I Would Like My Pellet Now, Please

I finally got my paws on some H1N1 vaccine, and all I had to do was pimp myself out for science.

I'm participating in an H1N1 vaccine study which aims to prove that a smaller dose of vaccine, when administered along with a type of protein that helps the body build up its immune system, works just as well as a full dose. I don't know if I'm in the treatment or control group, but the P-Dawg assures me that I did get some amount of FDA approved H1N1 vaccine.

And all I had to do was sign a fifteen page release form, obtain a physical, take a pregnancy test, disclose what form of birth control I'm using, promise not to get knocked up in the next year, have three vials of blood drawn and swear to return every month for the next six months to have it drawn again, take my temperature every night for the next week, and agree to keep a "flu journal" in the event I get sick.

Plus, I get paid three hundred smackers for my trouble. Which won't help me when I'm dead, but will buy me several dinners out.

I got vaccinated yesterday morning, and last night I started worrying that I might die felt slightly achy.

"P-Dawg, I feel kind of crappy. How soon would a person know if she was coming down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome?"

"About two to six weeks, I guess. Are you planning on getting Guillain-Barré?"

I made him promise that if I didn't wake up the next morning, he'd burn my diaries and go through my blog to delete any swear words or references to my mother, and then I went up to bed.

This morning I feel fine. You can thank me next year, when there's enough vaccine to go around as a direct result of my selfless dedication to medical research.

(That, or lay flowers on my grave. No carnations, please.)

When Science And Life Collide

I came home from choir rehearsal last night to find the P-Dawg beside himself with glee.

"WE ARE NOT CHIMPANZEES!!!!" he announced as I knuckle-walked through the door.

I immediately put down my banana, stood upright, and joined him in the family room, where P-Dawg breathlessly informed me of the discovery of Ardipithecus Ramdus or "Ardi", the fossil that has usurped Lucy's claim to fame as mother of humankind. It's the sort of news that has many scientists drooling over their pocket protectors, and the P-Dawg even more so because one of the members of the research team that discovered Ardi just happens to be a former professor of his.

I immediately went online and read all about this long lost biped cousin. It turns out she stood about five feet tall, weighed 110 pounds, and was in desperate need of a properly fitting bra.

In other words, she's me, only furrier.

But Seriously, What's It Gonna Take to Get Andrew Jackson Off of Them?

The P-Dawg and I had an opportunity to observe V-meister's Montessori pre-school class yesterday morning.

We were sitting as inconspicuously as possible in chairs towards the back of the room and taking in the work going on around us, when I overheard the following conversation between two little boys as they prepared to count out change from the pretend cash drawer:

Boy #1, picking up a five dollar bill: "Hey! Is our new president on this?"

The two of them inspected the five spot:



Boy #2: "That's not him. He's on the One."

A one dollar bill is extracted from the cash drawer and intensely scrutinized:



Boy #1: "That's not him, either. He's must be on the Twenty."

Two small heads bend studiously over a miniature twenty dollar bill for a solid minute before the following conclusion is reached:



Boy #2: "That is definitely not him."

Boy #1: "Yeah, I guess they didn't get a chance to put him on yet."


(Maybe tomorrow, kids.)

Where in the World is Rimarama

. . . and why is she neglecting her blog?

There is no compelling reason. We needed time apart, the blog and I. But my hiatus was actually more or less an accident that quickly morphed into a way of life.

It was a languid and delicious way of life, and I am a little loathe to leave it. I'm feeling the itch to write here again, but this time truly without guilt or obligation. It's the only way I can re-enter the fray.

After I finished my big project, I kept meaning to post, but found that I had misplaced my writing groove. Sitting down to write was like trying to start a letter to an old neglected friend, and I didn't know quite how to begin, what to share, what to leave out.

Then we (finally!) moved.

After unpacking, I obsessed a bit about furniture and decorating choices and when that got old, I just meandered about my kingdom in a happy daze, pausing every so often to fluff a pillow here, nab a wayward piece of lint there. Sometimes I would simply roll around on the sun room floor, purring and batting at dust mites.

I invested some time in taking care of myself, eating better, exercising. I lost seven pounds on We1ght Watcher$, which doesn't really sound like that much of a feat, but it's more than five percent of my body weight and makes a considerable dent in a pygmy frame.

I've been trying to lose ten pounds since after the V-meister was born and could never quite get there until I started counting those stupid points. I always thought I was eating fairly well (EggBeaters, anyone?), but what WW taught me is that I can pretty much never have bakery bread or seconds, even if we're just talking about a dadburn piece of boneless, skinless chicken breast that's cooked in olive oil spray. Also, I cannot haz cheezburger.

I hate WW and I love it. Sometimes I resent counting POINTS so much that it makes me want to run around in circles and punch a wall. I have a little POINTS angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and the two of them are waging a war right in front of my mouth.

But. There is this one pair of jeans that I just couldn't get rid of when purging my closet of Things I Will Never Wear Again In This Lifetime, even though I hadn't been able to zip them even halfway up in years. I hung on to these jeans as a kind of benchmark for what I knew had been a healthy and attractive weight for me, although I was beginning to lose hope that I could ever get there again. And now they fit me, like a glove.

I interviewed a few new pairs of jeans again in the Gap dressing room yesterday evening and while I don't yet have an opening for a pair of size zero Long and Leans, I'm happy to announce that I had to dismiss my old nemesis, Size Six Boot Cut Ankle Length, because they were too big.

I've had a lot of anxiety lately, too, I guess I should say. It has to do with moving here, my conflicting emotions about undeserved bounty, karma, the state of the nation, all that. I'm guessing it's also been triggered by the old North Wind and the information packet we got from the V-meister's school about pandemic/avian bird flu preparedness.

This is the sort of thing that can put me into a tailspin for days, cause me to pick my cuticles ragged, snap at my family in spite of myself, and arrange my books in their built in cases according to size and color.

But here is a little piece of information I'm not sure I've ever shared with you: I have a little voice in my head that dictates my blog posts to me! I can only write when she's around. I call her, "Rimarama," and, frankly, I don't know where the hell she's been.

But lately I've heard her trying to come through and I think she's saying that she feels like writing again. Even though she's getting kind of sick of the cotton candy pink header with its playfully depressing implications, the blog's general tone of insouciance, and also regrets the pseudonym she assigned her son. (She wants to start calling him the little J-Bomb instead).

She's writing this catchup post in hopes that the act of writing itself will engender inspiration.

If not, it's back to the sun room floor.

One Day, I Shall Tell My Grandchildren

Turns out he'll follow anyone.

But still.

(Also, what messed up email did I send or receive for the autogenerated Google ad to contain the words words "hyena" and "groans"?)

I'm Just Here for the Party

I was one of the intrepid voters who braved treacherous road conditions and freezing rain to cast my vote in my state's primary yesterday.

My voting location is an elementary school that I drive past multiple times every single day. It's at the intersection of a main road and a cross street that bears the name of the school.

Yesterday, its front lawn was festooned with campaign posters. There were also balloons involved, and a big sign that read, "Rimarama, TURN HERE."

However, it took me seven drive-bys to locate it.

Once there, I ignored the side lot where everyone else in the state had parked and from where a steady stream of dejected Ohioans could be seen shuffling into the polling place. I proceeded to park the Ramamobile in the school bus parking lot, and was positively incensed upon finding that I was unable to gain access to my polling location via the loading dock nearest doors.

I did what any self-respecting and passionate voter would do: I backed up a goodly distance of about ten feet and threw the full weight of my body against the padlocked industrial double doors until they took me away in handcuffs screaming "Let's Put the Hi back in Ohio!"

No, no.

I tried to pick the lock with my Target-issue Swiss Army knife.

OK, OK, OK.

I jimmied the doorknob for about two seconds, then hung my head in resignation and shuffled along the sidewalk through freezing rain and raging winds to the main entrance.

But, friends?

The plight to exercise my democratic rights did not end there.

I followed the person in front of me into a classroom.

"Good morning, young lady! Would you happen to know your ward and precinct?"

"Uh . . . Jimmy Smitts?"

I made my way to my assigned table.

"Will you be voting Democrat or Republican today?"

"I have a question. By voting Democratic today, I am declaring myself a Democrat, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So, does that mean I have to vote Democratic all the way down the ticket forevermore? I mean, is it like a blood pact, where I can never go back to being an Independent and they inscribe my tombstone with a donkey after I bite it?"

(Blank stare from Velma McVoting Volunteer.)

"Here is your voting form, dear. Make sure you completely darken the appropriate oval with black ink and don't cast more than one vote for any candidate. If you make a mistake, be sure to return your ballot and we will provide a new one. DO NOT attempt to correct any mistakes!"

For the sake of my own protection, I handed over the bottle of Wite-Out I had stashed in my purse.

Finally, I sat down at a table and set to the task of casting my votes. There were no butterfly ballots or hanging chads to contend with this time around, and yet I had difficulties.

I was confused by the county coroner's lack of opponents. Same with County Recorder. Was I overlooking someone in the next column over? No, that appears to be a separate race, BUT what if I accidentally vote for two candidates and they throw my ballot out? What if I don't vote for anybody and they throw my ballot out? What if I sit here too long and they throw me out?

I started to sweat under my parka.

Twenty minutes later, I had completed my civic duty and was in the process of an elaborate origami ballot folding technique, when the election volunteer sternly admonished that there was no need to fold up my ballot and won't I just drop it in the ballot box please?

Which I did, but it killed me not to be able to peek inside and make sure the eagle had landed.

Anyway, Hillary better start readying the old Lincoln bedroom for me and the P-Dawg.

Because I'm pretty sure it was my vote that clinched the Ohio race.

I'm As Smart As Alan Alda

Hey, thanks for all of your extremely thoughtful, wise, and level-headed advice regarding yesterday's post about fearmongering.

Except Liv's comment regarding the possibility of contracting a facial staph infection from wanton football helmet-sharing.

After reading that, I immediately removed my borrowed helmet and went out to Dick's to get one I could call my own.

Anyway, I feel much better. I'm not going to let the fearmongers get the best of me.

This morning, as I was drinking my first cup of coffee, a certain "news" show that shall remain nameless ran their segment about staph infections yet again, and do you know what I did?

I totally put my hands over my ears and chanted "MynameisRima!MynameisRima!MynameisRima!" over and over again until the P-Dog pointed out that I could also just mute the sound or turn the TV off altogether.

Take that, Matt Lauer.

However, as fate would have it, I cruised by one commenter's site today and was thrilled horrified to find a link to a game whereby a person can test his or her disease IQ!

I simply could not resist, and so I leave you, dear friends, with this compelling little widget that proudly attests to the fact that I have the disease IQ level of Hawkeye Pierce! I was never allowed to watch much TV as a kid, but the P-Dog tells me he was a doctor on a very, very famous show back in the 70s:



WARNING: This game is not for the faint of heart. I'm serious. They have pictures.

Fear Mongering, It's Scary Stuff

Whenever possible, the P-dog and I like to kick back and watch the evening news.

This shouldn't come as too great a surprise, since we also consider the symphony a happening place to be on a Saturday night.

The evening news hour hasn't been the same since the Brokaw/Jennings/Rather trifecta disintegrated, but we've gotten into the habit of having a cup of Ovaltine (I kid) and taking in a V1agra commercial or two with our evening Bushapalooza as a way to unwind.

(No, we didn't catch the last Golden Girls re-run on Nick at Night, why do you ask?)

But in reality, watching the news does more to key me up than to help me chill out. More often than not, I end up turning it off in disgust, boredom, or because someone needs my assistance in getting his head extracted from the space between couch and wall.

Last night, the news catapulted me into a full scale paranoia-induced meltdown and resulted in the exchange of cross words with the P-dog, all thanks to a segment about a recent increase in cases of deadly, drug-resistant staph infection.

As always, the underlying tone of the piece was No one is safe! This can happen to you! The world is a dangerous place! Be very, very afraid!

Obedient media consumer that I am, I took this information very much to heart and became immediately convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that a lingering rash I've noticed on the little V-meister is caused by nothing less than the lethal drug-resistant staph bacteria itself, a time bomb waiting to explode by crossing the blood barrier to wreak complete havoc on her fragile little system.

Naturally, I blamed the P-dog, who happens to be in the medical profession, for not being more concerned about the V-meister's rash, for not alerting me to the fact that it could be DEADLY, for being lackadaisical about our children's welfare, blah blah blah and then there was the time when she had a 104 fever and you were going to put her to bed without even taking her temperature is it only people with challenging medical conditions that you care about what about your own flesh and blood blah blah blah.

I can be kind of high-strung.

After conducting numerous Google searches and consulting several medical texts, we've pretty much come to the conclusion that the V-meister has your garden variety (possibly skid-mark related) contact dermititis, but my whole point here is that the fear mongering perpetrated by the media in this country is getting too much for me to take.

Have you ever watched Glenn Beck? I try to avoid him like the plague he warns is imminent, but sometimes I can't help but stop and stare in wonder at his gigantic talking head for a few moments while channel-surfing. I would be very surprised if the man does not, in fact, live in an underground bunker. Every other show he does is about signs pointing to the end of days.

Do you watch any one of the early morning news shows? Have you noticed how many segments to do with childhood illness and accidents happen to run during the 9-10 o'clock hour when the stay-at-home mom set tunes in over their morning cup of joe?

Have you ever noticed what a huge amount of airplay even the slightest, casualty-free airline mishap gets?

Did you, even for a moment, consider not having your children vaccinated because of the (as yet uncorrelated) possibility that certain vaccines might cause autism?

Are you, like me, afraid of microwaving anything inside a tupperware container because of that "microwaving plastic causes cancer" email that was going around?

I know that sensational stories garner ratings. I know that perspective and a grain of salt is what I need. Just because Brian Williams told me more people died of drug-resistant staph infection than of AIDS last year alone, doesn't mean I'll get it.

But I'm still afraid.

Not just of super-viruses. Of everything.

What I want to know:

How do you sort out what to keep and what to throw away?

What is your metaphorical sieve?

How do you leave your house in the morning when the world at large would have you believe the sky is about to fall down?

Hillary Clinton Rejects Karl Rove's Facebook Invite, Files Restraining Order

Hillary Clinton rejected Sunday what aides say is Karl Rove's fifth consecutive "friend invitation" on the popular social networking site, Facebook, and filed a restraining order against the outgoing political advisor who has been called "Bush's Brain."

"The man is obsessed with me," said Clinton, speaking in Des Moines on Sunday. "He has been sending me invites ever since I got on his radar by adding Engelbert (Humperdinck) to my friends list." (Humperdinck is listed as a friend on both Clinton and Rove's profile pages, thus linking the two on the Facebook web.)

Unconfirmed reports claim that Rove went so far as to select the "We Hooked Up" option on the "How Do You Know Hillary Clinton?" dialog box when issuing his friend request. He also reputedly listed "Junior Achievement Camp 1962" and the "Christian Womens' Wrestling Federation Tournament 1992" as events the two attended together. In addition, Rove stated on Facebook that he and Clinton once shared a White House office.

"The only other person whose invitation I've ever been compelled to decline was that little hoe-bag, M.L.," fumed Clinton. "Apparently, I'd been on her e-mail contact list since the early nineties and she didn't bother to check it before sending out an automated mass invite, the little twit."

Rove could not be reached for comment, although witnesses have come forward to say that he was recently spotted on the stoop of the Clintons' Chappaqua, NY estate, drinking Mad Dog 20/20 from a paper bag and rapping LL Cool J's hit single, "I Need Love."

Note to Reader: I made this up.

British PM Recovering after Joyride with President Bush

Note to Reader: I Made This Up

The nascent relationship between newly appointed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Bush is off to a shaky start after Mr. Brown suffered what a spokesperson has labeled “a balls-out pukefest” following a ride in a golf cart driven by President Bush at Camp David this morning.

The Prime Minister became ill about one minute into the excursion on Golf Cart One when, after completing a turn around the assembled press corps in what was intended to be a photo opportunity, President Bush began to accelerate at an alarming rate, racing around the crowd at speeds clocked over 75 miles per hour.

The scene on the ground was one of complete bedlam, with members of the press corps running for cover and feverishly attempting to make last-minute phone calls to loved ones. Morgan Fanbert of the Associated Press stated, “I left my camera guy in the dust and hoofed it out of there. I really thought he was going to take out the corps.”

According to Fred Butler of WDEM in Dover, “At one point, the cart was doing what can only be described as ‘wheelies.’ A huge cloud of dust got kicked up, but I caught a glimpse of President Bush grinning and heard him yell out, ‘Yeeeeee-haaaaaaaaw!!!!!!!!!!’”

Secret Service agents were eventually able to corral the cart using a Bradley M3 Fighting Vehicle. Mr. Brown, who emerged “puking his guts out,” was quickly wheeled off in a stretcher and treated at the infirmary.

When asked to explain the incident already being dubbed “Cartgate,” President Bush stated, “I thought ‘ole Gordie could handle a little down home Texas tomfoolery.”

Mr. Brown, who despite an artificial eye and some lingering vertigo felt well enough to “Wii it up” on the Presidential La-Z-Boy by Monday evening, is expected to make a full recovery. It is not currently known whether he intends to join the First Couple for a formal Tex-Mex dinner with all the fixins’ at the White House Sunday evening as planned.