Tag: lifestyle

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Lifestyle

How To Tell Who Is A Jerk And Who Has Good Manners

Mostly True Memoirs

He's a jerk

He’s A Jerk

I went on a Costco run.

At the end of the shopping trip, as I was navigating the parking lot in an electric cart, a 50-ish gentleman crossed my path.

He had just put his cart in the corral, and he was returning to his car.

He was obviously in a foul mood.

That’s understandable.

He had just finished shopping at Costco.

We’re all in a foul mood at that point.

When he crossed in front of me, he gave me an angry gesture with his chin, and he flicked his hand rudely, indicating that I should get the heck out of his way.

I was so shocked that I did move out of his way.

And then I was angry at myself because I should have stood my ground.

He’s a jerk.

Two Costco employees who were collecting carts saw the whole thing go down.

They rushed over to help me load my trunk and take my cart.

If anyone wants to disparage today’s youth, I would like to point out that it was the middle-aged guy who more or less pushed me, with a knee brace and an electric cart, out of his way, and it was two 20-somethings who rushed in to help.

Our youth is doing just fine.

Categories
Lifestyle

My Funky Knee Makes Everything More Difficult

Mostly True Memoirs

Everything is more difficult with a funky knee

My Funky Knee Gets A Zero-Star Review

My funky knee makes going to the grocery store difficult.

I need to use the sit-on, electric shopping cart.

I can walk, but I can’t walk the entire store, stand in a long checkout line, haul my load out to the car and then carry it all into the house.

That’s way too much standing.

The electric carts are a pain in the neck.

They go way too slow.

I can hobble faster than those stupid carts, even when I floor it on max speed.

I understand that they have to go slow for safety reasons.

But do they have to go THAT slow?

I will occasionally stand up and walk to get an item that I need.

I’m afraid that other customers are surreptitiously taking pictures of me and mocking me online as someone who doesn’t really need that cart at all.

If you see me as a meme, I swear, I really do have a knee injury.

The other day I tried to go to Costco.

They didn’t have any electric carts available.

My only choice was to wait for a shopper to be done and bring a cart out.

Seriously?

By that time, the cart would be out of juice and would have to be recharged.

I could end up waiting an hour or even more.

Yeah, nah, I skipped that shopping trip.

I am not enjoying my funky knee.

I do not recommend it.

I give it a zero-star review.

Categories
Lifestyle

Three Good Reasons Why My Knee Doctor is Making Me Cranky

Mostly True Memoirs

Yeah, I'm Cranky

Yeah, I’m Cranky.

I’m down to only one working knee.

I saw the orthopedist.

And I have a few objections.

My first complaint is that there was an awful lot of walking in this office.

I had to walk down a very long hallway to the x-ray room.

Then I had another long walk to get to the examination room.

After that, I had to walk all the way across the building to schedule an MRI.

Finally, I had to walk back across the entire suite to check out.

At the Urgent Care, back on that first day, they saw me hobbling in the parking lot.

They hustled out with a folding chair and told me to sit down and wait because someone else was coming with a wheelchair.

Now that’s good service.

You’d think an orthopedic office would have wheelchairs.

My second complaint is that examination table was real artsy-fartsy.

Which means it wasn’t practical at all.

Most examination tables can raise and lower, and many have pull-out steps.

This one did not.

It was huge, and I couldn’t even try to climb up on it with only one working leg.

The doctor was fine with examining my knee from the chair that I was in.

The technician who came in to fit me for the brace wanted me on the table.

Ha, ha, no way, that’s not going to happen.

The tech wasn’t happy.

But seriously?

Shouldn’t an orthopedic office be prepared for orthopedic injuries?

My final complaint is their phone service.

I received three different calls before my appointment.

None of them identified the medical group.

One of them said, “No caller ID,” and the others simply listed a number.

I never answer calls like that.

It’s probably a scammer.

A lot of time was wasted playing phone tag.

OK, that’s enough cranky ranting.

I liked the doctor.

The brace is amazing, and I can walk with it, and I’m feeling a lot better.

My MRI is scheduled.

I hope I don’t need surgery.

I would prefer to skip that and go straight to physical therapy.

I get a say in this, don’t I?

That’s how it works, right?

Right?

Categories
Lifestyle

These Stupid Crutches Are Going To Be The Death Of Me!

Mostly True Memoirs

These Stupid Crutches

These Stupid Crutches!

These stupid crutches have changed my entire routine.

Everything is now an enormous pain in the butt.

I’ve started holing up in my home office with some snacks so that I don’t have to leave the room all day.

There’s a bathroom next door, so my need to lurch around the house on crutches is limited.

Today, however, I was home alone.

And I kept hearing weird noises.

The dog was going in and out of the doggy door.

Again and again and again.

What the heck was she up to?

I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.

I crutched my way to the other end of the house.

Blue was nowhere in sight.

There were no signs of doggy destruction.

I called to her, but she didn’t come.

She was probably destroying something around the side of the house.

There was nothing I could do.

I peg-legged myself back to my office.

Again, I heard the doggy door flapping.

“Oh for **** sake!” I muttered and hobbled back to the other end of the house.

Again, Blue was nowhere to be found.

Unwilling to make the perilous journey all the way across the house yet again, I plopped myself into a chair to wait for her to make that noise again.

And then I heard it.

Oh no!

It wasn’t the doggy door after all.

I had accidentally shut her in the bedroom.

Blue had been scratching on the door.

She was so excited when I freed her that I had to hold onto the door frame for dear life.

Poor girl.

Poor me.

She was about to knock me right off my only good leg.

I had to stomp my crutches to get her to calm down.

She doesn’t like those things.

To be fair, neither do I.

I hop-stepped over to the couch to cuddle an apology to her.

But she was still very excited, and I was afraid that she was going to jump on my bad knee.

I had to stomp the crutches again.

But all’s well that ends well.

She spent the rest of the day napping on the rug in my office.

Blue and I will both be glad to be done with these stupid crutches.

Categories
Lifestyle

I Am a Tidy Freak. I’m Freaking Out About Tidiness Right Now.

Mostly True Memoirs

A Tidy Freak

I’m a Tidy Freak.

I am a tidy freak, I have realized, since I have been confined to crutches.

Not a neat freak.

A tidy freak.

Back in the day, before I had kids, I was a downright slob.

I quickly learned to rein that in.

I’ve taken to constantly tidying up.

It’s because I’m basically lazy.

It is a far easier thing to keep the house tidy than to actually clean it.

I’m sitting here with my flat-tire knee elevated, noticing all the dust and clutter that has started to accumulate.

My brain is about to explode.

My knee has already exploded.

My hands aren’t doing so well either.

I have carpal tunnel, and the crutches are killing my wrists.

I will be very, very, very glad when this is all over.

But enough whining.

I need to plan my get-well party.

The first thing I’ll do is to tidy my house.

And then – celebrate!

Categories
Lifestyle

How To Turn a Disaster Into A Magnificent Story

Mostly True Memoirs

How to turn a disaster into a magnificent story

I Wrecked My Knee, and I’m In Need Of A Magnificent Story

A magnificent story is necessary at a time like this.

I wrecked my knee.

Badly.

On my vacation.

I’m trying out all kinds of stories to see which one resonates.

The one that gets the best reaction is this:

Bob gave me a brake check.

I was on the back of his motorcycle.

He was going really, really, really fast.

Suddenly, he hit the brakes.

I flew off the back of the bike.

And destroyed my knee.

“Really?” people gasp, shocked that Bob would do such a thing.

“No,” I respond, “none of it is true.”

The brake-check story is far more entertaining than the truth.

The truth is just a standard, boring, slip and fall injury.

I’ve always felt that any major injury deserves a magnificent story.

My left knee deserves that great story.

Even if it does throw poor Bob under the bus.

Or the motorcycle.

Whatever.

The bottom line is that I wrecked my knee.

And I’m in need of a magnificent story.

Categories
Family

It’s Her Happy Heavenly Birthday Today – Miss You Mom!

Mostly True Memoirs

Happy Heavenly Birthday to my Mama!

Happy Heavenly Birthday!

Today is my mom’s heavenly birthday.

It also happens to be National Awkward Moments Day.

She would not have appreciated that.

It’s a good thing we never knew this holiday existed.

Her birthday dinners might have been, well, awkward.

Luckily, it is also National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day.

That’s a holiday she would have liked.

I’m making chicken tetrazzini for dinner, which I do every year for her birthday.

Maybe I will make some lacy oatmeal cookies too.

She would like that.

Happy birthday, heavenly Mom.

Categories
Work

The Grammar Police is Watching!

Mostly True Memoirs

The Grammar Police Is Watching!

The Grammar Police is Watching!

I hate the grammar police.

I know, I’m an editor.

I’m supposed to correct grammar.

But I don’t.

Unless I’m working.

Correcting other people is obnoxious.

Especially on social media because it’s so easy to make a typo.

I do it myself often enough.

I try to be very forgiving.

But sometimes…

I saw a St. Patrick’s Day post from a public service agency.

It urged the public to “Drink Responsively.”

Aaarrrghhh!

That post caused me physical pain.

Responsive drinking is just another name for peer pressure.

It means the exact opposite of what they were trying to say.

Responsibly is the right word.

Drink Responsibly is what that post should have said.

OK, I got that out of my system.

I need a green St. Patrick’s Day beer.

I’ll drink it responsibly.

Categories
Family

An Oldie But Goodie

Mostly True Memoirs

An Oldie but Goodie

Today is a good day to revisit this particular story.

An oldie but goodie. I’m busy taking a class, and I haven’t had time to write new posts. Today is a good day to revisit this particular story.

An Oldie But Goodie

This morning I came downstairs to discover that Bob had made coffee with a paper towel as a filter.

Apparently, we are out of coffee filters.

How can that be?

I just bought a package of filters.

I suspect that they disappeared into some sort of motorcycle repair project.

That’s where all our missing household supplies end up.

I wondered if the coffee might be poisoned by the toxic, non-food-grade paper towel.

Whatever.

I drank it anyway.

Beware the Ides of March.

If it’s not a stabbing, it’s a poisoning.

Et tu, Bob?

Categories
Family

I Have Only One Question

Mostly True Memoirs

I have only one question.

I have only one question. Why didn’t the dog bark?

I have only one question about this entire episode.

The other night, the Grown Son’s car broke down.

Bob and the other Grown Son set out on a rescue mission.

They had everything under control.

I went to bed.

I had developed, over the evening, a sore throat.

I took a dose of Nyquil and went to sleep, hoping to wake up well and refreshed.

But that’s not what happened.

I’m not sure what finally woke me up.

But my phone was ringing, and there were dozens and dozens and dozens of calls and texts.

The guys had been trying to reach me, but I was zonked out on cold medicine.

They didn’t know that.

They were freaked that I wasn’t answering the phone.

Bob called the neighbor to come and ring the doorbell.

I still didn’t wake up.

Bob gave the neighbor the keypad code to come in through the garage.

“Seriously?” I asked Bob, “He was in the house? That’s how people get shot!”

Which is exactly what the neighbor was thinking.

He was hollering at me from the garage door, and when he finally heard me on the phone, he got the heck out of the house.

Oops, sorry.

I didn’t mean to scare anyone.

Next time I take Nyquil I’ll post an alert.

I have only one question.

Why didn’t the dog bark at the intruder?