Hubby wanted to make sure everyone got the proof that he’d been prescribed Pepsi for his rose bush disease. Not just cola, ladies and gentlemen, the man has been prescribed Pepsi.
A Study in Home Life
I get home and hubby and I are hanging out on the deck catching up. Hubby says,
“Dr. D. and J went on a trip.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup, cruise to the Med.”
“Did you just say Med?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not cool enough to say “Med” for “Mediterranean.”"
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not.”
Pause.
“Are you making pizza tonight?”
“Yeah, with corn on it.”
Conference Wrap
Many totally awesome and cool people attended the conference. It was actually two conferences in one, two conference back to back, with 6 hours of overlap. Between class time and other activities they were in attendance between 9 and 14 hours a day. Most of the attendees work in libraries but do not have a Master’s in librarianship. They need all the basics and that’s what this conference is about.
I presented for an hour on E-rate, two hours on Library 2.0 (RSS, blogs, podcasting [I played GrammarGirl for them], YouTube [I played Mentos and Diet Coke for them], Flickr, a lot of MySpace, a little Facebook [i played TextTwirl for them]) – i.e. an intro to the Cool Cat stuff and specifically how libraries can, have and are using those technologies to meet patrons where they are and deliver services, and how librarians can use these technologies to keep themselves informed on professional matters. Seriously, it was useful, I didn’t just play up there – except maybe for the TextTwirl part. Also, I spoke on the library for the blind.
One thing, it was cold in the reception area where we conference planners spent most of our days. At the last second walking out the door at home I took a black wrap that some friends living in Kuwait had brought to my mother as a gift, just in case. I needed it every day. By the end of the week I’d figured out this sexy little sophisticated way to wing it over my shoulder.
One attendee whom I shall call Astute and Brilliant (AB) talked to me throughout the conference about various topics, like she grabbed me after the Cool Cat presentation to ask “Just what IS del.icio.us?” She had this totally awesome pin she’d make herself out of dyed alpaca wool. At the end of the conference she came up to me, told me I was the best thing that happened to her all week, and pinned the pin on my sexy sophisticated black wrap where it totally made the outfit. AB rocks. If she joins Facebook I will totally be sending her muppets and waiting to see what dictator she is.
This makes up for the guy who, when I was in the middle of a 2-hour presentation to 120 people, pointed at the screen and said, with no humor whatsoever, loud enough so that everyone could hear, “You misspelled copyright.”
Chocolate Conference
I’m at a conference for work this week – one I’m helping to carry out rather than one I’m attending. We’ve had 34 hours of classroom time in 3 1/2 days.
In preparation for the conference, we bought chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Expensive chocolate. Small chocolate treats. Large chocolate treats. Multiple boxes of truffles wherein I individually selected each truffle for a pleasing assortment by color, flavor and type of decoration. Multiple boxes of rum chocolate covered cherries with the stems still on. Dark chocolate covered animal crackers in cellophane bags with turquoise ribbon. Chocolate sticks. Chocolatier-quality peppermint patties.
And for my sessions, chocolate peanut butter stegasaurases on bicycles.
Those were for my sessions. No one else got to give those out.
In addition, two of our presenters brought chocolate of their own. One brought the conference planners several dozen cookies PLUS FIVE POUNDS of chocolate for the attendees. Once, when that presenter was running a library conference, she got back an evaluation of the conference as a whole with no questions answered. Just one comment: “You had a room full of middle-aged women. Where was the chocolate?” She doesn’t present without her own stash now.
All of the chocolate was given out at regular intervals in a variety of entertaining and fetching ways. At one point I asked, “Who can tell me what was on my last slide?” The person who knew? they got chocolate. The person who drove the farthest. The person who asked a unique question. The person who noted that I said that both RSS and Blogs were “the coolest thing since sliced bread.” The person who paid the most attention. With almost a dozen presenters I tried to jolly them up and get their energy level up so they would meet that “entertaining and fetching” threshold for passing out candy.
Plus we had sugar from the conference facilities at every meal and every break – that’s a total of 5 times a day aside from what we gave out. Brownies, pudding, cheesecake, cookies, doughnuts. Not to mention cases of pop.
AND
AND
AND SOMEBODY WENT DOWN TO THE VENDING MACHINE AND BOUGHT M&Ms. I was personally insulted. I ranted, I admit it.
A. says I have “control issues.”
Look to Her Mother
My Uncle N. has a saying, “If you’re thinking of marrying a woman, look to her mother.” Many apples don’t fall far from the tree.
This business with Hubby’s arm got me to thinking about the torn bicep from 6-7 years ago. He tore the bicep trying to impress me on our first date. My car had some funny sound that he knew what was and we drove out to the storage unit where he kept his tools so he could get what he needed to fix it. He tried to move a work bench and tore the muscle in his arm. But he didn’t want to interrupt our first date, so we kept going.
We drove to Ann Arbor for an outdoor concert at Gallup Park, a really lovely park with quaint bridges and a circuit of maybe a mile, mile and a half. We strolled. We sat in the grass and listed to music in the twilight. Then we went to visit with my mother.
Yes, on our first date I took him home to meet my mother. She made hot fudge sundaes with homemade hot fudge and we sat in her dining room and got acquainted.
I already knew that I wanted to marry Future Hubby. We’d had that book club going on for several years and I’d known him for? three or four years. And I was serious. Future Hubby: this is my family. This is my mother.
I told Future Hubby that he could court me as long as it took him to decide whether he wanted to marry me but I would not date him. I’m not old-fashioned, not right-wing religious, none of that. I have made a shocking and disappointing percentage of profoundly stupid relationship decisions. But not this time. I knew what I wanted with Future Hubby.
So, I took him home to meet my mother.
Many thanks, Mom. He liked the hot fudge.
Armies
If you’ve been around me and hubby lately you’ve probably seen that hubby has a weird, disquieting strangeness going on with his right arm and hand. It started last fall with marble-like hardnesses in his forearm. Over the past 8 months – through 4 doctors, X-rays, MRIs, and, finally, a biopsy – it has spread. His fingers on his right hand are swollen and hard and he can’t make a fist any longer.
We’ve had lots of time to be weirded out by this as it has steadily spread. To complicate matters, this is the arm where he tore his bicep six years ago and had surgery to repair the muscle. AND he re-injured the muscle fishing last fall. So we really couldn’t figure out what’s going on.
Two doctors ago we were dealing with the surgeon who did the biopsy. He was going over the possible causes and treatments at an appointment with Hubby and said, “And if we have to amputate, we’d do it here,” drawing a diaganol line above Hubby’s elbow. Amputate? Hubby was freaked out and mournful. I was freaked out and really pissed off.
After the biopsy Surgeon H. called me in to report on how the procedure went and I b*slapped him. “Amputate? You scared the hell out of my husband and me. What is the likelihood this will be necessary?” Turned out always to have been extremely unlikely and since the biopsy was definitely off the table (kind of like his arm would have been off the table after the amputation). I glared at him. And said a few more things that in retrospect I’m not terribly proud of.
In any case, after eight months we finally have a diagnosis! He has sporotochosis. It’s an earthy infection – you get it from farming or gardening.
“Do any gardening?” the infectious disease specialist asked. He’d consulted with numerous other doctors, seen the results of the tests, and, in particular, the biopsy. They had already come up with sporotochosis as the probable diagnosis.
“That’s really her area,” Hubby says, pointing to me, “But I dug out some window wells in the fall.”
“Do you have rose bushes?”
“Yeah, took one out in fact when I was doing the window wells.”
Ding, ding, ding!
Sporotochosis comes from, primarily, being scratched by rose bushes and in bean fields. Treatment is 6 months of antibiotics taken – get this – in an acidic environment. The doctor suggests either cola or orange juice. Hubby’s two favorite beverages. He has now had Pepsi and orange juice PRESCRIBED twice a day.
We’re all very much relieved around here.
Come To the Library to Borrow…A Person
…instead of a book. Yes, this activity takes place every so often at London’s Living Library, a project supported in part by the Museums, Libraries And Archives Council UK.
Times OnLine informs us of a new library fad which started in Scandinavia…”instead of books, readers can come to the library and borrow a person for a 30-minute chat (and you don’t have to buy them a drink).
The human “books” on offer vary from event to event but always include a healthy cross-section of stereotypes. Last weekend, the small but richly diverse list included Police Officer, Vegan, Male Nanny and Lifelong Activist as well as Person with Mental Health Difficulties and Young Person Excluded from School. I [the article's author, David Baker] was there as Gay Man.”
Interesting way of acquiring knowledge about our fellow humans.
Yay Me!
Belatedly, many thanks to my friends A and E who threw me a congratulatory dinner at Pizza House (not Pizza Hut), complete with flowers, balloons with my name on them, a banana (what award dinner is complete without bananas?), origami cranes, and, of course, spinach artichoke dip and onion rings. I was granted the Professional Service Award from my alma mater Wayne State University this spring. One of my professors accepted the award on my behalf while I was in Marquette.
Yay me!
