Buena Suerte

I was recently visiting Ecuador, and decided one day to go for a giant walk around the city of Quito. It looked like it might rain, but maybe not, so I rolled up my raincoat as tiny as it could get and stuffed it into my fanny pack, which you may recall I single-handedly made cool again back in 2014. And now they're all the rage. But I digress. Stuffing my raincoat in there meant I could no longer fit my wallet, so I grabbed about $160 in cash and my AMEX card and set out. 

I knew that I ought to keep my wits about me while I meandered the city and for the most part I didn't encounter that many people. I found a park and found an adorable group of old men playing giant marbles. I mean there was probably a better name for it but from what I could tell they were throwing giant balls into a circle and trying to knock the other balls out. Suddenly they all left! but they were just walking to the next spot to throw the balls from. It was cute. I wanted to sit next to this guy for a while but I didn't know if the tree would break and that would have made me die of embarrassment so I didn't do it. 

After that I started walking toward the basilica and I felt relieved because 1) I had been there the day before and 2) I was excited to try the best sandwich shop in Quito according to my friend and 2b) I was starving.

I felt something hit the top of my head, kind of like a tickle, and I looked up and saw nothing. A woman behind me said, in broken English, "oh, a bird pooped on you". I was like UGH CRAP, but the woman had some tissues and she was sort of helping me wipe some of it out of my hair. Another older man came up too and offered his tissues. Apparently some of the poop got on my sweater too, which made me sad because it's my cute favorite sweater and it's cream colored and I spent way too much money on it. I was trying to stay positive and so I said in Spanish "well they say it's good luck when a bird poops on you". And the old man laughed. He said "yep! it's good luck!"

Then a kid (who I had seen earlier and who looked very local but was carrying a paper map which I thought was really weird) came up and started helping me too. He explained that the poop was all over the back of my sweater and helped me take it off so he could show it to me. Except I was wearing my fanny pack like Micah taught me to, cross body and on my back - so he had to take my purse off and hand it to me so that he could then help me with the sweater. The purse had poop on it too YUCK and so then the lady started wiping that. 

The kid showed me my sweater and it was COVERED in poop - I had to take a picture because I couldn't believe how ruined my sweater was and although I was so sad I also found it funny and I wanted to get a picture of it. 

They cleaned me up as best as their tiny tissues would allow and then all went their separate ways. It was only then that I had a little cry because I was SO HUNGRY and now I would have to get a cab back to my apartment AND find some laundry soap because there was none AND there was poop on the back of my pants too and I didn't want to get a cab all dirty. So I took my hands and sort of wiped down the back of my pants and when they felt dry I hailed a cab.

Safely in the back of the taxi, I got a text message from AMEX. Did I try to buy $2500 worth of furniture from a store in Ecuador? Uhhhh, no --- and probably somebody had stolen my card number at some point on this trip or whatever...how irritating, so I called AMEX back to tell them I had not. The customer service representative asked me for the code on the back of my card and so I went in my fanny pack to grab that and realized my card was gone. And my cash. 

I figured that stupid kid with the map must have nabbed my card and cash while he was taking my fanny pack off. Oh that made me sad, especially since I now had no way to pay the cab. I was still on the phone with the customer service agent and started crying AGAIN because nobody likes being robbed.

I explained to the cab driver that I would was robbed and would have to go up to my apartment to get my cash card and then hit the ATM in the base of my building. Then I explained the whole story about getting pooped on by a bird and then robbed to the doorman, and to the man in the elevator and oh boy was I laugh-crying the whole time. Then I walked to the store to get laundry soap and got back to my apartment and used dishsoap in the sink to spot clean the sweater. 

As I was examining the pants, and the sweater and finally had some distance and perspective I realized what kind of a pterodactyl must have pooped that amount of poop on me and then disappeared into thin air...because I never actually saw a bird and then googled "bird poop robbery Quito" and this came up.

They got me. Good luck, my ass.

Just One of Many Times I Was Feeling Really Beautiful, BUT...

I've been using a Corporate plane to get up to see my Dad. Not my Corporate plane, mind you, but the Corporate plane of a well-known Minnesota Company that flies it's muckety-mucks from Warroad MN to Minneapolis MN and back on the daily and Lucky Me! They let any-old-Joe ride on this plane for a mere $100 donation to a local Warroad charity. (Bless 'em). My parents live 11 miles from the Warroad International Airport and I live 5 miles from the MSP. Only, these planes fly out of a tiny little airport located between MSP Airport Terminals 1 and 2 (otherwise known as Lindbergh and Hubert Humphrey). This little bitsy in-between airport is called "Signature Flights" and you have to call on a little phone from your car to get into a parking lot which leads to a smallish building but then after the building you can literally walk right onto your tiny little plane. There's no removal of liquids there's no taking off your shoes there's no seeing if there is liquid "medical marijuana" in your purse (even if you are a totally type A good girl who would never use such an  "illicit drug" but only secured it clandestinely from your hairdresser because she seemed like somebody who would know something about such things and also because your mom has cancer and she's dying and you will do anything including committing what you're pretty sure is a felony to ease her pain).

ANYWAY:

It feels so FANCY!

Imagine during the Super Bowl (!) - all those famous people (!) flying to this exact airport (!)- and though I've never seen a famous person there, I'm sure they have been and that makes me feel...really...really...famous myself. 

So, every time I go through there I sort of hold my head higher than I normally would (because normally I'm just a girl, picking a booger with her thumb). One particular time, however, and this time is the subject of this particular story, it was a Monday morning and it was 5:30 and I was the ONLY. PERSON. ON. THE. PLANE. 

FANCY!!!

So - imagine how I felt. Walking in to this exclusive airport - just having gotten off a PRIVATE. PLANE. Just me (!) and the pilots (!) 

And I was wearing my cute jeans and my cute down jacket that's only 18 years old but I bought it in Austria so, you know, it's pretty cute, and my slouchy beanie hat that all the cool girls wear and here I am, and people are LOOKING. 

They are flipping their heads around to see WHO IS THAT GIRL? and I feel so gorgeous and rich! and exclusive!

And then I went into the bathroom (the one with really really thick napkin-y hand towels in a basket). And:

It's no wonder they were staring.

The Unconventional Toilet Strikes Again

A couple of summers ago - I got invited to go on a boat trip with some good pals, their parents and friends - Zach was working in Vermont unfortunately, so I went solo.

It was as epic a day as you can imagine. We zoomed down the St. Croix River, between Minnesota and Wisconsin. The weather was perfect, the conversation dynamic, the drinks were flowing. There were other boats to wave at. I may or may not have mooned them. Anyway, it was SO FUN.

At some point on a boat, as a woman, the question will always be: "where do I pee?" and usually the answer is, "in the River", but I could NOT resist this strange contraption and decided to use it just because I was probably under the influence of alcohol. 

Bathroom?

WHAT?!?

Anyway, I did my thing and it was just as weird and fun as you would think. Then it came time to flush the toilet. 

Even though you can clearly see in these photos that there are instructions on how to do so - I didn't figure that out. At the time. 

I just kept pumping and pumping that pump thing. But nothing happened. 

And so I LIFTED THE LID to investigate, and then found a different lever to pull. Pulled that lever.

Got splashed. In the face. With my own pee. I screamed like I was in the middle of being murdered and the entire boat of people came running to find out what happened. 

"I have my own pee on my face".

And THEN jumped in the River. The end.

You Can't Take Me Anywhere

I've been flying back-and-forth to Warroad MN to visit my parents on the Marvin Windows corporate propeller plane since May. It's fun and I feel fancy every time and I love getting there in an hour and 15 minutes vs driving 6.5 hours.

Last month and for the first time I got to ride their jet. No propellers. Leather buttery seats. Fancy fancy. Oh man it goes fast! The same exact trip takes 45 minutes. But let me tell you the take off is terrifying. I have never felt such speed in my entire life and I have ridden the fastest train on earth (Shanghai Maglev China). Anyway it goes one million miles an hour and you go straight up. STRAIGHT up. Seriously. When we got up to cruising altitude I turned to the woman next to me and asked her "are we in space?". I was seated across from her children (this jet had a four-seat-face-each-other-thing) and they giggled the entire time and that was the only reason I didn't bawl my eyes out from sheer terror.

But that's not the point of my story. The point of my story is that when I first got in the jet I noticed that same woman in the very very back of the plane with one of her kids. She looked like she was confused and didn't know if she wanted to sit way back there with him and I am nosey and so I already knew from eavesdropping that she was traveling with her husband, two little boys and giant pregnant belly (which was filled with twins as I was to find out later). So I stuck my nose in even further and offered to take the way back so she could sit in the four seat thing with her whole family. I smugly went to take my hero's position all the way in the back. (Seat change explained below). I am SUCH a good person. Ask anyone. I couldn't find the seat belt though? I searched and searched.

Then a man came and sat right across from me and we were sitting so close to each other that our knees were intertwined. Face-to-face. I was like, "oh man I hope I like this guy because this is AWK.WARD." He had a book which was a good sign just in case. But his seat for sure had a seat belt. I stood to look better for my seat belt, which meant he had to stand too to let me look and turn around and stuff. Finally it dawned on me that the seat was probably flipped down and I needed to flip it up to find the seat belt.

NOPE. TOILET.

se kak in her han

This is how to say "She pooped in her hand" in Afrikaans. In Espanol: "se kaka in su mano". Swedish: "Huite hannen". I used to collect how many languages I could say that in. I was up to five at one point.

My most embarrassing story: Or, one of them. (I have learned to tell my own embarrassing stories, otherwise Kasey will tell them and not put the proper spin on it. As we know, she "likes to expose.") Anyway, one day, after getting home after having run a half marathon (brag), I took my shower and decided to air out and not get dressed immediately. So sue me. I wanted to check my online class or something and so I got in front of the computer. Now, and this is very important: I do not sit on chairs whilst naked. Especially on a fabric office chair EWWWWW. (FYI)

I was sitting on my foot.

Anyway again, I felt somebody knocking at my back door if you know what I mean and realized kind of urgently that I had to go number two. But, I knew that my computer takes a while to perform certain functions. And so, I decided to wait for the urgency to pass (like it allllllways does) and just click a few more times before running down to the bathroom. And then it hit me even more urgently. I had to go. Like right now. I started running. If you've been to my old house on Lake Nokomis, you know how long a distance it was for me to get from my room to the bathroom. It's like a mile. And --  so I ran and ran and ran and ran and squinched the entire way. I almost made it too, to the foot of the stairs. And then. All I could do was hold out my hand.

I mean I was trying to win and everything - who has time to "wait for the toilet"?
Getty images

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

Occasionally, at my fancy lady business job, I am asked to speak to prospective recruits to convince them that our Company is the best, and the way we do things is the best, and they should really, really come and work here!

 

A few months ago, I had an appointment with one such man, and might I add he was very sharply dressed and even maybe a little bit on the handsome side. Of course I was embarrassed of my outfit, but that's not the point of my story. The point of my story is that during the appointment, he and I sat across from one another, with no desk in between us and we chatted and chatted and I crossed and uncrossed my legs eight hundred times and this went on for about 30 minutes. And then he left, and I considered the meeting a success.

 

Later, and I don't remember why (I probably dropped an M&M) I saw/felt in my crotchal area and was horrified to discover a two-inch GIANT hole at my upper upper thigh.

 

 

(*&*&^$&^%$&^%$(&^%^)(&)(*&

 

 

 

 

 

Later still, I was running late for softball, and so I quick quick quick changed from the above outfit into my softball outfit really fast, and that included an underwear change. I threw the above outfit plus underwear into my gym bag which is just an old tote bag and RAN into my boss' office for a quick commiseration about the hole in the crotch story and then off to softball.

 

While I was in there, the cleaning gal for our office approached me with her gloved hand outstretched. "I think these are yours", she said and instinctively I put out my hand, into which she dropped my DIRTY UNDERWEAR which must have fallen out of the tote in my haste. In the middle of the office hallway.

 

**What a nice human. I was glad for two things: 1) she was a woman and 2) she had gloves on.

 

And then at softball later my windshield got smashed by a softball. The End.

Everybody REEL In

My mom has an old family fishing story starring my Auntie Cheryl.

My mom and Cheryl have five brothers and so anytime they went fishing with their dad there were boys around. And Grandpa Dick is a boy too. So one time Cheryl had to go pee and she refused to use the bucket to pee in and made her dad take her to shore.

"Everybody REEL IN, CHERYL has to go to the BATHROOM!!"

And that's our family quote for anytime you inconvenience others for your convenience.

But that's not the point of my story. 

The point of my story is that I went fishing with my dad and two of his friends the other night and I should have peed before we left the dock because I already had to go. But I didn't. So I suffered and fished for like three hours. Finally I realized I was going to have to pee in the boat and ask three men not to look.

But! We were in my dad's friend's boat! And I didn't even see it but there was a cabin under the deck! With a door that shuts! He let me go in there and pee into his little blue plastic fish rinsing bucket!

And you know how when you have to pee really really bad and so you pee for like 67 seconds and that 67 seconds feels like an eternity? It was one of those. I thought I was going to overflow the bucket - seriously. 

But I didn't. And then I took the walk of shame out of the cabin with my bucket of pee and very carefully and quickly dumped it over the edge and rinsed rinsed rinsed it a million times. I threw the bucket on the floor and resumed fishing.

...and nobody had to reel in.

But I had this to taunt me the rest of the night. The beating of the tell tale pee bucket.

It's lake water!!!! I swear!!!!

Who Wears the Pants?

This is embarrassing for me to admit, but I tried on Zach's pants and they fit me. In fact they were kind of tight:

Worse, he fits in mine too and they look better on him: 

The Half Moon Treatment

Zach and I just got back from Oahu. While there, we walked about a mile to get from our hotel to our favorite beach spot. The quickest way was to walk along the beach but at some points the water line was right up against a hotel and so part of the way we had to walk along a pretty narrow sidewalk (pictured here). 

We walked with tubes and so it was a little awkward to traverse, and in some places it jams up with people cuz a giant turtle appears in the water below - anyway it's mostly single file. One day I was ahead of Zach in the single file walking, and we are in love, so I lowered my pants enough to give him the half moon treatment. 

When I turned around to laugh about it with him, he wasn't there. He's so sweet he let a tiny little demure Japanese woman and her husband pass him.

The Worst Kind of Turd is an Honest One, Volume: Step Mom

One of the first bike rides we went on as a step-family happened to be a 68-mile round trip from our house to Wisconsin and back. Which of course took hours. And made for a nice opportunity for conversation. 

The 14-year-old and I were riding side-by-side at one point, and he said to me: "Out of all the girls in my life I've ever met you're the only one who doesn't complain about her weight."

<Insert AWWWWWWWWWWWW here>

My heart got so warm. My head got so big it almost exploded. Every feminist bone in my body shone brightly --- finally! Somebody noticed and appreciated my "realness". I thanked him for noticing and responded by saying that it's important to be healthy and riding bikes is one way that I try to stay healthy, and blah blah blah....but then my mind retraced his comment..."complain about her weight" 

I asked, "wait. are you saying that it's surprising because I'm also like the one girl in your life who's not skinny?"

"Well. Yah," he said, "you're actually kind of fat."

Gonna be a long ride.

Squinch

I normally go to my Pilates class after work but today I wasn’t able to --- and so I hit the noon class. I was ten minutes late, of course (as I am ten minutes late for literally everything else in my life). I ran into the class, jumped on my machine and tried not to interrupt much.

The first move is called Beach Ball Twist. This is where you are on your knees, straight back, and take the handle of the Fit Former in front of you with “I Dream of Genie” arms and you twist at the waist. From 10:00 to 2:00, back and forth. It works best if you squinch your butt cheeks as hard as you can. So they say. So I squinched. And squinched. And twisted and turned from 2:00 to 10:00 to 2:00 and back.

The next move is Shot Put. This is where you take the same handle in your right hand and make an “L” – or half a football goal post. Then you TWIST and squinch your butt some more and then give yourself a “High 5” in the mirror. As I returned back to the half football goal post “L”  I happened to look over my shoulder at the person behind me.

Male Co-Worker.

Does Anybody Want to Explain This to Me?

 

Seriously, how does a person pee on the FRONT of their shoe? In the work bathroom?

 



 

Chewing Gum

The resort where we stayed in Cancun had a fancy Italian restaurant where we ate most nights. After a long day of reading books and doing nothing on the beach, we'd all head up to our rooms, shower and meet back downstairs for a delicious meal and drinks. There were eleven of us, and so we had to be split up at two tables.

We wore our best dresses and drank wine and were very, very fancy.

Look how fancy!

After dinner the first night, I stood up to go and chat with the other table. We discussed what they ate and how good it was. An older man who worked at the restaurant came up to me and grabbed my arm and dragged me back to the table where I was sitting, to the spot where I was eating. He seemed very agitated when he said to me, "PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR GUM UNDER THE TABLE CLOTH." 

The staff were changing out the linens and sure enough, at my spot, under the table cloth was a piece of gum.

YOU GUYS. It was NOT MINE.

We were eating fancy! I would never put my gum under the tablecloth! It was seriously way up underneath, so whoever did it had to pull up three yards of fabric and shove it up under there, on the pad underneath. 

I said, "Sir, that's not mine."

He poked it and said, "FRESH."

I poked it. 

It was fresh. 

But you guys!!! It was NOT. MINE. I repeated myself. "Sir, I am telling you that gum is NOT MINE."

He was so disgusted with me and so finally I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away.

Does this look like somebody who just shoved GUM under her fancy tablecloth?

The story doesn't end here, unfortunately.

The next night, I was nervous to go back there, but I decided to get over myself and just do it. I sat down and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the man. Out of the corner of my other eye, I noticed one of my friends putting her gum on a little plate next to her dinner plate. I didn't have any time to warn her.

Here comes the waiter (not the same man, but he came straight from talking to the man). He handed her a paper napkin and said, "please put your gum in this paper napkin. And anyone else at this table *here he looked STRAIGHT AT ME* needs to put their gum in a paper napkin right now."

ENOUGH!

I threw my cloth napkin down on the table and half stood up to say to that poor innocent waiter, "OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! I DID NOT PUT MY GUM IN THE TABLECLOTH! YOU TELL THAT MAN I DIDN'T DO IT! AND WILL YOU PLEASE ALSO TELL HIM I AM 37 YEARS OLD!!!!!"

He looked really hurt and said, "yes, I will tell him". 

And then he came back later to take our order and I said, "I'll have the seared tuna. With extra gum."

And then the poor innocent waiter said, "please. I am on your side."

And then I really felt bad. 

But for Pete's sake, can you imagine being accused of a heinous crime? Twice? When you were 100% innocent of it? Now I know how Cameron Todd Willingham felt.

Baffoon Bombs it on the Beach

In Cancun the water is pretty choppy and so in the swimming areas they have these great big giantic ropes so that if you start to get tired, or are swept out to sea you can grab onto one rather than trying to swim back to shore which won't work anyway and will probably kill you.

Anyway, one day I went for a run and happened upon a wedding just near a couple of the ropes. 

I jumped over the first one, turned toward the camera and threw my arms in the air in an attempt to photo-bomb a shot of the bride and groom.

Success! 

Hilarious!

BAM! 

...I forgot about the second rope and it got me right in the knees and I face planted in the sand. Hard.

That's whatcha get.

Great Mexican Road Trip

Well...not really. But I've never been to Belize. And so when all my friends went home yesterday from Cancun I rented a car and started driving. Belize is about five hours away and along the way I stopped and visited the ruins at Tulum and Coba. 

When I left the car rental shop, I rolled down the windows (manually, of course) to let the wind blow through my hair. The freedom! A single American blonde woman traveler just rented a car to drive around in it! Look everybody! Look at me!! 

Immediately on the right hand side of the road was a taco stand and I was starving. So I pulled over into a parking lot. This kind of stuff is fun for me because:

1) I love food

2) It forces me to speak in Spanish

3) It's a mini spontaneous and very safe adventure

4) I love food

So I ordered up two tacos and they fried them right there in front of me. I loaded up on the pico de gallo. "muy picante?" I asked, "medio" they said and then I asked "por Mexicanos...or por Noruegas?"and they laughed! They laughed at my joke! Everybody! Look at me!!

I paid them $1.75 and then stood there and ate the tacos with my new side-of-the-road-taco-stand friends like a real local person. 

I thanked them and went to get in my manual stick shift Mexican rental car.

Which I realized had one of those funny reverse situations.

You know, where you can't really just put the car in reverse? You have to perform a pushing motion on the stick and then move it. But that didn't work. I tried for several minutes, while all of my new side-of-the-road-taco-stand friends watched in confusion. ...But wasn't she a single American blonde woman traveler? Shouldn't she be able to put a car in reverse?

---

I rolled down my window again (manually, of course) and yelled: "POR FAVOR! AYUDAME!!" and one of my side-of-the-road-taco-stand friends came running over, reached across my dumbfounded face and pulled up on this silly lever and slipped 'er into reverse.

And then I drove away, the wind in my hair once again.

The Mexican Chevy Aveo: Man's most complicated car

Sarah and Lydia

In Seychelles, I met up with my old friend Sarah. She lived with me way back in like aught six or seven for just a couple of months, and then headed off for an incredible adventurous life in which she lives in Dubai and works as cabin crew for Emirates and wakes up in a different country every couple of days.

 

Seriously jealous of her life and I might be tempted to join her, but Emirates has an AGE LIMIT and I exceed it. By quite a margin. Frowny Face.

 

Anyway, Sarah and I have been talking about meeting up for years but it just now worked out when I invited myself on her weekend getaway to the Seychelles. She and her friend Lydia from Dubai hopped an Emirates flight and arrived on my third day. Together we boarded a ferry and headed off for La Digue island, home to the most amazing rock formations.

 

 

 

 

 

That's Lydia on the left and Sarah in the middle.

 

Lydia and Sarah are tanned, gorgeous and fun. They've been bronzing their skin on their rooftop pools in Dubai while I've been bundling up against zero degree weather back in Minnesota. And so I was a real stick-in-the-mud, I tell ya, with my sunblock and hats and umbrellas and long-sleeved shirts and "not going snorkeling" (remember my gigantic sunburn from snorkeling in the Maldives?) but we had fun anyways:

 

 

 

 

More like Slow-Zam-Bique

We'll, I'm in Africa.

All summer I've been semi-thinking-about going to Medellin, Colombia (at the low low price of only $396 for a roundtrip ticket!), but then my mom got breast cancer and I couldn't quite commit until I was for sure on the date of her surgery. With that squared away I went online, but as most of my goings-onlines go, I hit Facebook first. There I read that my old fun roommate Sarah (who is now a flight attendant for Emirates and flies all over the world all the time) would be in the Seychelles for the same dates as my loose-plan and so naturally I totally changed course and invited myself along on her trip.

It was a complicated ticket, with several stops and layovers and connections and somewhere at the end of it all I will have taken off and landed 24 times. Anyway, after an hour on the phone with cheapoair.com and paying about 7 times more than the Medellin ticket, I had a nice little trip with a departure date only three weeks away:

• Minneapolis to Seychelles via London and Dubai where I will meet up with Sarah and her friend Lydia for 4 days
  
• Seychelles to Mozambique via Nairobi
  
• Mozambique to Cape Town via Johannesburg where I will meet up with my buddy Beata for 6 days
  
• Cape Town to Minneapolis via Amsterdam
  

Easy!

Except I forgot I better look up Visa requirements for all of these places to make sure I could get them all on arrival. Nope. Mozambique requires in-person application or Fed-Ex delivery to their Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles embassy locations. 10- business day turn time. No rushes. No paying for a rush. Don't ask for a rush. Don't call and ask about Visas until it's between the hours of 3 and 5pm, EST. I decided to ignore that and call them. "Call back at 3", they said. I called back at 3. "Can I pay for a rush?" I asked. "No", they said.

WELL. I had fifteen business days between the day I purchased my ticket and my departure date with two of those days taken up in transit. Also the Embassy is closed on Fridays. Easy!

I sent my passport and all the required info (flight itinerary, two 2x2 photos, hotel reservation - which I didn't have but fast-tracked) on Monday November 3rd and thus began a daily phone call to the Mozambique embassy to speak with one of two ladies who I renamed the Mozam-you-know-whats because they never told me anything but "call back at 3" or "call back tomorrow" no matter how much I explained my situation and no matter how sweet I tried to be. The first time I called it was because I accidentally threw away the Fedex tracking number (idiot) and simply wanted to verify that they received my application. "If you sent it we received it," they said and then hung up the phone.

Once I hit 11 business days I started to be a little more assertive. That day my mom was having her lumpectomy and from the waiting room I called and said "ok now we need to get serious, because I am flying out on Friday and I really need my passport back, even if you can't give me a Mozambique visa." "Spell your name," they said, and I did. "What's your phone number?" they asked and I gave it to them. "We will call you back before end of business today." And of course they didn't. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday I called from my desk at work and when she asked me to spell my name, I said, "we already did all of this yesterday! I'm not hanging up to wait for you to call me back because you're not going to call me back." "You and I have never spoken," she said. "If we had spoken your passport would already be on its way to you. Call back tomorrow at 10:30, here is my extension." she said. I freaked out. "I can't call you back tomorrow because you need to put my passport in the Fedex TODAY. Do you get it? I'm flying out Friday. I need my passport on Thursday." And that's when she told me the man who does them had gone home for the day and his office was locked and that's when I started crying. Like a little child. With my whole office listening. "Do you know there are snowstorms interrupting flights on the east coast right now?!?!??? I have no room for any Fedex error if you send it tomorrow." I started hyperventilating to her on the phone. Finally the Mozam-you-know-what softened and said, "ma'am I swear to God I will put your passport in the Fedex tomorrow. You will have it on Friday."

All day Thursday I refreshed and refreshed the tracking screen on my package. Nothing. The nice lady (I no longer thought of her in that other way) called me at 9am to tell me my Visa was processed and that I could have Fedex come and pick it up. I called them. They charged me $4 extra and promised it would be picked up at 12:38 EST. That came and went. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

You can bet I didn't get any work done on Thursday, refreshing my tracking page one million times. I called the nice lady again. "Have they picked it up?" "No," she said "but don't worry! Our regular Fedex pick up is at 4pm, I will give it to him." (Remind me to call Fedex to get my FOUR DOLLARS BACK.)

It was hard trying not to worry, but true to her word at 3:53 my package was scanned and in transit and escaped the snowstorm and was delivered to my office on Friday morning at 9:45am. And then I got on the plane and flew away.

 

The End.

 

 

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Vol. 10

I am sure that all twelve of you will be happy to know that I haven't quite finished the story of my appendectomy in June. 

I had my surgery about noon on a Friday and was released that Sunday. Beata drove me home, stocked my kitchen with a weeks' worth of soups and easily digestible foods (I think I've already explained how I have the best friends ever) and I got about the business of healing up. The hospital gave me 30 Percoset pills with instructions to take two every four hours. Now if you've ever met a Hexum, you'll know that in addition to never going to the doctor, we also aren't very good at taking any sort of medications. My mom had the same bottle of Aspirin in the cupboard for my entire childhood and it's still there today. You don't want to run out because somebody selfishly used them! You save those for emergencies only. What if somebody really needs one someday? This is why I initially refused the morphine they offered me when we rocked up to the Urgent Care in Moston, Wisconsin. I figured they should save that stuff for somebody in worse shape.

So tough, and so afraid of running out, in the days after my release from the hospital I was only taking about one Percoset every six hours. If taken as directed they would only last three days for crying out loud! I had to make them last!

Anyway, Wednesday night, I woke up and couldn't breathe because of the pain in my abdomen when I expanded my lungs. I sat up in bed and breathed shallow, short breaths and tried to relax. But I couldn't relax because I was panicking about not being able to breathe. I took a Percoset. About 45 minutes of sitting up in bed, taking eight hundred million short quick shallow breaths, the pain subsided and I fell asleep. But I slept until 9 and so that was WAY too long to go without a pain pill. The following morning I was in so much pain even my toughness didn't get me through it. I called my sister Kasey crying and she told me she was coming to take me to Urgent Care. I was in no mood to go and sit in an Urgent Care, but Kasey convinced me that's what they were for. I thought maybe if I went they would give me more Percoset. How can they cut out your guts and then expect you to go home with only 30 pills??? I don't GET IT!!

The internet the nearby clinic was open at noon. After we got there the woman told me they actually didn't open until 5pm. The Urgent Care part was only evening hours. I asked if any of the Doctors had appointments available in the clinic. No, but I could drive up to Como, they open at one o'clock. We decided to get lunch and then go to Como. After a series of incredible mishaps, we didn't get lunch and started running out of time. I wanted to get to Como at 12:30 to be first in line (the lady recommended we do that). 

So we did.

And then my hair got stuck to the wall.

And then we waited after they took my blood for hours and hours for the results, which were normal of course, and basically the only result of the whole visit to Urgent Care was that the Doctor yelled at me for not taking my medication AS DIRECTED. I told him I didn't want to run out! He said, take it as directed and you won't need anymore after you run out. He told me to set an alarm for every four hours even when I slept, and wake up and take a pill. He said, if I wanted, I could buy a bottle of Tylenol and take one Percoset with one Tylenol. This would double the pain medication without doubling the narcotic which is what was making me feel so loopy. 

He also started looking through my records and saw that I had been prescribed Atavan. He goes, "it says here you have a fear of the unknown?" I go, "well, I guess we all do? But actually I got the prescription in 2009 because I was about to travel the world and I'm terrified of take-offs and landings on a plane. Maybe can you put fear of flying?" "Oh OK I'll update that" he said. And then he saw that I had been prescribed some medicine for the herpes on my nose. He said he was going to change that too because he didn't like how it said 'on the nose' and I didn't say this, but I kind of like how it said that because then it could set me apart from the other people who get herpes in other places. What I did say was, "Hey can you give me some more of that, I feel a little one coming on right now". And he said "Sure".

...on THE NOSE, people. THE NOSE

 

He sent that prescription to the Pharmacy at the clinic and after five hours, and a very crabby me because I accomplished NOTHING in this visit except to get this stupid herpes-nose pill which doesn't really work anyway, oh and learn that my white blood cell count was normal, so nothing weird was going on internally, oh and also he told me to take my Percoset more often and he gave me the tip about taking one with a Tylenol (which I liked because as a former poor kid I like to make things last by adding another thing to that thing. It's why I put rice in my chili and saltines in my mac & cheese).

We went to the Pharmacy at the clinic but they told me that the prescription was sent to the Walgreen's by my house. I was so crabby by this point, but I didn't want the whole freaking day to be a waste and I did need to get some Tylenol so I made Kasey drive me to the Walgreen's by my house. 

Kasey sat in the car while I went to the Pharmacy and asked for my prescription. After standing in line at the Pharmacy behind everyone and their crazy brother, here's a reenactment of my turn with the Pharmacist:

This guy had no idea about my appendectomy or my Percoset. All he knew was that I needed my Acyclovir. For my unspecified Herpes.

Hypocrite

I don't have a microwave in my apartment.

1. There is no room for a microwave. My refrigerator is in the hallway for Gosh Sakes.
2. I don't want to spend the money on a microwave. I want to spend my money on plane tickets and bold-colored-printed-pants.
3. I am better than everyone and I wouldn't dream of unhealthily microwaving my food.
4. I like re-heating stuff up in a saucepan. It makes me feel like a pioneer woman taking care of my 5 kids over a campfire next to the wagon wheel.

However, almost every single day at work, I eat one of these:

Image stolen from http://www.missbargainhuntress.com

"Ready in 5 minutes"


Some day I'll tell you all about how I don't have a TV.

The Ring

It's that time of year again, you know where I get really in to my Fitness in some last ditch effort to look good in a swimming suit because it's too late in the season to even be wearing one. 

So I joined a Pilates studio near to my work and I've been going pretty religiously (as is my custom when jumping on bandwagons) and then at some point (as is my custom when jumping on bandwagons) I'll just quit and spend three months laying in bed watching and rewatching My So-Called Life and Keeping up Appearances.

Anyway, the point of this story is that on Thursdays I take a class called Barre which employs the ballet barre and also straps hung from the ceiling that can be used for all sorts of horrible strengthening exercises. Here's a couple pics of what it looks like:

Stolen from wellandgoodnyc.com

Stolen from fitnessnycblog.com

During the above exercise where you have to grip the handles of the straps, one of my rings was digging into my hand. Not wanting to disturb the class by walking over to my water bottle to put it down, I took it off and sort of lightly tossed it. It rolled across the room and stopped about three feet from where I intended and I made a note to grab it later. There were only six of us in class and we were all facing each other and so I assumed that everybody saw it and understood. 

After class, I could sort of hear some people talking about something (the music is SO LOUD it's really hard to hear anything) and here's what they were saying

"Well it was so big I just couldn't imagine who it belonged to."

"I saw it rolling by earlier too...so gigantic!"

"I walked past it...not sure if it's some man's?"

"But there's no man in here..."

And then I walked into this conversation totally late and totally ignorant going, "has anybody seen my ring?"

And then it was handed to me by a woman who said, "what FINGER do you wear that on?"