The Fruits Of Other People's Labor

Yesterday I neither canned anything, nor made any duvet covers. Instead, I ran errands. I went to the newspaper office to exchange home canned goods with the food writer Nicole Montesano. She happened to be at lunch, so the exchange ended up feeling a little more like a nebulous underworld transaction where I informed the lady at the front desk that I had something for Nicole and would she mind delivering it to her desk...and there should be something there for me too, perhaps some quince marmalade, and possibly some pears? The lady said she may know something about an exchange of canned goods. She came back moments later and handed me two gleaming jars. The gorgeous fruits of someone else's labor.

I'm pretty sure the woman was trying to hide her jealousy behind a look that was meant to suggest that I am pretty much as dorky as they come. I wasn't fooled.

What I don't understand is how come I ended up with two jars of Nicole's canned goods yet she asked for only one of mine. That is hardly a fair trade. I think I will need to rectify this in the next couple of days.

This morning Max awoke to a gusher again. It actually started to come out both sides, but not as bad as the worst one he's ever had. However, my freshly changed sheets are now smeared as was I. As I've mentioned before, this is not a particularly pleasant way to wake up. He's now getting them almost every day again. I'm going to find out if there are any kid's swimming classes in the afternoons at the Aqua center downtown. He didn't have a bloody nose for almost two months. He was swimming every morning and I think it really helped. I'm not sure why, but I imagine it has something to do with keeping the insides of his nose moist. We could try getting it cauterized again, but after the trauma of last time, I'm not eager to repeat that experience.

We have a doctor's appointment for this afternoon to investigate the possible reasons his taste is off. I must say, though, that Max is like me and his mind is a powerful instrument capable of suggesting itself into a panic. Being mom to him requires that I tread the delicate line between taking him seriously while allowing for the possibility that his mind has run wild with the possibilities of ailments. It's challenging because people like Max and I are very sensitive to physical shifts and changes and often it seems that we are imagining there is something wrong with us that the doctor sees no evidence of, until a month later when something develops that the doctor can't ignore and it turns out we were aware of a very real issue at the earliest stage. However, being so sensitive also means that every little creak in the bones, every little mysterious pain becomes a sinister harbinger of disease OR DEATH.

Once, when we lived in San Francisco and had no health insurance, I got a cut on my leg that didn't heal after a week. I was accustomed to healing very quickly. I got concerned. But my mind doesn't ever relax, so within a short period of time I became certain that this anomaly meant that I had AIDS. I was a pretty amazingly low risk individual, but everyone knows you can get AIDS from one injudicious unprotected night of fun... I went to the health clinic on Haight Street and had my blood drawn and the cut examined and, of course, nothing was wrong. I just had a resistant cut.

Max is exactly as I am. So I try not to build a case up for him having terrible diseases when he has weird complaints. Like when all his food tastes like coffee. However, since he threatened to stop eating or drinking anything if it didn't stop tasting weird, I made him an appointment. The nurse I spoke with certainly felt that it was important to bring him in with such a complaint.

Today I make pesto.

How's that for a nonsequitor?

The computer won't even be looked at until Saturday. I was shocked when I found out how long this was going to take. So I just might have to download some software to allow me to put pictures from my camera onto the laptop. I am pretty sure that a few more days of no pictures and no one will ever visit me again.

I have walked with my friend Lisa this morning, with the dog too, and now I must jet off to the gym before inertia settles in. So I'll sign off with a little quote from the kid.

We were waiting for our meal to come at the Ram's Head Pub in Portland. We'd been waiting about ten minutes. Max declares:

"I would rather be shot with a grass gun and get itchy all over than wait another minute here."

Grass gun?! (The kid is mildly allergic to grass, but how does he come up with such perfect torture ideas when he is only six years old?)

(You should hear the punishments he devised for that evil sports player who was recently arrested for breeding and fighting pit bulls. The kid is a mini-despot. Now, if only we can make sure he only uses his powers for good...wait a minute...he's right, Michael Vick should be thrown in a little cell full of dog hair so he can get itchy and choke to death on it. Or be thrown in a jail cell with a vicious pit bull and let him see how it feels to fight one to the death...Or else he should be left in jail forever...)

The kid has a point. Michael Vick is an evil human being and if I could, I would throw him to the dogs myself. Bastard. Shit, I didn't want to remember about this guy. That was accidental. It bothers me to think about such awful human beings being out there in the world. Watching animals kill each other for sport is sick.

Fluffy bunnies...Fluffy bunnies...Fluffy bunnies.....


Update: Max and I just came back from the doctor's office. Max's off-sense-of-taste is a MEDICAL MYSTERY. There's nothing apparently wrong with the kid. That's so much better than finding out he has some rare but fatal taste-deficiency-disorder, otherwise known as: TDD. (I should be a medical writer, huh? I've TOTALLY got what it takes!)

On another note: how come I can't sit down and write well on a preselected topic? How come the only way I write well is by rambling on this rickety old blog? How come I can't just sit down and piss gold? (Uh, that last little bit is what happens when Angelina just writes exactly what is flowing into her head, without the necessary social filter.) (Dammit, that's a lie. Do you want to know how that would have come out if I had stuck to EXACTLY what came into my head at that moment? I would have written: "How come I can't just sit down and shit gold?". That is, however, extremely coarse which isn't a style I personally favor. It amazes me that things like that can come out of my brain in the first place.) It was also an amazing segue into a totally different conversation. I guess it's kind of obvious why I'm not the next Anne Lamott.