29 May 2011

Lyrical Wisdom

"I figured it out!" The shout traveled the breadth of my home and shook its very foundation.

My daughter, who was in my office trying to solve Sudoku puzzles with breakfast cereal as markers (to add an extra challenge, I ate all the green clovers while she wasn't looking), came out sounding excited. "What?!?"

"Well, 'hokey' means 'fake' or 'fraudulent'..."

"Okay."

"And 'pokey' is slang for 'prison' or 'jail cell'..."

"I don't like where this is head..."

"So you can stick your right foot in. And put your right foot out. Any time you want, because the cell doors don't really lock."

"There's something wrong with..."

"You put your right foot in, and you shake it all about. It's a hokey pokey, so you can turn yourself about and walk right out of there."

"Ashley..."

"But... That's what it's all about!"

I might not have gotten through to her this time, but at least that song is now stuck in her head. I think of it as "hands-on parenting".

28 May 2011

Vampires!

So, I have this scar.

It seems that after three years of doctors telling me that my pain, nausea and bleeding out both ends was all in my head, I found a doctor who was able to explain that the reason that my navel had become an outy is that I have a hernia. He referred me to a surgeon who was able to repair the hernia will little pain and discomfort.

For him. Little pain and discomfort for him. It hurt me like very little else ever has. But that's to be expected.

Anyway, the hernia, after three years, reached from below my abdomen proper to my sternum. I had thirty-five staples.

Thirty five staples! How hard-core am I?

Anyway, ignoring the interesting stories about the day of the surgery, or getting lost at The Women's Hospital, or why I think that staples in human skin were actually meant as a joke but someone got carried away... The result is that I have a huge scar.

I'm not one of those women who can wear a bikini. In fact, the last time I laid out on the beach, some people from Greenpeace tried to help me back into the water. So I don't mind the scar, really. No one is likely to see it, unless I want to show them, and I'm not the type to go around with her belly exposed.

Or am I?

I was thinking... if I can just lose a little weight... say, 150 pounds or so... then I can start wearing skimpy clothes. I was thinking... and that's where the fun started.

I told my daughter... "I can wear something that bares my midriff, like Whistler's daughter, Whistler, in Blade III."

She responded with, "But your old."

"No, listen... I can dress just like she did. And when people ask about my scar..."

"OLD!!!"

"... I can say that I got the scar fighting vampires."

"But you're o... wait, what?"

"Vampires. I got the scar from vampires."

"No, you didn't."

"They won't know that."

"But I do."

"Are you going to tell them?"

"Wha.... No!"

"Then they won't know."

"But... there's no such thing as vampires."

"Ah ha! See... the scar. That's my proof."

"But..."

"If I got the scar fighting vampires, then that's proof that vampires are real. That's how they'll know that I got the scar fighting vampires."

"But... No! You didn't!"

"Uh huh. See the scar?"

As my stepfather used to say (when I was paying my own way through college), you buy them books, send them to school... and they eat the covers off of the books.

She's a work in progress.

Update:

It occurs to me that when I was traveling in Asia and I was unemployed, instead of filling out the "Employment" section of the customs forms with "Photographer", I should have put "Vampire Hunter". And I probably would have gotten away with it, too.