More Ghostly Annoyances

The wife and I have become enamoured of a new TV show on Netflix. It's scary without a lot of jump scares and occasionally funny as hell. It's called "Paranormal", which really cuts to the chase. Our protagonist is Mr. Refaat, a quiet, somewhat mousy college professor who's a scientist and a very by the book guy about reality and life. The thing is, he's A. being haunted by a demon, and B. has become the reluctant go-to guy for paranormal disturbances in his suburban Cairo (Egypt) neighborhood. If that's not complicated enough, he's also C. deeply in love, though not with the woman he's about to marry. It's in Arabic with subtitles and in case you did not know this, Muslims are just as superstitious about otherworldly beings as Christians are. Maybe more so. They did, for example, bring us the djinn, among other things. 

So in my last blog post, I talked about ghosts, and that I don't see them, or maybe I do see them and I just don't pay enough f_____ attention to know that I'm seeing them. I talked about this with a friend and she pointed out that I've been hanging with a gang of Buddhists since 2006 and meditating quite a lot, and that she thought I could probably use that focus to notice when stuff like that happens. And I thought, wow, applying a religious principle to real life. How novel.

Aside: I hung around with a bunch of Lutherans in San Diego for about 10 years. Tricky, since I didn't believe in God for most of that time, but I grew up in the Lutheran Church and these guys really walked the walk. (First Lutheran Church of San Diego, https://www.firstlutheransd.org/, and if you stop by, tell them I said hi.) Fed meals to the homeless in violation of local laws, set up a free medical clinic, had a lawyer who came in pro bono once a week to help people apply for Social Security or veterans' benefits (I helped), stuff like that. Oh, and they had this church over here, too, and if you came by on a Sunday you could hear some good music and maybe learn something. If more Christians were like that, then those other Christians would be too ashamed to rant about being demonized for being Christian and maybe realize we demonize them because they are assholes.

But yeah, seriously, apply meditation principles to paying attention to small things (since most ghost encounters are quite brief, a second or two, a single sound, etc., and if you're not paying attention, you will miss it). I have that whole ADHD thing about not being able to focus and also being able to hyperfocus, which makes no sense and drives other people crazy but makes Perfect Sense To Me. So I can do that. Just, you know, not all the time and often not when I want to.

Anyway, this brings us to the Office Ghost.

I dunno if the Office Ghost is a common phenomenon, but I've been told by more than one person that our office, at least, has a ghost. People talk of seeing a big shadow going down the hall by itself, and one lady told me about a human-shaped blob of light that came out of somebody's office and went into the copy room, then disappeared. Since I have never seen one, despite being many haunted places, I just figured I was never going to see it anyway and so it did not matter if our office had a ghost or not. At least until yesterday.

(Foreshadowing. Your sign of quality blog posts.)

So I have a small office that's across from a vacant office, and the office to the right is also vacant. The room to the left is the server room, and people rarely go in there, so it's pretty quiet in my neck of the woods. I face the back wall so I can't generally see people coming (except with my little rear view mirror), but I can hear them about halfway down the hall, and I've gotten pretty good at knowing who matches what stride cadence and breath sounds. In particular there's one lawyer named Tom who has a very distinct sound. He often comes up the hall to talk to his paralegal, whose office is a little farther on.

Yesterday I heard him coming and was glad, because I had to ask him something. As he got about even with my office I said, "Hey, Tom, come here a sec." I waited for him to stop and stick his head in my door and say, "What's up, Trouble?" like he usually does. Only he didn't. Which was odd. I looked at my little rear view mirror and I thought I saw him, so I turned around. And, uh, he was not there.

I got up and looked out into the hallway. No Tom. No anybody, for that matter. Now I'm thinking maybe he just didn't hear me and went on by, so I went back to my desk and waited for him to go back the other way. After about ten minutes I thought maybe I just missed him. So I got up and went down to his office and--he was not there. Furthermore, it didn't look like he'd been there all day. His light was off and none of his stuff was there.

Very puzzled, I went back to my office. I had only been back there a minute or two when the phone rang. It was Tom! "Hey, where are you?" "I'm in Colorado. Why?" Uh, that kind of threw me. "Oh, I thought I heard you go by." "No, I just landed in Colorado. I was in Nevada yesterday." And by the end of the conversation I figured out that he hadn't been in the office since Friday and there was no way he could have walked past my office.

And while I was pondering the weirdness of that, I realized that about a week previously, I was at a restaurant getting take-out. The order wasn't ready so I was sitting down, and somebody suddenly whispered "Hey!" in my ear. I was sitting next to a wall, so it's not like that was really possible. And besides hearing "Hey!", I felt the breath against my ear. I turned and looked, but of course there was no one in, uh, the wall. And I mostly forgot about this because they called my order and I got up to get it.

So, maybe I don't see ghosts. But, maybe I've been hearing them all along and I just didn't realize it. I still don't have a logical explanation for what walked past my office yesterday. My wife thought maybe Tom fell asleep on the plane and accidentally astrally projected himself back to the office because he needed to talk to me. Which I guess is possible. But, uh, it's also possible that whatever is haunting our office can impersonate living people.

And I'll be sleeping with the lights on tonight. Cheers!

Ghostly Annoyances

So I am a big fan of ghost shows. Not horror movies (though I like supernatural horror movies too) but fact-based shows like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Nation. And Paranormal Caught on Camera, though in that instance mostly so I can yell "It's a bug!" or "It's a drone!" at the screen. And I may have mentioned on this site before that ghosts don't seem to like me. I've been in plenty of haunted places and never seen or felt a darn thing. Which is frustrating but also kind of a relief.

For the record, tho, it's not a question of whether I "believe" in ghosts. I have no reason to doubt people who see ghosts, though, because I've met some pretty together people who have very interesting ghost stories, and I don't think they're all lying. Some even have impressive video footage to back it up. What I've come to believe about this is, not all of us can do everything. Some people can run a 4 minute mile. Some can solve impressive algebra equations. Some can, I dunno, swim ridiculous distances while fat. Some people can see ghosts or maybe even talk to them. I just can't, is all.

I feel much the same way about God. I say I don't believe in God, which is basically true, but kind of simplistic. It's more like, some people can talk to God, but if God exists, and I highly doubt that, he doesn't know that I exist. We can't talk to each other. Hell, I can't even tune into the right radio station. Still, when something happens, like when I was stuck in the hospital and our cat Grayson got out, I ask the Threads community (@J3ninDallas) or friends or whomever to intercede with whatever divine beings they can talk to and ask if they can help. Because it can't hurt, right? (Grayson was back inside in a couple of hours, thanks in no small part to our friend Kellum. Thanks, Kellum!)

Last week I saw a documentary called "74 minutes." Check it out if you can find it. It's about a ghost hunter, Chad Calek, who went through something like 30 years of footage from ghost hunting and edited out everything that had a potential explanation. What was left was 74 minutes' worth of all the stuff he had no way to explain. The footage is interesting and, yeah, scary. But the best part at the end was when Calek went into What I Have Learned. He said he'd figured out, first of all, that he thinks what he documented is future science. We don't know what's going on vis a vis ghosts, yet, but we will in the future. Second thing, he doesn't think there's any way to "prove" ghosts exist or not. Science will not investigate paranormal stuff, because "proving" it absolutely would not leave any room for faith, and as human beings, we need room for faith.

But thirdly, and most interesting, Calek said that whether or not you see ghosts seems to be largely a matter of what you believe. If you don't think ghosts exist, you're not likely to ever see one. As an example, he had some footage of a friend of his, Ryan Buell, confronting a "demonic entity" with the Prayer of St. Michael. It was filmed though a heat-seeking camera and as Ryan got to the climax of the prayer that banned demons from the world, darned if the heat signature on the camera didn't go way, way up. Then faded out. Calek commented that if he had been there and reciting the Prayer of St. Michael, he doesn't think anything would have happened because he is not Catholic and the prayer does not have any special meaning for him.

So maybe I never see ghosts because I don't expect to? I guess that is one possibility. The other one, which I don't like as much, is that I don't see ghosts because I'm not f_____ paying attention. It does seem like a lot of this stuff is corner of your eye or brief glimpse types of things. Given my remarkably scattered brain, I bet I could walk all the way through the Conjuring House, pass like five or six demonic entities shaking angry fists at me, and the whole time be saying to myself, "I know I left my cell phone here somewhere."

Anyway, back in the land of the living: I am a fan of the advice columns. All of them. Dear Abby, Carolyn Hax, Asking Eric, Ask Amy (gone but not forgotten), etc. I'm not sure why. My suspicion is that I like knowing what other people think about, what worries them, and stuff like that. My darker suspicion is that the advice columns make me feel NORMAL. That I read them and say to myself, "Hey, I'm a mess, but I'm not as much of a mess as THAT guy."

Friday at noon most weeks is Carolyn Hax's live chat. This is a bonus column because a whole bunch of people send in (relatively) short questions and she answers them in brief. It's like getting three or four extra columns. I greatly look forward to it and I hate it when she takes a holiday. (Yes, I know, we all need holidays.)

This week, there was a live chat, and what a live chat it was. The first letter was from a lady who was mad because her husband didn't want to travel with her to see her family members. She thought he should just suck it up and come with because it was Important To Her. Next there was a letter from a lady who had a friend with a chronic illness who had to cancel at the last minute a lot because, well, she had a chronic illness, and her friend was getting cranky and resentful. Then we had a letter from a guy who frequently got invited to barbecues that started at 6pm. No problem there, but apparently the host didn't serve the food until about 10. He wanted the host to start serving the food earlier.

There were a couple of other interesting letters, but there seemed to be a theme. The theme was, "I want another person to do something that they're not going to do, how do I make them do it?" And while I can think of other ways to pound your head against the wall, I can't imagine that there are too many others that are this bad for you and at the same time, bad for all of your fellow passengers.

I hate to tell you guys this, but the one and only person you have any control over whatsoever is you. Not your parents, not your spouse, not your minor children (yes, you can pick them up until they're about three or so, but after that, lots of luck). More importantly, you have control over your EXPECTATIONS. If you keep expecting that someone's going to do something that they've made it abundantly clear they aren't going to do, then who's the idiot? What's more, what do you stand to gain? Yes, you can feel selfrighteous because so and so isn't Doing What's Expected. And you get to feel like a victim, which some people like, I guess. But selfrighteousness lasts for about 5 seconds, I don't personally like feeling like a victim and if you keep expecting something that's not happening, what you get is a truckload of disappointment and resentment.

I mean, examples abound, but here are a few just from people I've known:

• "My ex husband pays child support but never shows up for his kids."

• "My medical patients don't make decisions based on logic and what's good for them."

• "My teenager is having sex and he/she shouldn't because he/she is too young."

• "The Orange Shitgibbon said something appalling."

For the record one, the first thing is very common. Lots of men (and some women) seem to think getting divorced is a good reason to forget they have the first batch of kids and just go start another family with someone else. For all of me, they only pay child support because they're legally forced to.

For the record two, the second thing is because people make decisions for reasons other than the Best Medical Outcome. People refuse surgery because they can't afford it, can't spare the time off work, or their insurance won't cover it. People don't have cancer treatment because they'd rather spend three months on the beach in Belize vs. six months horribly sick from chemo and six more months in a hospital bed gasping for air before they die anyway. I personally take meds for bipolar disorder that are notoriously toxic. They will probably shorten my life and may cause any number of horrible diseases, but am I gonna stop taking them? No way in hell. When it comes to the body vs the brain, the brain is gonna win every time. If I'm not sane enough to know what's going on, there's no reason for me to hang around anyway.

For the record three, we have excellent documentation dating back to ancient history that they always have and they always will. Shakespeare even wrote a play about it. Which is why it's so important to have The Birth Control Talk with your kid when he/she is YOUNG, like by 13 or so, and then GET THEM SOME so they'll have it on hand when they need it. Which, statistically, they will, and probably well before college. Also talk about Plan B. There's a word for people that ignore this advice. It is "grandparent."

For the record four, he has always done that and he always will. He mocked a disabled reporter on camera, for God's sake. I get the outrage, I do, but why are you so surprised?

(Apologies to actual gibbons, who are not at all related.)

So why do it? Why not look, instead, at the other person and just -- accept them the way that they are? Expect them to do stuff they are going to do, and that you know they're going to do, because they have done it many times. And if that doesn't work for you, ie, if you entered a relationship contingent on your husband accompanying you to visit your family, maybe re-evaluate your relationship and not the content of your husband's character.

My friend Tera once said that if you're having a problem with a friend or a sweetie or--pretty much anybody, really--you would be wise to ask yourself four questions:

1. What do I need out of this relationship?

2. Is it reasonable to expect that the other person will provide that to me, based on their past behavior?

3. What does this person need out of me?

4. Am I reasonably able to provide that to this person?

If the answer to No. 2 is no, you have the option to get what you need elsewhere. If you must, absolutely must have That Thing from This Person and This Person can't provide it, well then, the relationship is doomed. Likewise, if the answer to No. 4 is no, is there anything you can do to help the person get what they need from someone other than you? If not, the relationship is also doomed. You can't do what you can't or are obviously unwilling to do. And you can't expect other people to do what they can't or are obviously unwilling to do.

To sum up (too late), we human beings need to do a much better job of letting other people be who they are. We get mad as hell when people expect us to do things we're not going to do and give us a hard time about it. Why not extend that same grace to other people? Less frustration, less head pounding, better relationships and a kinder world. You're welcome.

And watch out for ghosts.

Three Wishes

Just unrolled a red rug at a flea market to shake it out and suddenly there's this guy standing there. Tall, swarthy, thick black beard and mustache. He's wearing a long, colorful dishdasha and sandals. "Three wishes," he says in Arabic- accented English. 

I'm a little taken aback. Where did he just come from? "Three wishes?" 

"Three wishes. Hurry up, I am tired.  Then roll me back up. It has been a hell of a century."

"That it has." I peer closer and notice that his black eyes are full of fire. "You're a djinn?"

He bows low, sweeping out an arm. "Faran Al-Naar. Djinn. Now about those wishes."

"Okay, okay." Persistent guy. I think a minute. "All right. I want you to have whatever you want." 

His brow wrinkles in confusion. "You want what now?"

"I want you to have whatever you want," I say again. "I mean you're hundreds of years old, right? Maybe thousands. And all that time somebody rubs your lamp--"

"Unrolls my rug." 

"Unrolls your rug, right, and wishes for three totally impractical things that'll never work, like a giant house they can't afford the taxes on, or--"

"Or a yacht, when they live in North Dakota and don't know how to sail," says the djinn.

"Right, or they wish for world peace, so you have to make all the humans disappear, or for global warming to be fixed, so you have to move us all into grass huts--"

"And then they spend their second and third wishes undoing their first wish!" exclaims Al-Naar. "Exactly!"

"And you never get what you want. Nobody ever grants your wish."  I fold my arms. "So that's my wish. I wish for you to get whatever you wish for."

The djinn's eyes flash. "All right," he says. "Done." 

Nothing happens. I glance around. Three men and a woman are entering a Starbucks across the street. A few cars go by. Al-Naar stretches his arms and takes a deep breath. 

"Well?" I say. "How is it?" 

"Hm." He looks at his hands. "Not at all like I expected." 

"Isn't that what usually happens?"

"Yes."

I pat him on the arm. "Come on, I'll buy you a Starbucks. There's a lot more to life than being rolled up in a moldy old rug." 

He starts to follow. "What is a Star-bucks?" 

"It's a drink we drink a lot. You'll like it."

He stops. "Oh."

"What's wrong?" 

"I just realized. I cannot grant you your second and third wishes now." He looks sheepish.

"That's okay," I say. "I couldn't think of anything good anyway." 

Physical Therapy Handy Tips

So I had total knee replacement surgery (!).  It all went surprisingly well, no complications or other glitches.  Or so the surgeon told me in post op.  At least I think that was the surgeon.  I'm not sure.  There was also a little gray kitten running up and down my bed on my leg.  I told the nurse I was pretty sure it wasn't real but I kept seeing a little gray kitten.  The nurse promised me there were no little gray kittens in post op.  If there wasn't a little gray kitten, was there ever a surgeon?  You can understand my confusion on this point.  I'll see him in like 3 weeks and I guess we will find out then.  (Joan brought me a little stuffed gray kitten once I got to my room.  I named him Bruce.) 

I was in the hospital a full two extra days longer than planned.  After surgery, my electrolytes took a nosedive and the internist was very worried.  This wasn't presented to me as "Your electrolytes are low, so you can go home if you want, but be sure to drink lots of Gatorade."  It was, "Your electrolytes are low, and you are not going anywhere until we figure this out."  So I had to drink lots of Gatorade.  I hate Gatorade.  I have never liked it.  The hospital only had two flavors but I obediently drank them.  I am home now and I still hate Gatorade.  And I'm still drinking a lot of it.  

The other thing I did a lot in the hospital was walk.  Whenever I woke up (which was not often; they had me taking OxyContin and that stuff knocks me six ways to Sunday) and could gather myself together enough to get up and pee, I would also ask the nurses to take me for a walk.  I would set out in my walker, walk as far as possible and then turn around and go back.  This might be at 10 am, 3 in the afternoon or 4 in the morning.  In fact 4 in the morning was more likely because that was when the staff had extra time.  So the first time I made it as far as the emergency stairs.  (Always know where the emergency stairs are, kids.)  The second time I made it to the nurse's station.  The third time I made it all the way around and back to my room. (Private room, by the way.  I think they were warned about me.)  I kept doing that as long as I was there.  

There were some glitches.  We found out if I take Tramadol, it interferes with something else I'm taking.  So I can't take Tramadol, which is like the step-down drug from opioids.  So I'm taking the mildest opioid there is, hydrocodone, and just reducing the amount.  I'm down to one pill every 4 hours.  I can cut them in half, so the next thing will be half a pill.  Maybe in a few more days.

Have I been in pain?  Why yes, I have, but I was in a fair amount of pain before the surgery.  So this is really not new.  At physical therapy it gets bad, but just walking around, sitting, etc it is not bad.  It's there but I kind of just ignore it if that makes any sense.  I mean, unless I do something that brings it forcibly to my attention, like standing on one foot or turning the wrong way.  Don't do that.  

But I am home now and going to physical therapy.  And as healthy as all of you are, some of you will have to go to physical therapy.  So this is what I have learned in physical therapy.  Just in case you ever need it.  

Physical therapy tip No. 1: It's going to hurt no matter what you do. Take your pain meds (or something over the counter, if you can) about 45 minutes before your appointment and hope for the best.

Physical therapy tip No. 2: Don't cheat. Yes, there are a lot of ways to cheat, but don't do it. You're there to get better. Let those guys help you.

Physical therapy tip No. 3: No. 2 notwithstanding, if you need a short break, ask for a glass of water.

Physical therapy tip No. 4: Also No. 2 notwithstanding, it's OK to take short breaks. Like 5 seconds after 5 reps and 10 seconds after 10 reps. Just don't abuse the privilege.

Physical therapy tip No. 5: Every exercise (that I've encountered) has 2 parts. There's the movement that's the point of the exercise, and there's the opposite movement. Like bend the knee, straighten the knee. The tip is, don't neglect the second part. If bending the knee is the point, bend the knee, but also fully straighten the knee until you get a stretch between bends. You will progress faster and you'll have to do this fewer times.

Physical therapy tip No. 6: Try really hard to do what the physical therapist says the way they say to do it. If you need a short break, say so, but don't argue and don't opt out of doing an exercise because you don't feel like it. You won't feel like it next time either. Be an adult about this.

Physical therapy tip No. 7: You want a 10 minute ice wrap at the end of the session. Yes, you do, no matter how much you want to run screaming out the door and never see these people again. Ask for one. And when you get home, you'll want to sit with an ice pack for about 30 minutes.

Physical therapy tip No. 8: Do your home exercises. I know, I know. But do them. Three times a day if you can. Or at least twice. And on the day of a session, you would be a total rock star if you did your exercises at least once in addition.

Physical therapy tip No. 9: Send your physical therapy office donuts or Tiffs Treats or something after you're done. Physical therapists are underappreciated in the medical field even though what they do is critical. Let them know they are loved. Just don't do it while you are still a patient. It might look like a bribe. 

Oh man, I forgot the most important one! Physical therapy tip No. 10: Three minutes is the first two verses and the first two choruses of Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now." Four minutes is the first two verses, the first two choruses, the saxophone solo and the first line of the third verse.

Well, there ya go.  Hopefully that will help.  If you have any more tips, send them along and I'll publish them in a future blog post.  And probably you all have great DNA and never get in accidents and will never need to know this anyway.  But you never know.  Cheers!  

Hey, I Got an Article Published!

 Here's the link. https://www.kevinmd.com/2024/05/can-weight-loss-medication-interfere-with-adhd-meds.html#commentsModal

I'm also gonna be on Kevin MD's podcast on an episode being recorded June 13. I'll also send the link for that, when I get it.

In other news, Dallas was hit by some major storms and we are okay and undamaged but sans power. This is cramping my techie lifestyle as you might imagine. Hopefully that will be fixed soon. Meantime, be excellent to each other, and party on. 😎

Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood

 I realize the earth may crack asunder and the heavens tear open if I write two blog posts in one week, not to mention within two days of each other.  But I just gotta take the risk.  Joan & I stopped at the local Applebee's to grab a quick bite.  Where we had the most surreal restaurant experience ever. I mean this put the sushi restaurant with the fish conveyor belt to shame.  I may not ever eat out again.  

What happened:  We had just been to Half Price Books.  It has come to our attention that if we ever want to get a new washer & dryer, we're gonna have to clean out our spare room so that the door on the far end is accessible.  That's the only feasible way in or out of that room with a large object.  There's no way anybody's wrestling a full size washing machine through the ridiculously narrow door from our kitchen and down that tiny staircase.  I'm sorry, but they'd have to dismantle it, take it down a piece at a time and reassemble it once they got it down.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  

The problem is, the space in front of the door at the other end is full of boxes of books.  We had to box everything up in order to paint down there, which was another crazy adventure I should tell you about sometime, but anyway, we no longer have enough bookshelves to accommodate all the books.  So a bunch of the books gotta go.  We've been going through the boxes one by one and dividing them into "keep" and "Half Price Books."  Today we hauled five boxes down there and sold them for around $90.  Sweet, right?  Well, read on.

So we were on our way back home and we stopped at Applebee's.  By their very nature, Joan distrusts restaurants with apostrophes in their titles.  Chili's, Bennigan's (no longer in existence), Cheddar's, places like that.  They all seem to be substandard in food and service, or at least service.  But hey, it was after eight and it was a Sunday.  Most restaurants were already closed.  So to Applebee's we went.  And then the fun began.

To begin with, it didn't seem like anybody was in any hurry.  There was no hostess.  We waited at the hostess stand (which, oddly, had an upside-down sign posted that said "Please wait to be seated") for about ten minutes.  After which I said, "Hey, the sign's upside down.  Let's take that as a clue that it really means the opposite and find a table."

Which we did.  Some time later, a confused waiter came by and asked if anyone had taken our drink orders.  We said no, and he did so.  He did not, however, hand us the menus that he was carrying.  Which I thought were for us.  So I followed him, and when he stopped at the cashier's station I asked if I could have the menus.  He said, "Oh yes, of course.  I'm sorry."  Then, "Did you seat yourselves?"  I admitted we had.  "Oh, okay.  Okay.  Yes, I'll be right with you."

So I took the menus back, and absconded with straws and silverware while I was at it.  We looked over the menu and picked out some stuff to order.  Then--nothing happened.  I mean there was a basketball game on, and we were watching it, and we noticed there was only this one waiter on the floor, and then another guy showed up to take our order.  We were kind of surprised and he said, "Oh, did someone already take your order?"  I said, "Well, we ordered drinks, but--" "Okay."  And he zoomed off.  To get our drinks, we thought, only he never came back. 

More time went by.  The basketball game got more interesting. Joan broke out her Tarot cards and I asked her what I'd told Joan I wanted for my birthday, which I no longer remembered and which she hadn't written down.  The answer was the two of pentacles (tough decision), the four of pentacles (it was expensive), and Judgment (I have no idea what that means).  Normally you can't start flipping Tarot cards around in a public place without at least one person nearby losing their shit.  I mean, this is Texas.  But nobody turned a hair.  

Some 20 minutes after we ordered our drinks, the first waiter showed up with them and apologized for the wait.  "I'm the only server here.  We had three people call in sick tonight."  He took our order and we mentioned there had been someone else and he said, "Oh, that guy?  He's a cook.  He's just trying to help me out."

While that was going on, this family of a mom, dad, three kids and one kid on the way settled into a booth nearby.  The kids were actually doing great, coloring away.  The youngest one started to get a little boisterous.  Mom started to look seriously annoyed, and after a while she and Dad and brood got up and left.  Numerous tables, not bussed from previous diners, sat around.  The manager walked out, looked around and then disappeared.  He did this at least two or three more times.  

Just then, a shouting match broke out between our waiter and a customer.  Not sure of all the issues exactly, but it seemed to have something to do with a tip, or the lack of one.  It sounded like this:  "Not for a forty-nine cent tip, dude.  No.  No, just get out of here."  The shouting brought the manager back out.  The manager was trying to calm everything down, the waiter was trying to explain what happened, the customer kept asking for his goddamn card back, please, and then the other guy who had appeared on the floor came out with our food.

Which was, to be honest, very good food.  I had no complaints.  Our waiter showed back up next to our table and said he was sorry for the commotion.  He had three tables waiting for their checks and he hadn't forgotten about us and he was just going to vent, if that was okay.  He started doing exactly that and then  somebody else yelled for his attention.

The manager came back out and called the waiter and the other guy, the cook, over.  Thus began a three way conversation with all three of them talking over each other and saying "No, dude, it's like this" and weird apparently restaurant-related gestures.  The volume went up.  The comprehensibility went down.  The manager broke it off, walked over and started talking to a customer about something.  The basketball game ended and another one started.  Our waiter came over, apologized again, and said he'd be right back.  He came out of the kitchen with a bus cart and started bussing the many vacated tables, only he never got to do any of it because some other customer came up and started to complain that he'd been double charged on his credit card.  The snippets of that conversation sounded like this: "No, it didn't go through.  It didn't go through, sir.  There was an error message.  No, I can't print you a receipt because there isn't one. Do you want me to train you on how this works so you can see for yourself? Because there wasn't a charge, sir.  No, you'd have to ask your bank that, sir.  Sir, you're not understanding me.  No, I can't run it back in the machine because it's not there."  

The manager reappeared and started talking to the customer.  The waiter went past us and started talking to someone behind us.  A few minutes later, somebody burst into song.  "Amazing Grace." Good voice, too.  We turned to look and it was our waiter!  He was serenading a table of African-American people.  We were too far away to see if they thought was cool, or just weird.

Around this point Joan and I decided we might just wanna pay for the food with the cash from the bookstore and get the heck out of there before someone whipped out a gun.  I mean, this is Texas.  All told, we were in this Applebee's for just under two hours.  So maybe Joan's right about apostrophe restaurants.  Anyway, the food was good.  

Mini-Post: Transition Fluid

 So I found out recently I gotta have a total knee replacement (!).  This'll be my second surgery on the same knee and hopefully the last.  I say hopefully because I'm technically too young to have knee replacement surgery and a knee implant only lasts like 15 years so if God forbid I live past 70, I may have to have another one.  Or maybe even sooner since implants are likely to fail sooner if you're fat.  And I am, Blanche, I am.  Anyway, I don't expect to live a long life since I've been ingesting large quantities of toxic meds since I was 40, but still, it could happen.  That's happening June 4 which is really soon.  I'll be off from work for 2 weeks and ease back in part time, from home, as I get off the high test drugs. 😳

Meanwhile, I find myself wanting to stop doing stuff I've been doing for years because I'm realizing it's no longer doing anything for me.  Not swimming, thank God.  It's bad enough I have to not swim for a month because I won't be able to drive.  But I'm a member, say, of this book group.  We've been meeting once a month for years and I've gotten pretty fed up with it.  We picked a science fiction book where slavery was still legal and I wasn't gonna read that one.  I don't read stuff about slavery unless it's historical and there are reasons for that.  I like to be informed but I don't like to have my psyche traumatized.  So no, I've never seen Twelve Years a Slave or Roots.  (I didn't watch Game of Thrones, either, and I quit watching The Handmaid's Tale, compelling as it is, by Season Two Episode One.  Halfway thru, in fact.) So I skipped that meeting.

Then when I do go to meetings there's this one woman who Just. Won't. Shut. Up. And what she generally talks about is herself and how smart she is.  It rarely has any relation to the book.  I mean look, we're all smart.  It's Mensa.  And the moderator isn't inclined to moderate.  And  I wanna read what I wanna read, and my reading time is somewhat limited.  So I'm probably done with the book group.  I may not just leave quietly, tho, because that's not my style.  I may have to tell her, as I'm leaving, that nobody cares how smart she is and that I, for one, am sick of hearing about it.  I mean, they're gonna talk about me regardless.  So I may as well say something I'm proud of. 

The second thing: I've been going to Overeaters Anonymous meetings for a long time, probably 15 years or more. And--I think I've kind of run out of patience with it.  Part of the issue is that I don't believe in God, and though these A groups will tell you it doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, the program is totally and transparently Christian.  Fine, if you've got the patience for that, but I'm increasingly finding that I don't.  Also, I was at a workshop thingy and this lady was announcing that she had "eaten her way up to ___ number of pounds and she was just suicidal" and I thought, "Huh.  That's 30 pounds less than I weigh now.  I guess I should have thrown myself under a passing bus years ago."

Definitely no more workshops.  I may or may not keep going to meetings.  Everyone I've met there is very nice and we have kind of a mutual support society when each other need favors.  I'm fine with all that.  But the dogma and such and this "you must lose weight or die" thing is something I'm just not going along with anymore. I think people are the sizes they are because of the way their lives unfolded, and some of us are big and some are small, and that's the way it is.  We're evolutionarily designed to gain weight, not lose it.  I go into why in this blog post and this one, and yes, the Aunt Friedas among us can lose lots of weight and never gain it back, but Aunt Friedas are 5-15% of the population.  The rest of us are biologically screwed, though some more than others. 

(And please don't come on here telling me, "If I can do it, anybody can."  No, if you can do it, you're probably in that 5 to 15 percent.  Don't assume your experience is universal to the other 85 to 95 percent of us.  I used to do that, and then one day I found out that being the eldest child of Lutheran parents in Salt Lake City in the 1970s is actually a pretty uncommon experience and that most people have no clue what I'm talking about when I say a stranger tried to pick me up in her car and drive me to Primary because they have no idea what Primary even is or why I did not find that experience alarming because it happened so frequently.) 

So what I'm saying is, it's not really helpful to be around people who are so obsessed with food, not eating food, having a food plan and trusting God.  I don't think about food that much, unless I happen to be hungry.  I eat my regular meals at my regular times and I'm good.  And no, I don't get any smaller, but I don't get any bigger, either.  I have reached that rare thing, equilibrium.  I don't think about God much either, unless somebody crashes into my Threads feed demanding to know why I don't follow Jesus. (Generally because someone quote-posted him there, which is why I block people who quote-post people.  Your phone screenshots just fine, you know, and then we can all mock them together.)  So you can see how I'm maybe not a great fit for this organization, though I do like everybody.  

I dunno. It seems like a lot of us spend a lot of time doing stuff we think we're supposed to enjoy.  For me that included driving a motorboat, skiing and gardening, among other things.  Driving a motorboat always seemed like a much scarier version of driving a car, with fewer rules, more idiots and more alcohol.  Luckily, I can't afford a motorboat so I got out of that job fairly early in life.  Skiing is great, but once every three or four years for a week is plenty.  (I won't be able to ski after my surgery.  Which is fine, I really couldn't ski before my surgery either.)  And gardening? Tried it for a year.  Grew some excellent onions, which escaped and now grow wild throughout my lawn. Which is kind of cool.  But otherwise?  Hated it.  Glad it's over.  I don't even mow my own lawn anymore.  I cheerfully pay someone else to do that for me.

But, like, we're all adults now, right?  We don't have to keep doing stuff we don't enjoy.  We can stop, and do other things.  Maybe you like going out with friends, drinking too much and singing songs all the way home.  Or maybe you just do that because it's expected behavior and you'd rather be at home binge-watching Gray's Anatomy.  This is me giving you permission to stay home and binge-watch Gray's Anatomy.  You don't have to take your kids to youth soccer games, either, if you don't like it and they don't like it and you're only doing it because you think it's good for them.  Maybe they'd rather play baseball or hockey.  Or chess.  Or even nothing.  (I always felt bad for my parents having to go to swim meets.  You're sitting on hard benches, you're there for three hours, your kid's in the water for 30 seconds and if your kid is me, they always place dead last.)  If you're a square peg, you don't have to keep ramming yourself into a round hole just because everyone else does.  It's a big world.  There's room for everybody.

And if you find that you don't have time to do the things you enjoy, regardless of what they are, that whole work/life balance thing really needs adjusting.  Life's short.  I had a good friend die of a brain aneurysm at the age of 26.  I hope I'll make it to 70, but there are no guarantees.  We're all here to learn stuff, but also to have a good time and experience the joys of walking around in a human body.  So go experience some of those joys, you guys.  Tell them Jen sent you.