She wants 2 lead the glamorous life.

Yes, internet, I too can add depth to my entries by quoting song lyrics that will resonate oh-so-powerfully with my readers.

Yes, anyone who spent their tormented teenaged years hanging around in their bedrooms listening to Sheila E. records and doing their best to understand the deep inner meaning of the lyrics will appreciate my homage to the cheesey pop music of my formative years. The rest of you? Not so much.

But anyway, enough about Sheila E. Or Prince. We're not talking about him. Or the Power Revolution. Or Purple Rain, and was it actually pretty good, or was it basically some good music videos and a lot of self-indulgence?

Because this entry isn't about Prince. Or Morris Day and the Time. Or even Sheila E.

Hee!

No, it's about how I had the most glamorous morning possible on Friday. Really, it was like a housewife's wet dream.

First I went to the beauty salon and had my hair shampooed and blown out, and got a manicure and pedicure. Then I sauntered with twinkling nails and bouncing and behaving hair into a local shoe store where I bought myself a pair of gold kidskin sandals


and a little gold minaudiere. (Because I'm worth it.)

Then I headed to the gym to work out with my trainer. (Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.)

See? A perfect morning. But then the Stonyfield Farms YoKids yogurt (with ProBiotics) decided to come up with a whole new meaning for the phrase--so ubiquitous on yogurt containers--with active cultures. And I got food poisoning.

Which explains why, instead of being at a glamorous black-tie event on Friday night, I was at home.

With my head in a toilet.

But wait! There's more!

I interrupt this blog's interminable whine-fest to tell you some good news.

Yes, dear readers, I thought I'd get my head out of the toilet long enough to tell you that Jen on the Edge has graciously agreed to join me, Kristin, SarahO, and Susie Sunshine over at Mamarazzi.

So go check her out!

Are you ready for more good news? Are you? Well, we've got some big changes coming up for Mamarazzi.

And we're looking for writers.

That's right! We're looking for people who want to write children's books! f u cn rd ths msg, u cn wrt fr Mamarazzi!

I know what you're thinking. Who, me? I'm not funny enough! I don't type fast enough! And I don't know who half of these so-called celebrities are!

Hey, no problem. ME NEITHER. And yet, I've been on the Mamarazzi masthead for over two years.

Yes, I said over two years. So what if I've never lost half my body weight or made the New York Times Best Seller List or lost a job because of my blog.

(Let's face it; it's pretty hard for that last one to happen TO A HOUSEWIFE).

Lo, I have done none of these impressive things. And yet, I've been writing for Mamarazzi for over two years. And why yes, I do think a little Wayne's World-style "We're not worthy! we're not worthy!" is called for here.

And just think! This could be you! Yes, you too can be the idol of dozens! Think of it--millions of people going to work every day--firing up their computers--what do they do? Sure, everyone checks out Lolcats and the Fuglies, but what happens then?

Well, I'll tell you. Then it is that a small, select, exquisitely-discerning group of readers clicks over to Mamarazzi and is thrilled to discover that I said Angelina Jolie was "Hoovering up third-world orphans in a manner reminiscent of Robert Downey Jr. snorting lines."

So if you feel like pouring over gossip sites and tabloids, if you enjoy finding out more than you ever wanted to know about the skanky likes of Denise Richards, Britney Spears, Dina Lohan, and Kimora Lee Simmons in order to write a scathing but hilariously funny entry, and if you will do it for free since until we have ad revenue coming in we won't be able to pay you--shoot an email to me or to mamarazzi.org@gmail.com.

So you don't forget, call tonight! 1-800-mam-arazzi!

One down, one to go.

OK, I got over the food poisoning. I'm not throwing up any more. Yay me!

Unfortunately, I've just caught the world's worst cold.

You know what? I really need to stop watching House episodes. I just saw the one from Season 3 where the people on the airplane all believe they have some terrible infection, but it's just mass hysteria.

Of course, if it were mass hysteria, the people I live with would have a cold, too. So what's wrong with them? Unhysterical slackers! They need to get with the program.

Kimora Lee Simmons makes me sick.

It's either that, or I have food poisoning.

Back later!

I'll take three vowels, please, Pat.

Guess what I'm doing? Here's a hint; we came back from California with four suitcases filled with d*rty cl*th*s.

So I'm hauling, sorting, pre-treating, stuffing, removing, flinging, folding, stacking and putting away piles and piles and piles of clothes.

So I'm boring today. For proof, see above, where I desperately employ a thesaurus-load of verbs to tell you that I'm doing laundry.

When I'm not spilling food on myself in exotic and glamorous spots like San Francisco, I appear to do very little except garden and work out. Which leaves me with very little to report. I mean, here you go: "Flowers are pretty!"


Climbing rose "Social Climber" which I bought for the name ... but is just wonderful.

And ... I'm spent. Should I continue? And talk about working out? I mean, I've already told you about my ass. Do you really want to hear that the top of my right arm is so painful that I can't straighten it all the way? But that I'm going to the gym again today, anyway, where I will be swimming? And that swimming is 90 percent arms? And that I'm kind of not looking forward to using my arms to propel me the length of the pool? For an HOUR?

But this is a new trainer so maybe I'll get lucky and have one of those initial getting-to-know-you sessions.

And I'll swallow some more Tylenol while I wait for the pretty flower picture to upload. And the laundry to finish spinning.

After the hippy wedding

After the wedding party was over, we went back to the hotel. I decided that I needed to at least dip my toes into the Pacific. So my son and I walked down and down the road through innumerable trees to the beach.



People were dressed up as blackbird.



The water was surprisingly cold.



Then we went to the bride and groom's house high in the mountains.



There was a big pond with koi. A sauna. A yurt (or some such.) A fountain with a statue of Buddha. A grill. An outdoors heater.

We ate chinese food. Then the younger generation put on a show that combined ballet, modern dance, and sword fighting. Then my children showed off their karate kata. Then the groom did some jujitsu, using a sword festooned with lights.

Then, when it was too dark too see anymore,



the groom brought out a guitar. And we sang.



And when it was too late to sing anymore, it was time for disco. The ceiling of the converted garage (a/k/a the party room or "the Pleasure Dome") is hung with a disco ball and lots of paper parasols.



And there is a laser light show.

More pictures from the hippy wedding

The bride and groom eloped to Hawaii on Valentine's Day, so they set up a
love altar in the gazebo so we could see what it was like to get married in Hawaii:





wedding presents



Aphrodite and her doves



my favorite bit is the Buddha hand with a crystal heart



More hands, this time belonging to a massage therapist:



and my daughter



The men's group. They've been meeting for over 15 years.



The younger generation poses with the groom.



Some gifts were contributed by friends. Pet the tiny Vietnamese photographer carved these centerpieces from various melons







There was coconut, too. In the drinks.



See that guy behind the waitress? He looked just like Mickey Dolenz, except bald, with a full beard, and a bindi on his forehead. I was enamored of him. ENAMORED.

Luckily I had Clark Kent That Stud Muffin I Married to chaperone me.

Wonder Bread goes Hawaiian

Have you ever felt so standard, bourgeois, preppy, and boring that you might as well go out on Halloween as a loaf of Wonder Bread?

Or is it just me?

Well, this loaf of white bread just went to a totally whole grain, vegan Hawaiian wedding. And loved it.

Here's an appetizer. When the photographer looks like this



and the centerpiece on the head table looks like this



and the bride and groom look like this



you attain a whole new level of consciousness, man.

More pictures later; we're in San Francisco right now, and I need to go out to get a soy latte, and rub myself with essential oils, and have a Thai Yoga massage, and get a high colonic, and eat my chakras readjusted. You know--the usual.

While you wait for me to upload pictures of the hippy wedding, here's a tidbit for you:

Because everyone needs a new way to waste time on the internet.

If you use Twitter, Who Should I Follow is an app that hooks you up with people you might find interesting.

Go check it out. By the time you've finished checking it out, I'll have uploaded those pictures.

Hippies make me tired.

And not for the reasons you'd think.

I have been having a GREAT TIME.

And I have the pictures to prove it.

But I'm too tired to do the whole uploading pictures thing. I'm partied out, and I'm not afraid to admit it. And I need to go to bed because we're getting up early to check out the hotel and get together again with this large group of people I've just met. And like a lot.

California greetings

I forgot to mention that That Stud Muffin I Married, my kids and I were heading to Santa Cruz/San Francisco for TSMIM's cousin's wedding.

Except they are Santa Cruz hippies so they eloped to Hawaii on Valentine's Day.

But still. We're CELEBRATING. And all the cousins are there.

Which means that my husband, whose mother, a nice Jewish girl, went mental in the sixties and ran away from her husband and children and became a Hare Krishna, has now had the chance to meet his cousins whose mother went mental in the sixties and ran away from her husband and children and became a Jesus freak.

Believe it or not, it was actually enjoyable to meet them all.

Either I'm more counter-culture than I thought, or I enjoy being able to dish the dirt about my mother in law with people who really understand what my husband went through.

A tail told by an idiot.

Let me tell you about my ass. It's not exciting. Or eloquent. Anatomically-speaking, it's an also-ran. Polite co-existence is about all the relationship I have with it. I never notice it--no matter which way I turn, it's behind me. And honestly, it's the last thing you'd notice about me.

In short, as Shakespeare once said, it's full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

So here's what's ironic; it's nothing to write home about, and it's preventing me from blogging. Because the excruciating pain I'm feeling in my right butt cheek keeps me from thinking deep, insightful thoughts to share with the internet.

I know what you're thinking: what's stopping her the rest of the time?

That's a very good question. And I'd answer it if the agony of my right butt cheek weren't short-circuiting the neurological equipment necessary to do the job.

The only thing I can wrap my brain around at the moment is the question of whom to blame for my current state of agony. My friend J., for deciding that we were going to walk for two hours and forty-five minutes on Monday? My friend J. again, for deciding that we needed to use the stair climber at the gym on Tuesday? Or the Maharani of Massage, for wrapping my right leg around my head and then sitting on me on Wednesday?

And it's not going to get any better. I'm going to be meeting with the Maharani of Massage four times a week. And a swim coach for two days a week.

Mark my words. Before you know it, I'll be lying in a hospital bed. In traction. Blogging by cell phone.

It's delightful, it's delicious, it's delusion

You won't believe this, but just the other night I was congratulating myself--in front of and for the benefit of my husband--on how we, as a family, are embracing the New Austerity. You know, the "Gasoline is going to hit $5.00 a gallon! Where are my scissors! I need to clip some coupons!"

And then I started to figure out what I've been spending at the garden store. Today I brought home 12 herb plants, three rose bushes, three gardening books, and a lemon tree.

Because I live in Illinois and a lemon tree is a hearty robust plant that I could not possibly kill.

Rrrrrrriiiiggghhht.

But in my defense, I went to the gym today. And I met with a personal trainer. A session which I paid for in advance. LAST DECEMBER.

I don't know whether my trainer thought I needed to be punished for paying for 33 personal trainer sessions and not showing up for six months.

But she will be referred to hereafter as Denise the Rolfing Rectrix. Or maybe the Maharani of Massage. Or maybe I should just break down and call her That Chick Who Ripped My Calf Muscles Off While I Did Lamaze Breathing To Cope with the Pain.

But seriously, people. At one point she had me leaning against the trainers desk in full view of the people working out. She had one leg straight down, then bent my other leg and shoved my knee up to my ear. And then pressed the full weight of her body against the top leg. And held it. While I screamed. And then took me into a studio and dug her fingers into my calves and pretty much ripped the meat off the drumstick.

As I screamed in agony, only one thought comforted me: "At least it's paid for."

For the perverts out there. Garden P0rn.

This is the part of the yard I was working on on Sunday.


That trapezoidal bed of roses, pre edging and pre-mulch. I can't decide what to put around the edge. Miniature roses are nice, but they always get black spot. Catmint would work.

Whisper hybrid tea rose

John Cabot Canadian Explorer series



Pink Gnome groundcover rose



Baronne Prévost antique rose



About three weeks ago I spent about three hours to fill my window boxes out front. This year all the flowers are white, so I call it "Sissinghurst in a box:" two ten-foot-long window boxes planted with white petunias, dusty miller, white geraniums, white nicotiana, a trailing plant and an upright one whose name I can't remember.

The Customary Mysteries

This is a poem by my friend Aleda Shirley, who died this afternoon. It appeared in her third volume of verse, Dark Familiar, which was published in 2006. When this book came out, she was two years into her battle with cancer. She was funny and brave and loving and a very gifted writer. I'll miss her more than I can say.

The Customary Mysteries

When they transferred the site of Hades to the air
the Stoics brought the dead into closer proximity
with the living & so for a time the sky

was full of souls. Away from home I often wake
disoriented & febrile, but in the past year
when I've stayed somewhere high above the ground—

a hotel overlooking the gulf, a borrowed apartment
thirty stories over Chicago where at sunset
snow fell, flakes of flame into an inland sea—

woke with the sense of being in my own bed.
We're subjects of two worlds: the daylit one,
solid & consecutive, where we meet our friends,

our families, the charming stranger in line
at the post office, & the one at night where
the border between past & present blurs

& we've the chance of a connection, however fugitive,
with people who are faraway, the dead,
the gods. For the ancient Greeks the psyche

had no function except in its leaving of the body,
though sometimes it would blaze briefly
in the trance of fainting or when facing death.

From the hotel I watched a section of newspaper
blown from someone's balcony swoop & dip
& glide for several minutes above the beach,

the thermals made visible in a way they aren't
by birds, who can move themselves, or a kite,
for which I first mistook it, guided by a human hand.

I wanted to think of it as a soul ascending,
perhaps that of my friend who died suddenly at forty,
some refractory & lissome residue of who he was

lingering on, but the sky was littered with planes
pulling banners advertising happy hours & water parks,
with satellites & space debris & ovals of ozone:

there's no longer enough room. And the world,
fulgent & resolute, clicks on, its vision the same
as a casino's: to keep the wheels turning.

Garden porn, part deux, or, push, push, in the bush(es)

Well, it was just as sweaty, muddy, filthy, and generally gratifying as gardening always is. Nobody got loud, but a good time was had by all. Meaning me, my husband, and nine new rose bushes. I had a good time, and the bushes are literally blooming. And my husband really did get to sit in the shade and read while I mucked about. So Happy Father's Day to him.

You know, the soil around here is loaded with clay. It's not the infamous red clay soil of Georgia (which I really only know from detergent ads) but it is heavy. And dense. And completely justifies the expensive top-of-the-line spades and trowels I buy.

(The way some of you shop at Williams Sonoma for knives and pans? Well, I have a corresponding Chalet habit.)

It is only because of the sharp edge and ergonomically-designed handle of my favorite spade that I survived to take a shower, instead of collapsing out in the yard, my dying request for a Diet Coke (with extra ice, please) rendered all but inaudible from heat stroke.

Instead we had a joyous Father's Day dinner of grilled sausages, grilled peppers, great bread, and beer. With home made chocolate cake for dessert.

And tomorrow? The kids start eight weeks of camp. And my vacation can truly be said to begin.

Garden porn

I've learned one thing about myself in my almost four years of blogging: the more important something is to me, the less I tend to talk about it on my blog.

I don't know whether you've noticed, but I'm mostly about the idle chatter. Nattering on about nothing. Spouting pure sparkling sprays of crystalline drivel. Notice how I've found several different ways to say I'm full of shit? Yeah, like that.

So we've agreed that my blog is basically small talk writ large, right? I mean, I'm surprised I haven't asked you what your sign is.

You'll find almost no references to politics and religion here. Or my family. Things like my doctoral dissertation, Asperger's syndrome, menopause, and the current state of the Episcopal Church don't seem to come up. Neither do most of my interests. Unless they are interests that make me look unbelievably shallow.

Which is OK with me. As a dear friend of mine says, "shallow is the new deep."

Well, that friend is in the hospital, and her prognosis is grim. So I'm looking to talk about almost anything, as long as it's shallow enough.

So yay for garden porn! Specifically rose garden porn, because roses are my true love. I've been growing them for almost 20 years.

Not well, though. Some of my roses come back year after year with admirable reliability. A couple of them were in the yard when we bought the house, and I can't identify the plants. If I could, I'd buy more of them, because honestly, they are amazing. I give them no winter protection at all, yet up they come every spring.

But I always manage to kill a few. Some I haven't been able to kill at all are the Canadian Explorer series. They're cold hardy to Zone 2, I believe, and are also pretty much disease-free. Of course, they're not the most gorgeous roses you've ever seen, and they have no fragrance. But they're extremely vigorous, meaning "even Poppy, the rose destroyer, cannot harm them."

Today I was trying to fill in a bed with a lot of blank places where the bodies were until I shovel-pruned them. There are three big gorgeous John Cabots in the back. They grow to between five and six feet.


And I have those mystery hybrid teas, both red. So I thought I'd get some roses that work with what's there, in size and color. (It's really a lot like picking furniture, when you think about it.) So today I bought a few Baronne Prevosts--old fashioned roses (hybridized in 1842) with that classic Redoute centifolia look, and fat round buds like babies' fists.


To put between the soft red John Cabots and the pink Baronne Prevosts, I picked "Whisper," a new hybrid tea by Jackson and Perkins--creamy white, with long, elegant buds and a lot of fragrance.


Then I picked some pink "Gnome" ground cover bushes as a border.

So this is what we're looking at.


Which means that tomorrow, my husband will celebrate Father's Day by sitting at his ease in the back yard while he watches me digging, planting, and watering. AND SWEATING.

Mamarazzi cross post: Our reaction to the R. Kelly acquittal--Three Words

Hide. Your. Daughters.

N.B. Because the comments at Mamarazzi are still scrod, I thought I'd follow SarahO's example and cross post today's entry here. That way if you are moved to weigh in, you can.

Mamarazzi cross post: Posh flip-flops

Because the comments at Mamarazzi are still scrod, I thought I'd follow SarahO's example and cross post today's entry here. That way if you are moved to weigh in, you can.

"Fershlugginer Movable Type dickweed website of the utmost in douchebaggery," she muttered darkly to herself.

You know how sometimes you pick a supermarket line not because it's shorter than the others, but because it has better trashy magazines?

And how you maybe don't want to admit it, but you check out Perez Hilton, D-Listed, or TMZ.com every single day?

And how you justify buying Posh Spice's book because it will be really useful research for a Mamarazzi post?

Oh, that last part? You mean it was just us? Well, OK. Confession time: one of us bought a copy of That Extra Half an Inch. Because she thought it might come in handy when she needed material for a Mamarazzi post.



And it just did.

There are certainly some howlers in this book, as well as plenty of evidence that this edition was rushed through the American press (newsflash for British editors: Americans don't know what "the high street" is.) But unfortunately, the fact remains that Posh's advice about shoes is actually pretty good.

Which brings us to this photograph of Posh and Becks at Disneyland:



For the record, in the book she recommends Havaianas because "they come in great colours [sic] and are probably the first flip-flops ever not to rub painfully between your toes, thanks to their satin-soft rubber."

So while she never says "For God's sake, wear comfortable shoes to trudge through Disneyland with your hunky husband and three sons!" it's clear from the picture that the girl still knows her flip-flops.

We know.

Is there a fancy German compound word for the crushing sense of disappointment we feel in seeing the Beckhams looking and acting so--well--normal?

And there was rejoicing in the land. But also a lot of whining.

There is only one appropriate video to post after today--a day of pouting and delight and tears and laughter.

A day where someone had her first voice lesson and baked a chocolate cake with her mother and watched Enchanted but also a day when the whining and the eye-rolling and the "I'm bored" and the "there's nothing to do" lasted for hours.

It is literally AMAZING to me that I didn't dive head first into a bottle of wine.

The day I've been anticipating for over eleven years has arrived.

My 11 year-four months-22 days-old daughter just told me that she hates me.

Of course, she was terribly disappointed to discover that I knew it all along. Or rather, that I knew the day would come when she would say that. And that it would be OK. And that I distinctly remember telling her grandmother the same thing. And that it was a normal part of growing up female.

So I proved myself to be a calm, capable mother.

So now she really has something to hate me about.

It reminds me of that old saw about playing the accordion.

You know the one: "A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion--but doesn't."

So here's what made me think of it: I was flipping through this month's Town & Country magazine, and saw a little blurb about a guy named Robert Rufino. Apparently he's been on the international best-dressed list twice.

Here he models the latest in maroon satin baby bibs.
There's a picture. He's wearing cream-colored trousers, a light blue shirt, and a blue and white seersucker sportscoat. Instead of a belt, he's got a lime-green and white striped tie tied around his waist, a la Fred Astaire.

And then he's got on a navy-blue spotted tie that falls a good four inches below his belt buckle should be. Except he doesn't have a belt buckle, because he's wearing a man-sash, or mash.

OK, here's what's wrong with all that. The whole ensemble is extremely self-consciously retro, right down to the pleats on his Chariots of Fire pants. You can tell that he thinks he looks just like Fred Astaire. I'm not sure Astaire got away with using a tie as a belt, but he was Astaire. This guy? No. And his other tie, the one hanging off his neck, is too dark and way too long. Either he's tied it wrong or he's a midget.*

Should I scan this picture so we're all on the same page? Here's another one I found on teh internet:

What a living doll. A Ken doll. In a double-breasted suit. And French cuffs the size of his head.

But then comes the interview, where he makes the following statement:

I'm lucky in that because I'm slim, I can wear a Speedo--but not everybody can or should, please!**

Consider my mind OFFICIALLY BOGGLED. Being on the best-dressed list and admitting to wearing a Speedo should be a logical impossibility.

Mr. Rufino, please put the accordion Speedo down. And back away slowly. A gentleman is someone who can wear a Speedo. BUT DOESN'T.

* He's a midget. It turns out he's five foot seven.

** It turns out he used to weigh 200 pounds. On five foot seven, that would be asking a lot of a Speedo. I know, he didn't wear it then. Still. Think about it. Have I put you off your feed? Than my work here is done.

I CAN HAS AIR CONDITIONING?

So last winter we had those space pack thingies installed--the ones that bring the joys of CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING to very old houses like mine, which was built when you sat and sweltered through two or three months of brutal Chicago summers. And grilled or ate cold food. And kept the shades drawn. And guzzled iced tea. And used window units and fans. And suffered.

Speaking of suffering, having holes punched in the ceiling and having to empty all the closets so that big silver tubes can be run up and down from the attic and the condenser and all that ... well, what a pain. My closets are still non-functional. I can't find ANYTHING.

And then listing our five, count 'em, five window air conditioning units on Freecycle and having random strangers come and pick them up--that was a pain, too. (Why is it that the people who want free air conditioners are wee little ladies who weigh maybe 85 pounds? And therefore, I end up helping them move the window units into their cars? And worry that I'll throw out my back? I mean, come on, tiny little ladies! It's an air conditioner! Bring some muscle with you!)

Well, anyway, today was pay off time. The guy came to start up our new CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING. And he showed up just in time, because we had one of our 90 degree Fahrenheit/80 percent humidity days on Sunday, and it was brutal.

So here I sit, in lovely air-conditioned comfort.


Cool as the proverbial cucumber.


This gives a whole new meaning to the word "summer." The dread is gone. I can already feel all the brain cells atrophying that contain knowledge like "in the afternoon, close the shades on the southern side of the house."

I'm channeling Scarlett O'Hara; As God is my witness, I may never go sweaty again.

My husband just finished reading The Iliad. And I?

I took part in a meme. Again.

85%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Created by OnePlusYou

And that has made all the difference.

(Thanks and a tip of the hat to Robert Frost.)

Such excitement! So many links!

In the past two days, I've mostly recovered from necrosis of the tonsils.

I've attended a strangely enjoyable black tie event in the company of Wendy, one of Jen Lancaster's many friends. Wendy came with her husband, which is pretty amazing right there.

You see, many members of my blogging posse (blackbird, Susie Sunshine, Carol-in-Texas) profess to have husbands, but do you ever see them? No, you do not.

For all I know, these purported "husbands" are invisible six-foot rabbits like in that Jimmy Stewart movie. (You know, the one where he played a tall, skinny, gangly, shy fellow who may or may not be completely mental.)

You will be glad to hear that Wendy's husband is extremely nice (in other words, was willing to show up) funny (laughed at my jokes) and adorable (has all his hair) and on top of that, doesn't appear to be at all mental.

OK, so after that, this morning my husband and I got up at what the Spanish call el cracko del dawno to take our daughter to Girls on the Run Chicago at Montrose Harbor. And watched her run a 5K.

I'll just say that this is the first and ONLY 5K done by any member of my family. And I'm not just proud, I'm verklempt-proud.

THEN I came home and gave myself a pedicure and changed into pink and green to look cute when Wendy and I went to see Jen Lancaster appear with Stephanie Klein on a panel overseen by Stacey Ballis at the Printer's Row Book Fair.

And soon, best-beloveds, I shall treat you to pictures of most of this. But with all the excitement and fresh air and sunshine? I came home and FELL ASLEEP.

And therefore, soon, sooner, soonest? I'll be going TO BED.

I'm awfully busy for someone who is AT DEATH'S DOOR

I swear, I've been watching too many episodes of House, M.D. Swollen glands! Tonsillitis, but not a cold! No wait--my nose is funning like a faucet--must be a cold! Alleve! No, Tylenol! No, you dummy, take Advil! And your antiobiotics, and DO NOT forget the salt water gargle.

That last part? Not likely. Because on top of watching so much House, M.D. that before Monday rolls around I fully expect to experience three wrong diagnoses, a trip into the MRI machine, a seizure, and intubation, I just read an article about this radio personality here in Chicago who had a sore throat and IT ALMOST KILLED HIM, but thanks to Northwestern/Evanston hospital, (where apparently Gregory House is on staff) they figured it all out before the necrosis ate his vocal chords.

Whew!

Commerical break.

OK, so I am trying to take care of myself and I'm packing for the weekend and it's the last day of school, yay, and we all got haircuts and blow outs today because I need to look purty tonight because I'm going to a black tie gala, yes, again, and I suspect that my little black dress is wadded up on the floor of my closet and will need to be spot-cleaned and steamed and the air conditioner guys haven't shown up YET and it will be 90 degrees this weekend and on Saturday my daughter is running a 5K and I'll be seeing Jen Lancaster at the Printer's Row Book Fair and I have to leave in an hour and I'm not even packed--what the hell am I doing BLOGGING?

But I'll tell you one thing. When you're looking for a new doctor, and you have an infection in your throat, and you read some promotional material from a hospital that talks about someone who was almost killed by a throat infection, who ya gonna call? THROATBUSTERS. Also known as Northwestern/Evanston hospital.

So that simplifies things somewhat.

This is how old-fashioned I am.

I have one of those diseases that you only hear about in 19th century novels, such as:

rheumatism, gout, dropsy,
tonsillitis, consumption, pleurisy,
dyspepsia, scarlet fever, chilblains,
biliousness, croup, dipsomania,
apoplexy, the pox, lumbago,
bubonic plague, bloody flukes, yellow jack, gleet, calenture, scurvy, wens, whooping cough, marthambles, and leprosy.



OK, I'm not a leper, and it's not scurvy, either.

I have acute tonsillitis. Weird, right?

A couple of days ago I woke up in the middle of the night with a killer sore throat. Yesterday I went to the clinic at Walgreen's. I thought it might be strep. I wanted a diagnosis and some drugs as soon as possible.

"But Poppy," I hear you thinking. "Why didn't you go to the doctor?" Well, I didn't want to fuss. And to be honest, I can't even remember my doctor's name.

But I do sort of have a doctor, I guess. I know where his office is, and if I went to his building, I could figure it out. But I was way too sick to go wandering around a medical building trying to figure out which doctor's name sounded familiar so I could call him and make an appointment.

And even if I did know his name, with my symptoms (very sudden onset, swollen lymph nodes) they'd want to test for strep. I'd have to go in. And get tested. And probably end up at Walgreen's anyway.

Yes, I realize that I am LAME. This is just pathetic. All we hear about these days is America's healthcare crisis, and all the millions of uninsured people in this country, and here I am spoiled rotten with all kinds of insurance and all the access to Botox and Retin-A that any one woman could possibly be said to need--but I can't be bothered to go to the doctor.

But guess what? The clinic at Walgreen's TOTALLY ROCKS. The nurse practitioner was really nice. The clinic bills directly to insurance. And when you get your prescription for amazingly powerful antibiotics, the pharmacy is right there. It's one stop shopping. And hey, Walgreen's has much better magazines than a doctor's waiting room.

So that was actually pretty cool.

But. It occurs to me that I am not getting any younger, and it's a little ridiculous to take my kids to their pediatrician, dentist, and orthodontist appointments while the only doctor's name I can remember is my ob/gyn, and his main office is 15 miles away.

I mean, an annual pap smear can not be considered regular medical care. Also, putting your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la la I can't heeeeeaaaaarrrrrr you!" is not a mature response to conversations where the word "cholesterol" and "longevity" get bandied about.

And now that I've outed myself to the internet, I feel like such a loser. I mean, there are millions of bloggers with all kinds of medical problems ... I bet they go to the doctor.

I mean, even if I'm not on any medication and even if my blood pressure is 107/70 ... I should probably have a real doctor, and not just an ob/gyn.

Plus I like my ob/gyn, but he has a relentlessly dirty mind.

I mean, if I even bothered to call him and tell him that I had a really bad sore throat, he'd ask me what I'd been doing to get it. And then he'd be disappointed to hear my answer, which would be either "hanging around my kids' school" or "exposing myself to the falling damps" depending on how 19th-century I was feeling.

Which these days, is a lot. Let me tell you--I had the greatest time putting that list together.

But anyway, you'll have to pardon me, internet; I'm indisposed.

And I'm going to make a few phone calls and find myself A DOCTOR.

Far be it from the middle-aged likes of me to call another woman a cougar

but I'm getting a real



Gloria-Swanson-



as-Norma-Desmond-



the-aging-dotty-silent-movie-diva vibe



from this still of Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City.



What do you think. Am I way off?