Judges

I won't get detailed because I don't want to lose my job, but let's just say that not all Judges are created equal. One particular Judge made a horrible ruling on one of my cases this week that is going to negatively impact some great kids for the rest of their lives. If this Judge were up for election this year, my blog would be a campaign for ya'll to vote him/her off the bench.

What I CAN encourage you all to do is vote to retain Judge Valdez. While he can be controversial and his ratings weren't so favorable, I can tell you, after many hours in his courtroom, that his decisions ARE based on the kid's best interest. And at least he's open enough to talk about it and accept feedback.

medical malpractice

I learned earlier this year that I have pretty bad allergies. I guess that's why I was sick 10 times last year, and I had no idea. So now I'm doing immunotherapy, which involves weekly shots of gradually-increasing doses of whatever I'm allergic to (mostly weeds), and supposedly I'll be allergy-free in five years. It's pretty cool!

Or, it was until last Tuesday...

I pull into the parking lot at 4:40, five minutes before the allergy clinic closes. I need to get my shot today because I don't have time later this week. My phone rings. It's this therapist I've been playing phone tag with all week. I really need to talk to her, so I answer. I talk to her in the car for a few minutes, hoping it will be a fast call, but she clearly wants to chit-chat about the client. I walk into the office, still on the phone.

It's 4:45, just under the wire. The lobby is packed with people who already got their shots, and are now waiting the required 20 minutes to make sure they don't have a reaction. I walk up to the counter to sign in. All 25 slots on the sheet are full, so I write myself in as number 26. The first 25 people's names have a hash mark, so I know I'm next to get my shot. I don't even bother to sit down because I know she's going to call my name soon. I wander around the waiting room for a minute, trying to wrap up the call with this therapist, waiting for my turn.

I look back at the counter. The nurse opens the fridge and grabs some vials. I know they are mine, so I meet her at the front. We smile at each other, no words exchanged because she sees I'm on an important call. She knows me -- I've been coming here every week for six months. We go in the little room. I pull up my sleeve (right one first, I know the drill) and she sticks me.

Then, she hesitates......

She leaves the room without giving me the other shot. I tell the therapist I need to hang up. The nurse comes back and says, "I didn't see your name at the bottom of the sign-in sheet..." I guess some chick walked in after me and signed up on spot #1 on the second page. The nurse grabbed her vials instead. I say, "So I got the wrong shot?" She says, "Yeah." I'm waiting for her to say I'm going to die, but she seems cool about it. She gives me the correct shot in my left arm. She tells me to sit in the waiting for 20 minutes -- standard practice. I'm the last person in the waiting room. Staff wants to go home. By 5:05, I'm feeling fine. She tells me I can leave. No problems here!

At home, I cook a nice dinner for Joe, and sit down with a glass of wine to wait for him. Around 7:30, I notice my throat is hurting. Maybe I'm dehydrated and shouldn't be drinking. I've been really tired lately -- did my mono come back? Shit. It's 7:45 and my ears start to feel hot. I check them out in the mirror and they are pretty red. Is it the wine? Maybe I just need to clean my earrings. Joe should hurry home because I'm hungry. At 8:00, my bottom lip starts to tingle. WTF this wine must be strong! I cut myself off and lay down to watch TV. I'm pretty cold, so I layer on the blankets. Must be the weather outside. At some point I fall asleep...

I wake up to Joe yelling, "What is up with your face?" Hmm, it does feel kinda weird, like I've been at the dentist earlier today. Actually, I feel like complete shit. My chest hurts, I itch everywhere, and my eyelids are nearly swollen shut. And my ears are still burning!

Joe calls the allergist's after-hours hotline. The bitch tells him, "I can't contact the doctor unless you say this is an emergency." No, we're calling to make an appointment you idiot. Joe (who rarely yells) yelled at her for a while until she agreed to have a doctor call. Two hours later, no doctor has called, and my face is just getting more swollen. Now my chest hurts.

Joe calls back and gets a nice operator. The doc calls 5 minutes later. He tells me to take Benadryl every 4 hours and buy some hydrocortizone cream. I'm not putting that shit on my face! So I just go to sleep, hoping my airway passage doesn't close off in the middle of the night.

Here's my favorite part of the story. The nurse -- the one who jacked me up -- calls the next morning to check on me. I guess she got word from the hotline or from the doc that I had called. She says, "I know there was some miscommunication because you were on the phone (blaming the victim) but I just left the room to get your other vial because I only grabbed one the first time (backpedaling). You definitely got the right shot (LYING!!!). It's just that you're really sensitive to weeds, and there are lots of weeds in the air right now, so the combination of your shot and the air can really trigger a reaction (then why hasn't that happened after the last 25 shots?)" I'll call the doc to see if we can get you a stronger script.

Now the point of all this is: 1. to make you laugh at the visual of my face swelled up like a puffer fish, and 2. to ask why the HELL people can't take responsiblity for things. I honestly didn't care about getting the wrong shot. Accidents happen. I shouldn't have been on the phone. It got me a half day off work. But to change your story and flat out lie? That's just messed up, and now I might say something to her boss next time I go in there.

Pantyhose

I am FED UP with pantyhose!

Will someone please tell my why the hell they were invented?

Yes, they make my legs look sexier. Yes, they make the fact that I haven't been tanning in a year less evident. Yes, they conceal the stubble that is starting to show because I haven't shaved in 3 days.

But lately I am beginning to see that the downfalls outweigh the benefits. They tear so easily, especially with fake acrylic nails. And if you get one tiny little hole in them, it spreads like an August wildfire in Cali. They itch, they make your feet smell bad, and they dig into your waist. And DON'T ever put them in the wash with something Velcro!

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind purchasing things that are disposable. I buy food every day. I buy gas every week. But a Lean Cuisine is only $2.00 and gas is only $3.30* a gallon. A good pair of nylons, even from the outlets in Park City, is over SEVEN BUCKS. So here is my theory:

Men invented nylons as an evil torture device for women, not just as a way to sexualize us, but as a way to keep us poor and submissive and under their control. The more powerful of a woman you are, the more likely it is that you are expected to wear pantyhose as part of your respectable business attire. But the more you wear pantyhose, the more likely you are to tear them and be forced to buy more! It's an evil, evil plan.

The unfortunate part is that I will continue to wear pantyhose each and every day because society expects that of me. Screw all you men. Especially those of you who have shared with me your sexual fantasies about me that involve any sort of pantyhose or otherwise restricting garment.

*Disclaimer: This is an old blog from my 2006 Mary Kay days that I'm re-posting to tide you all over because I'm too busy to write anything new this week.

Quincentennial Day

I remember a couple of years ago, on my friend Matt's 25th birthday, I said to him, "Man you are old! Do you realize you are halfway to thirty?" And Matt, maybe because he's a man and doesn't care about aging, or maybe because he was just messing with me, replied, "Actually I'm halfway to FIFTY!" I thought it was funny two years ago, but it's not so funny today.

The Decline of Social Work Values, Part 2

I have this Costco-sized bag of plastic forks in my desk drawer at work. It's become a habit to just grab one on the way to the lunchroom. Today, however, I brought soup, so I set the useless fork on the counter in exchange for a nice spoon I found. Then I sat down to eat and chat with my coworker, Jen.

A few minutes later, one of the supervisors here walks in to heat up his leftovers. Jen and I are chatting away, and I happen to glance up just in time to see this guy quickly rinse off my plastic fork, and then slyly slip it into his pocket.

Some people around here just think they are exempt to social norms and boundaries.

"In God We Trust"

This email has been circulating around the Mary Kay world, and I'm sure some of you have seen it, too:

U.S Government to Release New Dollar Coins
You guessed it:
"In God We Trust" IS GONE!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE Together we can force them out of circulation. Please send to all on your mailing list!

Here are some of the comments to accompany this email:

• I didn't know if you wanted to forward this to everyone, but I think it's important not to give up the things that our country was founded on.
• Dear friends and family, I am astounded by this............I hope you are too.

Can someone please explain to me why this is offensive? I am continually baffled as to why people think the absence of something is equivalent to the opposite of something. Now, if the new coin said, "God can kiss my ass," then I can understand the uproar. But simply not including the phrase should not offend anyone! Do these opponents of the new coin stop to consider the opinions and feelings of atheists? Wikipedia tells me that 11.9% of the world's population is "non-religious," and these people have been using our "God" coins for hundreds of years. You don't hear them bitching.

The same phenomena has manifested itself in my wedding-planning. My mother suggested that her neighborhood Mormon bishop perform our marriage ceremony. Now, Bishop Lang is a nice man, and I'm sure he would do a "neutral" ceremony and all, but Joe's family is CATHOLIC. It would be straight-up disrespectful to have a Mormon bishop marry us (not to mention that I've been to church about 3 times in the last 7 years). So I kindly explained to my mother that we would prefer a neutral person, such as a judge, to marry us. That will keep both families' values from being infringed upon, right?

WRONG.

The absence of a Mormon bishop seems to be just as offensive to my mom as the opposite of a Mormon bishop -- a Catholic priest. She says, "I can't believe that you disregard your family's feelings at the expense of Joe's family's." Like I'm purposfully trying to disrespect my upbringing. And no matter how hard I try to explain this idea of neutrality to her, there is just no winning this battle.

But I'm still going to hire a Judge.

murphy's law

as you may have read last week, i ordered these cute lip balms for kara's baby shower. and true to form, murphy and his stupid law stepped in. the customized labels came printed on 2" carboard cutouts, rather than 1.5" stickers. had any ONE of the following factors happened differently, things would have been fine, but of course they all added up for this great cumulative effect: 4 hours out of my Friday night on the phone with the manufacturor and driving to Kinkos and the scrapbook store to compromise a solution:

-- had i paid for 2 day shipping instead of 3 day shipping, they would have been here in time to fix the problem
-- had UPS not lied to me by saying this package didn't require a signature, i would have made sure to be home on thursday, and had time to fix the problem
-- had the driver not decided my neighborhood was "unsafe", he would have left the package on thursday, and i would have had time to fix the problem
-- had seop conferences been running on time friday, i would have opened the package soon enough to see the problem, and call before 5
-- had the manufactorer been in any time zone but the east, i would have reached them before 5 and they could have overnighted me the right labels
-- had these idiots not printed the wrong labels in the first place, things would have been fine. i better get my $ back.

my genetic code

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i don't know if i should be proud or embarrassed.