That's My Bix!

I went to see Dr. Lorax again, for the bump on my knee that is still there after all of this time, after six months of physical therapy and a year of ice bags, it’s still there. My god, the movie they were filming up the street is now actually in theatres and yet, this bump, this pain, this liquid starburst of pink and purple lightning bolts when I try to kneel, it’s still as present as it was a month after the incident.

When I left, it was snowing, big fluffy wet flakes that fall into clumps on cars and slide off onto the road with the drama of an unveiling. The roads were glistening black and it was one of those perfect kind of snowfalls, where it only sticks to the pretty parts and turns the rest into a shiny black fashion model runway. And there was the quiet thing that happens when it snows. I suppose that the flakes interrupt the sound waves or something similar that Mr. Wizard could explain, but I prefer to think that the world takes a moment to look around, rediscover how pretty a little precipitation can gild empty trees and bushes into white lace and glittered tulle.

And then I was at the clinic, the one that huddles in the armpit of the hospitals, the same one that I used to visit as a toddler when I suspected that my pediatrician was secretly Mr. Rogers. After Dr. Lorax made me wait for a half hour in an examining room (during which time I made it through the Smithsonian, Better Homes and Gardens, and a limp pre-Jen and Brad breakup issue of People) until he came in and declared that he couldn’t really feel a bump, other than the puffy silver dollar sized one that was staring him in the face. He pressed around, pulled my leg hither and fro, and declared that I had excellent mobility. Then, after discovering the spot that, when pressed, brings tears to my eyes, he then pushed and manipulated that same pea-sized spot, pressing so hard that the vein at his temple popped up, all the while I sat there trying to be strong, trying not to scream, trying to stay casual when I’d say that yes, that hurt, that hurt right there, please don’t do that again, Dr. Lorax.

After he had pushed around on my knee cap for a bit, after I had given up on being strong and dabbed at my eyes with their industrial grade PPO tissue, he changed his tune of ‘scar tissue blahety blah blah live with it’ and suddenly he was talking nerve damage and broken frayed ends reaching out to find their other halves, like earthworms of pain wriggling toward each other, arms outstretch shooting little tweaks and twinges out into the void like some kind of fucked up pain echolocation. Suddenly, he was talking about severed nerves, about shooting cortison and lidocaine with a needle into the spot that he had just spent five minutes tenderizing. Suddenly, he was talking about cortisone eating the fat and causing a dimple scar, a caved-in section like dynamite at a mine collapse, with miners trapped underneath, living high off of drugs and happy gas. Suddenly he was talking about ‘going in there’ if the needle didn’t work.

There should be no If when we speak of needles in one’s knee. What is more, there should be no talk of ‘going in there’ as though one’s kneecap was Omaha Beach and the Germans had the channel guarded by heavy artillery.

And, without a proffered shot of vodka or tequila or, I don’t know, five million dollars, he readied the needle (although, really, it was closer to a large stick you would use to fend off a wild animal, perhaps a wildebeest) and I looked at the limp cover of the ancient People and decided that if Melissa Etheridge could look out at me with quiet strength, I could stop being a baby about the injection. And the lidocaine stung, as it always does, and then about five minutes later, he was able to press down hard onto the flesh muffin and this time, it did not bring tears to my eyes. He felt this was a good sign, that the nerve earthworms were happily gnawing on cortisone and that it was not, I don’t know, an alien about to pop out or something. And that maybe he wouldn’t have to ‘go in there’, only this time, he reiterated with the word ‘surgery’, as though I hadn’t understood what he meant the first time and thought he was talking about a forgotten storage closet where there are albino spiders and those little pill bug things that are so icky.

I left the clinic and was unable to take solace in the pretty snowfall. Snow, schmo. I stopped at the Snooty Deli for an overpriced vegetarian sandwich and also a white chocolate cherry cookie, because man, after that crap, I totally deserved a cookie. Then I got back in the car and decided I would see if Esteban were working from his parent’s house, because I would stop by on my way back to work and tell him Happy Valentine’s Day.

I called his cell phone, right as rain, my normal strong self. But as soon as he answered, I lost it completely and couldn’t talk. The whole thing had been sort of overwhelming and frustrating and I was still shaking from the experience and to hear his soft, concerned voice, it was all I could do to drive in a straight line. He was actually out to lunch but then demanded that I meet him at his parent’s house and he would come there immediately. I protested, but he insisted, so I finally acquiesced.

I had recomposed by the time he got there and gave me a hug and made me take ibuprofen and offered me his cheese sandwich and talked to me until I felt less shaky and able to deal with the annoying coworker (who, by the way, sniped ‘What, did you have an operation or something?’ when I got back a whole ninety minutes after I had left). This is the part where normally a smug platitude would go about the true meaning of Valentine’s Day or romance or whatever, and it’s all true (albeit vomitsome). However, if you think he’ll fall asleep tonight without getting some, you’d be very mistaken.

I am somewhat a slave to my iPod. I didn’t want to be. I really didn’t. I thought they were pretty and shiny and oooh, look, music. But it makes everything so easy, all of those sounds sitting in your delicate hand. It’s organized the way that I think, which is to say that it’s entirely schizophrenic, sometimes by sources, sometimes by groupings, and sometimes just a jumbled glut of 3194 thoughts one after another. I simply don’t know how I lived without it.

Penny and I drove to Milwaukee in her Monte Carlo and at least four times, I caught myself wisting for songs from the iPod, which was sitting on my computer desk. My sister Mo asked if she could use it when she goes to the dentist to have her teeth drilled and I told her to ask our brother for his because I have class and will absolutely die if I have to make the jaunt down there alone in the car without my faithful iPod sitting on my right knee. Yes. Die. There would be a chalk outline of my body somewhere north of Sheboygan, which is the point at which I can start getting the good radio station (102.1).

Which reminds me, Penny and I embarked on what I have come to think of as Cashmere Quest 2005: The Gluttoning. I did, by the way, find ridiculously marked down cashmere sweaters in my size, including one that was perfect, oh so perfect, and in fact, was so perfect that it is the same one I bought in October for twice as much, exact same color and everything. I didn’t buy it, even though it was marked down so much that karma is right this moment placing three very hungry moth larvae on the right breast of my cardigan, to punish me for being practical.

Despite the lack of viable cashmere, it was a delightful if not exhausting day, and was highlighted by a stop for late lunch at Maggiano’s, which I suspect is at least partly to blame for America’s collective weight problem. Even the lunch portions are enormous and let’s just say that they spare not the cream in the alfredo. Penny, who is the slowest eater on the planet and has not, in recent memory, left a restaurant without a carryout container, and I together inhaled actual serving platters of mushroom ravioli al forno (the individual ravioli were the size of saucers), chicken saltimbocca (with two gigantic breast cutlets) and a side dish of spaghetti marinara. And then we split an order of cr’me brulee and then I got all snorky because between the cheese and the cream sauce and the custard, I had run circles around my tolerance for dairy and was venturing into emergency antihistamine territory.

As we waddled out of the restaurant, sans the expected trademark bag of leftovers, Penny wondered where they kept the vomitoriums, and I can’t say that I blamed her. Pasta binge’ not the best idea when there is more shopping to be done. It was all we could do to sit in manicure chairs and pay fastidious people to do our nails for us. I seriously hope that there aren’t any non-Americans reading this, as that last paragraph is shaming me to death. No! That cashmere isn’t good enough! You there, paint my nails as I sit on a tuffet and belch like Jabba the Hutt!

Really, non-American readers’ we’re all not like this. It’s just me.

After my alarm clock went off yesterday morning (or, you know, tweeted, because I have a zen alarm clock that lights up like the sunrise and then starts chirping like birds for about fifteen minutes before the annoying buzzing starts) I wandered, bleary-eyed, through the dining room, past the window that hasn’t been fitted with a new window shade.

Out in the murky darkness, there was movement. A dark figure hovered about six feet above the snow.

I jumped and took a deep breath, lest it be my last. Floated. Flying! Moving! Alive! Not only was there someone, someTHING in my backyard, staring at me from the gloom, but we obviously had a paranormal situation out by the Evil Rosebush.

However, once my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized that it was a transient Valentine’s helium balloon, partially deflated by the cold air. Through some strange turn of events, Esteban just happened to be awake, so I was less frightened initially than I would have been had he been comatose in the bedroom, oblivious to any subsequent Ring girl sightings or something. Instead, I just sort of laughed nervously to cover my adrenaline rush and then went on to the shower. It hovered and danced a bit across my backyard and then when I passed through again, it was gone. But a surreal way to start the morning, nonetheless. And also, hello to months and months of ‘It’ flashbacks.

Yes, I know it’s been almost twenty years since that evil miniseries, but I am still traumatized by it. Just like the twins in the original Shining, sometimes art is the very manifestation of the places in the human soul that are very very dark indeed.

I’m sorry, but what kind of world is it when Tim Curry is cast as an evil clown? Proper English butler, absolutely. Saucy genius transvestite, hello salty goodness. Big horny Lucifer type.. um, ok, sure, I can go with that. But terrifying clown with shark teeth? That is just not right, people. Not right!

So the crime.

Short version: yesterday, after coming home from the store, apparently I left my purse in the car.

Then, this morning, shortly after pushing the Remote Starter on my car so that it would be warmer than the 17-degree morning, our phone rang. That was odd, but I figured that it was maybe my brother needing a ride to school, or the people who are working on our house, telling us that they couldn’t come today or something. I answered and immediately, a man started talking.

‘Hi, I live on (street up from our street) and this morning, I was taking my son to school and I noticed all this stuff in the road?’ At this point, I was about to interrupt and tell him that he had the wrong number, but he continued, ‘So I checked it out and saw that there was a purse and a checkbook and stuff and that’s how I got your number.’

I immediately scanned to the table where I put my purse. It was empty.

‘There’s no money or nothing, but there’s some cards and stuff, and I thought you should know and maybe want the purse?’

‘Was there a wallet there?’ I stammered, still in shock.

‘No, no wallet, nothing but some cards and a checkbook. I can show you were I found everything.’

I thanked him, got his address, told him that I’d be right there, and raced out the door.

My car door was ajar when I got outside. Either I hadn’t locked the door (unlikely) or the seatbelt stopped the door from latching when I closed it (has happened in the past).

I was still confused, but I somehow made the three blocks to the guy’s house. He met me outside and I was shaking by that point. He showed me where he found everything and I thanked him and went back home. Esteban called the police while I sat there shaking, trying to remember everything that was in the purse and discern how exactly it happened. Each minute that passed came with memory of another thing that was now gone. My little red Tupperware pill container with all the Advil liqui-gels in it. Cash. Cards. My asthma inhaler. The $30 gift card from Bath and Body Works. My brand new Aveda Lip Saver. The photo of Joel and Cheri’s baby when she was a day old, wearing the Winnie the Pooh layette that I gave her. My Lane Bryant platinum card. My Prescriptives lip gloss in Pillow. Three other Prescriptives things in colors I couldn’t remember. My security access card to get into work. The gift card from World Market that still had about $90 on it. My insurance cards. My Urban Decay compact. My Love My Body card from The Body Shop. My business cards. My old driver’s license with my maiden name on it and the cute picture of me tilting my head like I’m Sarah Rue or something. My library card. My mofo library card.

I called work and told them that I’d be late because some asshole stole my purse. Esteban didn’t want me to call and cancel any of my credit cards, hoping to use the open accounts to trap the thieves somehow, like this was a Case of the Missing Jackie O Wallet in an Encyclopedia Brown book, but since I had a debit card in there, I called the bank and canceled it anyway. Then I decided to just screw that and called the rest of them, since it took an hour for the police to get there. Probably because this was so minimal a crime. I mean, no one got hurt or anything. I just felt stupid and victimized. Which I suppose I was.

Finally, Officers Francis and Christian arrived, took my statement, looked around, gave me their theory on what the perps wanted, which was money for drugs or alcohol and that they’d use the cards at a gas station where they could slide them into the card reader to get the gas, since they were likely male and the cards were in my name, unless they got their girlfriends to help them with the fraud. Whatever, Lenny Brisco. Then we went to the scene of the purse dumping, where we found one of my Listerine oral care strip packs, crushed, and also my gel micro-tip pen, exploded into a million pieces and a giant black ink puddle, complete with tire marks stamped all the way up the street. I suggested that maybe they should have, you know, investigated that clue, as don’t they have some kind of tire database, as suggested on CSI? And then they could derive a complex profile of our faceless criminal and tell me that he was 5’9′, straight (because no gay man nor a woman would keep the wallet and $30 in cash and ditch the Kate Spade bag out the window) and had eaten curry for dinner? And Officers Francis and Christian just laughed, in their exceptionally tall manner. Because lawd’s sakes alive, they were tall. I am not a short girl, and man, I felt like I was twelve years old next to those guys. Esteban, however, felt really old, as when he gave Officer Christian his birth date, the officer laughed and then said that his birth date was the same, only the year was 1980. Good god, our policeman watches TRL. But then, hey, he’s 25 and man, when did we get to be so geritol?

We drove back home and I made myself a crumpet for breakfast. When life shits on your morning, sometimes the only logical remedy is a toasted crumpet. I know. It doesn’t make any sense, but it works. Then I realized that I had no money (because it was stolen) and no way to get any (because it was also stolen), so Esteban and I found an ATM and he gave me some money from his account. Then I went to Starbucks, got a mocha, and life started feeling a little more kind. I realized that I should probably at very least get a new driver’s license, so I went right to the DMV, after checking my makeup by habit (although then realized that I was carrying around an empty purse with no makeup because IT WAS STOLEN) and then made best friends forever with the DMV lady after I complimented her Egyptian cartouche necklace. Because I had nothing with my picture or my signature (because it was’ you know), they looked up my electronic picture, in which I look like I am fifty years old, have eighteen cats, and work in a women’s prison, and just printed off another copy of that one for $4. So after all of that, I still ended up with my hideous driver’s license picture. It was kind of reassuring, though. It was almost like I got back something else.

In a bit of DMV absurdity, I could have then taken that brand new picture id, paid another $4, surrendered the old one and then got a new picture taken. However, I would have had to wait another half an hour and I was already three hours late for work.

Looking on the bright side of things, this could have been much much worse. My iPod, my camera, and my phone, some or all of which can be found at any given time inside my purse, were all in the house. And I got the Kate Spade back. So, save for dealing with the bureaucracy, it is not so bad.

However, when I got to work, annoying coworker was absolutely gleaming. I kid you not. She immediately started grilling me on what happened, barely able to restrain her glee. She’s always had a lot of resentment for whatever reason and I’m sure the schadenfreude was overwhelming.

For instance, awhile back, someone had admired my wallet and asked where I got it and how much it cost. When I told them, she immediately prairie-dogged (because she eavesdrops constantly) and tried to make me feel guilty for spending so much on a wallet for myself. And it’s not like it’s Prada or something, but she’s got some of the same Midwestern cheapass tendencies that the rest of the area has. Spend a dollar to save a penny, that kind of thing that is just stupid. Why buy a quality leather wallet for $90 if you can get something from the Wal-Mart for $4.87 that’s ‘just as good’?

As she quizzed me about my morning, she practically salivated and then said ‘Goes to show ya’ you should never leave your purse in the car.’

You think?

I know. It was a mistake. I don’t normally do it and I don’t know how I did last night, only that I was carrying other things in and probably thought I’d grab it when I went back outside to put salt on the ice. But fuck, I KNOW I shouldn’t have done that, and yeah, I’m stupid, ok? Are you happy? Look, the world is punishing me for my stupidity by stealing my stuff. Are you fucking satisfied? Do you really need something bad to happen to someone else to make yourself feel better?

She then sat down to soak in her self-righteous ignorance. I said nothing, but apparently, she wasn’t finished. She had more bloviating from the other side of the wall.

‘I suppose they took that $90 wallet too?’

‘Yes, they just left the purse.’

She tsk tsked, and then said, ‘See? You spent $90 on a wallet and now look where that got you.’

I had had it. So what was that saying exactly? That this was some sort of karmic comeuppance for being frivolous? That someone stole my purse out of my car because I owned a $90 wallet? Not that I need to validate this, but the wallet was a souvenir from Las Vegas. Most people spend a lot more than that on stupid tschotzkes that you never look at again’ I spent it on something that I used every day and enjoyed every time I used it. That’s a wiser use of money than buying a bunch of Las Vegas shot glasses for $13 a piece.

Gah.

Finally, I said, ‘Well, I had gotten ink on the red wallet, so now I can just get a new one without the ink.’

‘You’re kidding! You’re going to spend ninety dollars again?’

‘Why wouldn’t I? They saved me money when they threw the $160 purse out the window,’ I replied casually.

That pretty much shut her up.

So, to sum up, it wasn’t that bad. They didn’t take anything else out of my car. The CDs are all still there. They didn’t touch the console where my sunglasses and cache of stamps live. They didn’t pop the trunk and take off with anything in there. They just grabbed the purse and went. It could have been so much worse, and instead, a little hassle, a little humility, a little less trust, but otherwise, pretty unscathed.

Until I find out that I’ve somehow taken out seven hundred new credit cards in the next month and have quite the internet porn addiction.

I roasted a leg of lamb on Saturday, one that I started marinating in garlic and crushed rosemary (which, try as I might to like it, still tastes stuff that I found lying around the forest) and a metric ton of lemon zest. This was an unusual recipe for me, not only in the fact that it was lamb and not, say, ex-cow, but also in that it required so much forethought. I began Project: Baa Baa Tasty Sheep a full thirty-six hours before I even put the damned thing into the oven. That’s commitment, right there, because my god, how would I even know that we’d be home in thirty-six hours, much less hungry and feeling like eating meat? But we were home and damn it, after all that foreplay, we were going to eat some fucking lamb. I also made mashed potatoes and carrots (half of which were summarily ignored by Esteban) and then when my beloved sniffed and opined that we did not have gravy, I ordered him to the pantry to fetch some corn starch and broth and then I deglazed the roasting pan and made gravy. I know! I am rather impressed myself. I felt like MacGyver or something. Or maybe Jesus. You know, if the pan drippings and brown stuck-on bits were water and if a perfect, tasty brown puddles in mashed potatoes were a heady pinot noir.

One of these days, I’m going to get over myself.

Anyway, we were both rather impressed that the whole meal came together quite nicely. And as it had been a snow-filled day, we slumped onto our sofa and watched a movie and considered it a Saturday well spent.

Speaking of sofas, I found a new sofa. I’ve been searching for awhile and pretty much expected to buy a leather one, as there was only one non-leather sofa I liked, but it was a sectional and thus, right out. We have a sectional now and I hate it. There’s only two ways to position the couch, so our living room has had the same configuration for five years.

I wasn’t against a non-leather sofa, quite honestly, but all of the non-leather sofas I saw were either too patterny or had that extra cushion thing flipping over the arm that looks like it belonged on the set of Growing Pains or it had those big brass tack things that Esteban loathes or it had a skirt instead of plain wooden leg things or it had only loose cushions for the back, which I suspect are always in need of straightening and honestly, I already can’t relax in the living room if the floor needs to be Swiffered, so do I need frumpy uneven cushions staring at me too? No, I don’t need that kind of stress.

I was in a weird situation in that I had money saved up to buy a new sofa, but no sofa to buy. And I was pretty much expecting to wait until I went to Chicago and fell in absolute love with one in either Crate and Barrel or Restoration Hardware and then had to mortgage the house to pay for it.

But, on a whim, I wandered into a furniture store here in town and within two seconds, spotted what was possibly the perfect sofa. It was a non-leather, somewhat retro but also somewhat contemporary, simple sofa. The floor sample was red with some atrocious geometric-printed pillows, but it was cute. Because I don’t trust my impulsive nature, I noted the location of the sofa and then walked around the store, faced with more fugly pillow-armed, brass tacky, Brady Bunch print sofas. Then I returned to the red sofa grouping again and once more admired the simple styling. In fact, it was everything I wanted. No tacks, no pattern (except for the pillows, which would be pitched anyway), wooden legs, everything I had in mind when I envisioned a perfect fabric-covered sofa. Then I noticed that it was on sale. For about half the price that I would have expected to pay. I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to check into different fabric choices, since while I had toyed with the idea of having a really bold color in the living room and I did really like the particular shade of red, it was a little too much and I decided that it didn’t go with my idea of living room zen (which involves variations of black, muted white, grey and wood tones and perhaps a butler bringing me a spot of tea while classical music plays lightly in the background). I found a salesman and asked what the fabric options were for that particular sofa. He basically gestured at the fabric wall and told me to find something I liked. I dug through a bunch of patterns (florals! Gah!) and then found the same red that was currently on the floor sample, along with the variations of that particular sans pattern fabric. They were all fug, with the exception of the black (which would be too severe for such a large thing in our tiny 50’s-era living room) and the charcoal (a smoky grey). I pulled the charcoal off the hanger and then draped it over the floor sample.

Perfection.

Also, the price was so low that I could buy the chaise as well. I’ve always wanted a chaise. Ever since I was a kid and saw one on The Addam’s Family. Then in junior high I actually saw one in my friend Erika’s house and realized that they weren’t just television props. Yes. And since I’d be losing my corner spot in the L-shaped sectional, it would be my spot for watching movies. Yes. A sofa and a chaise. Lovely.

I told Esteban that I thought I found a sofa and we made plans to check it out, but first I wanted to check out the quirky furniture store down on Broadway. Esteban mentioned that we also hadn’t looked at the stodgy fine furniture place too, so we planned to check them both out before we made any decisions about the cute sofa (and chaise!). We went to the quirky store and while everything was very quirky and very cool, it was almost like it was trying too hard. I remembered the hotel in DC and decided that there was such a thing as funk overboard, so we drove to the stodgy classic furniture place. There, we were smacked in the face with Stuff Country Club Members Would Buy If They Were Trying To Escape The Whole Country Club Image. Lots of French colonial with a country flare, lots of autumn leaf prints and moose tramping across the cushions. We fled before we accidentally got some Republican on us.

Then we went to the cute sofa place. Esteban agreed that the sofa was perfect, but disliked the patterned pillow fabric I had matched to the charcoal fabric. Honestly, I had just picked the least fugly of the accent patterns that the salesman had shown me, but then we learned that we could pick regular sofa fabric for the cushions as well. Ah ha! Well then, that solves it. We ended up with the red pillows, because it did throw a splash of color into the room while still maintaining my living room zen, and besides, if I get sick of them, I can pitch them. Then Esteban said ‘Do you want to get the matching love seat too?’

‘I don’t think it would fit with the sofa and the chaise.’

‘Chaise? We didn’t talk about getting a chaise.’

‘Oh. I want to get the chaise too.’

‘What use is that? It’s pointless. Who sits like that?’

‘I do. That’s how I watch TV now in the corner. I want the chaise. I like the chaise a lot.’

‘I don’t want the chaise,’ Esteban replied. ‘It’s stupid. No chaise.’

I looked at him, thinking of a rebuttal.

‘Fine, get the chaise.’ He shrugged.

Well, that was easy.

So yay, new furniture coming at some point in the nebulous future, and we can get rid of the big giant 80’s sectional we inherited from Ward and June and we will have purchased our very first pieces of real furniture (excluding our mattress and box spring, I guess, which we did actually buy). It’s not like we didn’t want to buy new furniture, it’s just that the stuff we were given secondhand was in decent shape so it didn’t seem that urgent to replace it. And in the interim, there was fugly carpeting to replace and computer stuff to buy. But now, all of this adultness. I hardly recognize us any more. Next thing you know, we’ll be setting up IRAs or, I don’t know, having bunion surgery or something. It’s a brave new world.