising in my throat.

Finally, it’s my turn and the nurse calls me back. She leads me to a room to get some information from me, but I tell her that if I’m going to have to go in a cup, now’s the time, because I’ve been holding it for an hour.

The sample giving is always fraught with peril, because you’re supposed to put the (unlidded) cup in a tiny little sally port door, which has a spring on it, and I used to wouldn’t have thought anything about that, but a friend of mine who shall remain nameless (but her first initial is V) put her little cup in there and the door sprang shut and popped her hand and threw the contents of the cup all over her and the little room, so now I always think, “What if something goes wrong?”

Anyway. I got the little sample in the door and didn’t spill it all over me and went back in the room and the nurse asked if I had any concerns and I told her that yes, I had some symptoms of ovarian cancer.

She asked how long I’d been concerned about this, and I said, “Approximately 25 minutes, but I’m really, really worried about it.”

And sure enough, when she took my blood pressure, it was higher than it normally is, and she told my nurse practitioner, and I had blood drawn to see if I have tumors, along with the normal tests, and sent me on my way.

For those who are aware of my problem with removing bandaids from my own inner arms, I did not get a bandaid today, because I was not aware at the time that I was going to be having dinner with Lynn (who is my bandaid remover) and family.

I believe today concluded all of my testing, which is fortunate, because I’m not sure I have the intestinal fortitude for any more medical magazines.

I have to have my license renewed on my next birthday.

I happen to have a Very Good License Picture because I had my hair done special for it, and I told that lady to make sure I was smiling and had both my eyes open and I looked good. For some reason, she agreed to all that, so yay.

I do not want to give up that picture, because I am prone to stoppage by gentlemen in uniform who want to give me certificates for expedience in driving.

I thought I’d just go online and renew it, it being within the 150 day window and all, but NO, because I have a vision restriction.

Which I have had for all thirty years of being a licensed driver, and all seven years before reaching that age.

They tested my vision once, back in the late 20th century, when I got my learner’s license, and never again after that.

For all they know, I’ve been out driving around like Ray Charles since then.

I haven’t, but I could have been.

Ray Charles got a speeding ticket, you know, a few years before he shuffled off to his reward. His agent released a statement that “this was not Mr. Charles’ first time driving.”

I don’t know how much driving he did, but I don’t imagine he drove the tour bus or anything, or drove through Chicago or parallel parked, but it doesn’t surprise me that he liked to take the Lincoln out for a spin every now and again.

But anyway, back to me and my problems. When you fill out the online report, it asks you if you’re mentally impaired or do recreational drugs (I am not and do not), but how do they know I’m not lying? And yet, you get pegged as nearsighted one time and the rest of your life you have to find the place and go in person.

I’m not happy. And I was going to donate the dollar and everything.

1. Once you have concluded your business at the mall, unless you have children or elderly people to load into your vehicle, once you have stowed your purchases, start the car and vacate the spot. Do not sit in the cabin of your vehicle and check your email or call your cousin or eat some lasagne or work the crossword puzzle. LEAVE THE MALL.

2. Do not select an aisle and wait for someone, anyone, to leave. Keep moving in an orderly fashion. The little walk to the door won’t hurt you.

3. Don’t have a handicapped permit? Then you can’t park in a handicapped spot. Even just to run in.

4. If you’re putting things in the trunk and planning to go back inside and someone’s waiting for your spot, let them know you’re not vacating the spot.

5. Do not walk down the middle of the aisles. Yes, pedestrians have the right of way, but only fidiots walk where others are trying to drive.

6. Do not stop in the way of people in a hurry to shop or go home to futz around. Get the hell out of the way. People in a hurry are crazy and they will cut you.

Now go in peace and sin no more.

My friend Susan (one of my friend Susans) has a magnet on her refrigerator that reads Some days it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

Ain’t it the gospel?

There’s a new iPhone, you know.

I’ve been needing to replace mine, not so much because the new one is cool and you can ask it things like Siri, where should I hide the body?, but because when I press the home button it goes berserk and takes a picture of my lap or the floor.

I’ve been futzing around and not replacing it because I don’t want to go to the mall in all these crowds to do it, but tonight it became abundantly clear that I have to.

Here’s why:

Baby Kilroy

I have to have the new phone because I have to be able to take better pictures on the fly of this baby.

This is Petra, and she takes the cake.

My new phone is on its way now.

is one who will, upon hearing your furious rant about someone, simply agree and say asshole.