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Bone scan, dear diary, family, food, humour, Julia Child, lactose intolerance, recipe, T.V. remote
Dear Diary – This week I had to go for a bone scan, and I decided to make a day of it with my friend. I showered and got dressed in my comfy stretchy clothes that don’t usually leave the house. I knew I couldn’t wear any metal. I also removed all my jewellery, with the exception of my tiny hoop earring. It’s a fight to get it back in. Even though I don’t have sausage fingers, it feels like I do. No, it would stay until I was told otherwise.
The other metal I had to ditch was my bra. Now, there are some women who prefer to go without any and every day. Most of them shouldn’t! Given a choice, I might choose to go without…at home. In public, I’m squarely in the Should. Not. category. My options were going without and risk rudely assaulting an unsuspecting victim when I walk by OR risk being seen naked in the tiny closet changeroom with the thin curtain that doesn’t close all the way. What to do?
However, I had an epiphany in the middle of the night when I was caught in the hour loop of blankets-on-blankets-off because I’m too-hot-too cold. I own a bralette. It’s a soft, stretchy, triangular, halter bra-like item of clothing that I purchased in the hopes of wearing under sundresses with spaghetti straps. But there are a couple problems with it. One, it’s not nearly stretchy enough and I nearly choke myself getting it around my neck and pulled into place. Two, the only support it really gives…is emotional.
I arrived on time for my appointment and was soon directed down a series of dreary beige corridors with harsh florescent lighting to a black plastic chair. Where I waited the inevitable.
I was soon ushered into a darkened room with a technician whose coffee mug was only half-empty. Need I say more. There, she imparted the life-changing, heart-shattering news that I should never exceed 4 cups of tea per day. Once (justifiably) scolded for indulging my vices carelessly, she told me lie down for the test.
What? No question about my jewelery or my undergarments? Nope. Only scanning from the waist down. All I had to remove was my coat and shoes. Here my boobs could have been safely stuffed like weapons in their storage case instead of bobbling like heads on a roller coaster?
Not cool.
The test was over in record time and my friend and I enjoyed a lovely day with tea and bagels, a successful shop, and a tiny walk. No bystanders were injured.
Dear Diary – March 14th was Pi day so I bought Hubby a tiny cherry pie for dessert.
If I love you, I show you I love you every day. Little things, big things.
Dwayne Johnson
Dear Diary – If I have to come out of early retirement, I may have a new career path. Even better than the last one and it was a doozy! 😉
Julia Child, before mastering the art of French cooking, worked as a covert operative for the precursor to the CIA…cooking up shark repellent. It was used to deter sharks who were unwittingly detonating underwater explosives meant for U-boats. Her recipe saved the day.
I’m pretty sure I’ve concocted some dishes that would serve the same purpose.
I recently cooked pork chops in the air fryer crusted in delicious spices. The pork chops were really juicy. I have avoided pork chops for some time because they always end up tough like shoe leather. No amount of creamy mashed potatoes can salvage them. Hubby really liked them, but I found them dangerously spicy. I had to satisfy myself with sweet potato and broccoli for dinner.
I can’t speak for the sharks.
“My first big recipe was shark repellant that I mixed in a bathtub for the Navy, for the men who might get caught in the water.”
Julia Child
Dear Diary – Finally! It has been a bone of contention between Hubby and I for quite some time, and this was one fight I felt obligated to win. Sure, it meant frustration and tongue-biting on a daily basis. I could have just given up and done the job myself, but then I feel like I’m always the who gives in and gets the job done. No, I was determined to outwait him so he did the job.
Our new t.v. remote has arrived and it is spectacular. I can fast-forward through commercials in PVRd shows rewind 10 seconds because Hubby looked away and missed a key clue. I can change channels or delete recordings without mashing the same button 15 times while waving the remote like a mad magician. I still can’t adjust the volume- that’s a bridge too far – but it has taken the stress out of watching television, and the stress out of our marriage!
Dear Diary – I took Hubby to McDonald’s for Shamrock Shake to celebrate St. Patty’s Day, seeing as he’s actually Irish (and not just with Irish relatives who moved here generations ago like me). Before you ask, yes we wore green. I wore my new green shirt dress and Hubby, who doesn’t like green so owns nothing green, wore his sloth socks…because they had some green.
Shamrock Shakes were first introduced in 1970 and since McDonald’s was the only fast-food restaurant growing up (unless Dixie Lee counts), it was a big deal when I was a kid. Hubby was really looking forward to it (I was looking forward to strawberry because mint doesn’t like me).
The shakes…were “unavailable”. ON St. Patrick’s Day!
We both had strawberry.
Dear Diary – There are leggings and there are leggings.
My friend and I both bought leggings on sale, same style, same colour, but different brands.
She called me soon after I arrived home to tell me that she couldn’t even get the leggings over her knees and I would be inheriting them. They were a size larger than I normally wear but I was willing to try.
I got them on. Barely. They were too snug at the waist, but so loose at the ankles.
I’ve been frustrated before because, although there’s a recognized standard for sizing, manufacturers fail to use it. Is it a tactic to ensure we spend more money trying to find the perfect size? Did they just copy and paste a chart that “looked good” onto their packaging, hoping we’d be dazzled by pretty picture on the front? That picture, of course, being a perky 18 year old with no cellulite or stretch marks. What bozo created the charts in the first place?
We couldn’t return the leggings but we could exchange them…once. My friend was reluctant, understandably so, to try again. Especially with no recourse. So I exchanged them…for a very loose white cotton top…to go with my leggings that fit just right (over my sizable bottom).
Dear Diary – My friend believes if I ingest more calcium-rich foods, I could enjoy that 5th cup of tea a day. Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way, but more calcium is still a good idea. But it’s a hard one to accomplish because I’m lactose intolerant, and I’ll be honest, after getting a calcium pill for Clydesdales painfully stuck in my esophagus for nearly an hour, I’m resistant to the idea. She suggested lactose-free yogurt.
I empathize with those who have food allergies and intolerances, because just like fashion, there’s always an delectable smorgasbord of options for “normal” people, while the rest are doomed to sample cardboard textures and wear unflattering silhouettes. In the grocery store before me, there were shelves upon shelves of yogurt cups in refrigerators the length of a city block. In every flavour imaginable.
Except lactose-free (which really isn’t free. They don’t take lactose out…they add stuff to aid digestion).
All I could find was plain…in plain white plastic cartons with black writing. They didn’t even try to make it look appetizing. Plain. Flavourless. White.
Now before you suggest I “add jam”…I took a tragic tumble off my bike when I was a pre-teen. Don’t worry…my face broke my fall. The fall broke my front teeth. I spit gravel for months and couldn’t open my jaw for weeks. So Mom gave me yogurt. Plain yogurt. With jam. I will honestly say, there is no jam in the world that will ever make plain yogurt palatable.
I know flavour for non-diary nerds like me exist. And I am making it my mission to find said yogurt.
Even though I really hate yogurt.
(But I hate it less than Clydesdale pills.)
Life is half delicious yogurt, half crap, and your job is to keep the plastic spoon in the yogurt.
Scott Adams