A Tale of Two Sunscreens

Observe sunscreen A, at $26.88 (which is slightly less than the $31.55 I paid several days ago):



Observe sunscreen B at $32.09:


Sunscreen A is marketed as "unisex".
Sunscreen B is marketed as "protective unit-wrinkle cream" (a quality of most good sunscreens).

Questions:
1. Which one is marketed to women?
2. Which one is marketed to men?

Saturday Thoughts on Sunday Night

Yesterday J and I celebrated our 17^th Wedding Anniversary.

After a respite lasting several years, I came down with my first serious sinus infection. Naturally this illness began during my 15 day break from work, shortly before Christmas and I stayed sick right into the new year. I cycled through the normal progression of infection, starting with headache and bad congestion and ending with two days of glands so swollen that I could not move my neck properly, only to feel better right on time to go back to work.

The point of the digression is that J caught it this week and has been really miserable. Too congested to use the CPAP and sleeping on the couch like he did pre-CPAP.

And, in spite of his misery, he got up and headed in the frigid weather to our favorite bakery, Boy Alien in tow, to buy peanut butter blossoms and flowers for me. While I stayed happily ensconced in bed reading and continuing the setup my new laptop¹.

It was a good day, favorite cookies and flowers aside. I spent most of it in my pajamas, changing at 3:30 into a dress and boots to have an early anniversary dinner at the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto.

The restaurant sits on top of Mount Washington, along Grandview Avenue. We took advantage of the valet parking, as parking in general is rather dear in that neighborhood and usually involves a hike of several blocks. A pleasant journey in the summertime, a terrible one in January when the temperature is negative and the winds are wild.

From the lobby guest take an elevator to the dining room. I admit that the elevator stumped me at first, I hit one of the unlabeled emergency buttons instead of the giant oblong metal button labeled “Dining”. Which meant we waited far longer than necessary before my brain finally made the connection and J pushed the button again.

It was worth the wait. We were a bit early and the maître d’ sent us down the stairs to the lounge, to have a cocktail before dinner.

Although we ordered drinks, we never got them. This was not the fault of the bartender, even in a high-end restaurant such as Monterey Bay customer assholery abounds. The bartender’s time was taken up by a man who was demanding a receipt for the payment he made via a gift card and he was rather determined to be unhappy as he harangued the bartender. Our pager went off 30 seconds after we finally ordered, so we decided to just re-order them at the table instead.

We were seated next to the windows and I demonstrated again that I don’t get out much as I got confused about where to sit and had to be gently instructed to take a chair that faced the window. That really happened.

·      The view was magnificent.

·      The old fashioned I ordered was strong and perfectly made.

·      I asked for a recommendation on a wine to drink with the entrée and the waitperson bought two different chardonnays for me to sample. Both were buttery and light and I could not tell the difference between the two, much to J’s amusement.

·      The oysters were insanely fresh.

·      The octopus starter was good, but not something I would order again.

·      J enjoyed his first try of the rockfish.

·      The scallops stuffed with crab were a rare treat – perfectly cooked without a hint of bitterness.

·      The Brussels sprouts were sweet.

·      And the Angel Food Grilled Cheese dessert was divine.

The biggest surprise of the evening was the sheer number of young children in the restaurant. Monterey Bay even has a kid’s menu and it was clear that they were used to serving families and making adjustments to ensure that even kids are happy. And all the kids we saw were well behaved.

I suspect better behaved overall then the miserable man we saw in the bar. He had a seating in the dining room but was long gone by the time J and I finished our meal.

And thus we marked seventeen years.

^1.            I will sorely miss my old MacBook Pro and would still be using it, but the screen finally started to die, two years after I dropped it in such a fashion that the screen separated from the aluminum case. Coupled with symptoms of motherboard failure, a dead DVD/CD drive and its agonizing slowness, a new laptop came as an expensive relief.

Couple Attempts to Head off the Inevitable

I've written about my in-laws, especially my father-in-law, a fair amount in the past. Not so much in the present, as I have not really written much of anything since the boy alien came along.

J's birthday was this week, and fell over a workday. Due to demanding work schedules we decided to push any celebration to the weekend. J wanted to go on a drive "somewhere" with no definite destination in mind. Since taking a meandering, hours-long drive with no set destination is a six year old boy's definition of hell and boy alien was scheduled to spend most of the week with his grandparents anyway, we asked J's mom if we could bring him a day earlier then original planned. My mother-in-law checked her schedule and said yes.

And in the background, during a recent call, J could hear his father asking when J was coming, as he had work that he wanted J to do.

My father-in-laws' standard operating procedure in circumstances such as described is to wait until J arrives with the boy alien and then drop a set of chores on J that need to be done before J can leave. He rarely gives advance notice that he needs help, always underestimates the amount of time these tasks will take and usually drops these need bombs on days when he knows that we (as a couple or as as a family) have time sensitive activities planned.

It is galling. It is especially galling because he does it on purpose to create havoc and drive a wedge between J and myself. He has pulled this stunt numerous times during the course of our marriage. He takes advantage of the fact that J is too nice to say no. He takes pleasure out forcing me into being the bad guy as it gives him an opportunity to complain to other members of the family about how difficult I am behaving and how ungrateful I am.

Since we had some advance indication of the inevitable, J called his mom this morning and asked if he could bring boy alien this evening. He explained that since he had no idea how long it was going to take to do the things that his father wanted done, he would rather bring boy alien down early then watch our plans blow up and put me in the position of being the bad guy again.

J asked if I was interested in going with him tonight and attempted to bribe me with wings from one of our favorite wing places. I turned him down, as I am irritated with his father and have little desire to put myself in the position where he can give me a hard time this evening.

Reunion

I don't even know where to start with this.

I had a truly awful high school experience. I have written about it in the past, but not recently.

The short version is that I was not verbally bullied (although there was an element of that) as much as I was socially ostracized. I was not invited to parties, to the movies, to go bowling, on sleepovers or to just hang out at the mall for a few hours on a weekend night. I had one close friend, but even our time outside of school was limited due to the fact that she lived 20 miles away, in another town. My class was very small and I spent the better part of six years very unhappy, including a stint in therapy for suicidal ideation.

When I graduated from high school, I made no effort to keep in touch with my classmates. As of today I am in regular contact with a total of 2 former classmates (3 if I count my brother) and the above mentioned friend is not on the short list, due to my realization that her social views had hardened instead of evolved.

After I graduated, I made no effort to keep my mailing address up to date and ignored reunion invitations. When mom and dad downsized to a smaller house last year, I destroyed my high school yearbooks, as I did not want a reminder of how unhappy I was.

I don't even hate my classmates. It is just as a group they represent a very painful part of my life that I prefer not to remember.

Thanks to technology, a former classmate found me on Facebook last week and sent a friend request, which I accepted.

The next morning she added me to the class reunion page and I learned that the next reunion is in a couple of weeks.

Since then, I have wrestled with whether I want to go or not. Part of me does, out of prurient curiosity and I admitted this to Jeff a couple of nights ago.

The other part of me is dealing with a mild anxiety attack, manifested as an inner shakiness, which started last evening at dinner and has continued unabated for most of today. It is not paralyzing, just the sensation of inter vibration coupled with the feeling that if I don't get up and move I will come out of my skin.

I don't know what to do with this anxiety. Even after 25 years I am not emotionally equipped to deal with a class reunion and I should pass on this one. But I feel cowardly.

79°F Sunny

Miscellaneous and More to Come

Mainly about our lovely, lovely neighbor, who will henceforth be known as "AN". I'll leave up to my one astute reader to determine what the "A" stands for.

AN especially enjoys throwing parties that start in the wee hours of the morning, after the bars close

I have sampling of his behavior, courtesy of one of his guests. At 7:30 on Sunday morning. But the video is not working right now.

I also have to fix a syncing issue with my journal application, as there are more details to come.

Every Day Something or Other Ouch

I try very hard not to write at work, or at least to write on my journal app during a break. But I had conversation with my mother this past weekend that has been gnawing at me in a small way that spotlighted the ongoing issue I have with feeling like she does not listen.

Mom and I were revisiting an old discussion about our schisms with the Catholic church. My issues go way back to grade school (I think) and I fell gradually away as soon as I felt I could do so without negative repercussions, starting in college.

Mom's last straw was seeing the implosion (for the lack of a better word) of a priest she truly admired and the revelation that the Catholic church covered up decades of sexual abuse of children.

It was in this context that she told me that my younger brother, when tapped to serve the early mass (as the Catholic school in which we attended was a great resources of involuntary servitude for the young men of the school, who were required on a rotational basis to serve at the morning and noon masses) refused to serve morning mass said by a specific priest unless my mother attended the service. This priest unsettled my brother out to the point that he would rather serve detention.

When I was young, there were times when I was forced to allow myself be manhandled by adults who made me feel distinctly uncomfortable under the guise of being polite. My protestations about my discomfort were set aside, I was told to "be nice" and that those individuals "meant no harm".

In short, under very similar circumstances, my brother was listened to. I was not.

Ouch.

Squeak

I dreamed of Squeak Saturday nigh. I took him to the vet. I had to park my car in a space without feeding the meter. I stood in line to check him in, realized that I had forgotten some papers, so I had to retrieve and stand in line again. He was sick, I would have to leave him overnight. The kennel section at the vet had a window facing the street. As I walked past, I could see a tech cuddling him. He was happy, snuggled against the tech's shoulder. He saw me as she it him down and looked at me. I held my hand up to the window, then walked away.
Now I am in tears. It has been a long time since he died. I miss him terribly right now, but I am strangely happy that my brain bought forth his memory so I could see him again.

27° Clear

-- So it has been a day and Squeak is remains in my thoughts. It was around this time that we bought Wigford home from the shelter, several months after Squeak died.

I still feel guilty about missing how sick Squeak was at the end of his life. He should not have to suffer the way he did. I've tried very hard not to make that mistake again. Letting go of Axel and Lucy Snowe was difficult, but there is not a moment that I doubt that I did the correct thing.

I have one photo of Squeak, an analog shot taken of him as a half-grown kitten sitting in a basket of clean laundry, being scratched behind his big ears by an old friend. I don't have his ashes (there was no money at that time for more than basic cremation). All I have is memory.

Twelve years and I still miss him so much.

Passings

I normally don't become sad when I learn about the death of a famous person. It always struck me as unseemly to invest emotional energy into mourning an individual that I don't actually know in real life.

Alan Rickman is different. I absolutely adored him as an actor and I am terribly sad to hear of his death. He one of my fantasy husbands, along with Martin Straka and Colin Firth. He was riveting onscreen. From all the stories I have read today, he was also a stand-up human being in his personal life as well. 

My first Rickman movie, was Die Hard. I did not know him as the Alan Rickman then. He was just this great British actor with amazing presence who made a run-of-the-mill action film extraordinary.

When I saw him again in Robin Hood, I did not recognize him as the same man who played Hans Gruber. I adored every single scene chewing moment he was on-screen. But I still had little idea of how good he was.

My eyes were opened in An Awfully Big Adventure. I rented the movie to watch Hugh Grant, but it was Rickman's performance, as an emotionally wrecked drunk who begins an affair with a young woman who does not love him and turns out to be his daughter, that caught my notice and Rickman's character who I connected with emotionally.

Sense and Sensibility left me officially smitten. From then until now, I knew that I would enjoy any movie in which he as a part and that has turned out to be true.

I've spent most of today reading through the conversation of his death on Metafilter, watching clips of his movies and public appearances and trying very hard not to cry.

A Tequila Sunrise and More Contemplation

Back in the office today. It was nice to interact with grown adults, even if most of my day was spent looking at data tables, trying to ascertain which needed updated to complete updates the data model I work on.

Still wrestling with whether to invite J's family to dinner. The more I think about it, the more I would rather just limit it to my family. I don't think I can deal with the bullshit and inviting four to six additional people to act as buffers would not be a solution, just piling on additional stress.

In truth, the anticipation is probably worse than what will happen in real life. Or not.

I'm having a lot of moments of silently simmering anger towards J and I don't know what to do about that either. I anticipate another one occurring shortly as I hear the garage door going down, which means he is done working on the kitchen table for the night.

I can't quite pinpoint where this round of frustration is coming from, just that it is here. Today it was walking in the door after work and seeing the sink filled with dishes, even though I've asked him repeatedly to keep in clear so I can cook more easily. Then him asking, *while I'm in the middle of cleaning up something* if there is anything he can do for me. If I tell him the truth, to look around, see what needs done and *just do it* he'll just get pissy and complain.

Then there is the fact that when he gets a DVD from Netflix, it can linger around the house for a week and it is not a big deal, but when I get one he goes two days maximum before he starts nagging me about watching it.

Either that or this is displacement anticipatory stress of having to care for Linus by myself for 11 days manifesting itself in some strange, strange ways.

Like the burning desire to order the medium 1904 Porter Rough and Tumble bag in Tabasko waxed cotton canvas, the same style I saw in Toad & Company in Freeport. Roughly three weeks and I am completely obsessed with the silly thing. To keep myself from buying it, I paid all the bills (credit card with the new bed tomorrow) and moved $500.00 into savings. Now I just need to freeze the credit card to keep myself from charging it.

It does not help that the bag is EXACTLY the size I have been looking for and would make an amazing replacement for my nylon Fossil bag, which is s.l.o.w.l.y falling apart. Or that I just spent a goodly amount of money on a leather Frye satchel that suits all my needs very, very well and has garnered quite a few compliments since I purchased it with some of our tax refund money last spring.

The mantra that I don't need the bag, I just want the bag is not helping right now, no matter how true it is. I honestly don't need this bag. I have the Frye, the Fossil will survive for several more years, the Sherpani Verona is an excellent replacement for the Fossil, the Timbuk 2 is holding up phenomenally well, and I have an additional bin of miscellaneous purses and totes that need to be discarded before I buy anything else.

What I need is to figure out what I'm trying to fill by buying the bag, and take care of that instead.

Tricky

I am contemplating a dilemma this evening.

Family (my parents, both siblings, siblings spouses and possibly two dogs) are coming to the house to celebrate an early Thanksgiving, the weekend before Thanksgiving to be precise. Since we no longer exchange gifts (or try not to at any rate), my father's only desire for the holidays is that we share a meal together.

So we shall, in my big comfortable house. With new furniture in the living room and refurbished dining room chairs.

The dilemma? Should we invite J's family to this dinner? Have I lost my mind?

The instinct of general etiquette suggests it would be a decent and honorable thing to do.

The instincts of past history of hosting my in-laws are screaming “hell no”. The last time we hosted J's family, his father waited until an hour after I put the food away (which had been sitting out untouched for over an hour before I cleaned it up) to pull out two frying pans and cook hamburgers he had bought with him “because he was hungry again”. Which meant another hour in the kitchen cleaning up the pans, silverware and additional dishes.

We have kicked around some ideas that might make it easier, such as inviting the parents of both my sister in laws. But then it also occurred to me that I both my brothers that it was ok for them to bring their dogs - which means that I have to allow J's niece to bring her dog too. And if what J's parents are reporting is true, her dog is showing signs of aggression towards other people and I don't want an aggressive animal in my home.

(You know what pisses me off? When I clearly state to J that I am writing, only to have to deal with him being affectionate towards me even though attention from him is the last fucking thing that I want at that moment. I don't want loving gestures, I want to be left the fuck alone to think and form sentences.) 

– End rant. I love J, but I really wish that he could hear “I'm writing” as “leave me alone right now”.

So I did what any sane person in this day and age would do. I wrote to the hosts of the podcast Awesome Etiquette to see how they would answer the question.

In the meantime, I will consider my options.

Settled and Sunday

I made a trip to see my parents. They put their much loved, but difficult to maintain home up for sale and moved to a small cottage in a retirement community. Both of them acted out in expected fashion prior to the move on Monday. My mother was argumentative, my father obsessively packed random objects in the middle of the night. My brothers helped them move into the cottage, I came out this past weekend to help unpack boxes and see what they need to be settled and comfortable. I now have a list that includes a non-slip bath mat for the guest bath, a pair of pretty slippers for my mom and a couple more sets of new towels of the bath and kitchen variety.

My dad pointed out a box and bag, set aside for me to take home. The bag held some quilts and shams. The box contained the rest of their wedding silver, including my favorite pair of silver candlesticks, two birth certificates, the one from the hospital marked “baby number 2”, and some miscellaneous items from college and high school.

There was one carefully wrapped object that turned out to be a photograph of me at age sixteen, dancing with my maternal grandfather at a family wedding. I was genuinely surprised that my mother let the picture go, as she adored her father and it is one of the last photographs of him healthy and vibrant. Shortly after that wedding he became incapacitated by a series of strokes and died a month before I turned nineteen.

I am glad she let it go, as I adored my grandfather too and she has all but admitted that I was he favorite grandchild of both her parents.

Family Vacation Planning

I have a lot to talk about. Some of it is even worthy of dusting off my blog and publishing. About how cute it is that Kayne West is such a fan boy of Beyoncé. How awesome that the Day One application actually has auto-correct for Beyoncé.

I could talk about my doctor-mandated weight loss/food lifestyle makeover and how that is going (surprisingly well, thank you). I could talk about the umpteenth bone scan my mother will have, due to suspicions that the cancer has metastasized to her spine. I will need to talk about that if the scan shows cancer, as I will need to create some response scripts to the inevitable raft of “well meaning” comments and questions.

Or I could talk about family vacations. Specifically extended family vacations, the kind you take with your parents, your children, your siblings, their spouses and their children and live in a single space for a week or so.

About the fact that J's sister, who does not pay for the home rental, is able to dictate the time (first week in August) and the place (Outer Banks) over the wishes of the rest of the family.

After last year, J's parents said they going to start renting a houser earlier in the summer, as July-August was hot, a bit uncomfortable and expensive due it being high tourist season.

When J and I learned that they were returning to the Outer Banks in August we sent a list of alternate suggestions. Included in the list were islands such as Mackinac, beach towns on the New England East Coast and Nova Scotia. All cooler places with lots of family activities.

All rejected. The explanation given was that J's sister did not want to deprive her children of a beach vacation as that is where the rest of their classmates went in the summer. It has to be in August because they would miss other activities if it was not.

Did I mention that she doesn't pay for the house rental and that we suggested beaches? Or that one of J's brothers actually hates the beach and would also enjoy going somewhere different.

J and I have decided that we are not going this year and are looking into visiting Nova Scotia instead, if I can get Boy Alien's passport organized in time. J's parents have asked if we are interested in taking a weekend trip to Mackinac Island with them in the spring, sans the other siblings. I said yes, as it is on the list of places J's mom has always wanted to see and I think they are offering it as a way of soothing over the bad feelings.

My frustration with her does not end with vacation planning. J's sister holds some strident pro-life views, which are about to run smack into the end-of-life care decisions that my family may be making in the near future.

My mom is going for another bone scan. She broke a rib due to tripping over a coffee table and is experiencing a tremendous amount of pain in her back, possible signs that the breast cancer has metastasised to her bones.

She has already stated that she will not go through chemotherapy again. If the cancer has metastasised to the bone, treatment would be pointless in light of her other health issues. It would not extend her life and would severely limit the quality of whatever time she has left. My brothers and I understand and accept that a return of cancer means she will elect palliative care.

J's sister will not understand this. If her prior comments on the subject are an accurate reflection of her beliefs, she is a big proponent of “by all means necessary” to extend the length of a life without regard to the quality of such a life. She would interpret my mom's refusal of treatment as affront to this belief.

She is intellectually lazy. Suggestions that she try to understand by reading about the mechanics of dying or learning what it means to have a severe illness with comorbidity are not viable, as scientifically-based sources will conflict with her world view.

And she will not respect any boundaries I attempt to put around the subject. Although I have asked J to handle this issue with his family, I have no doubt she will attempt to make her thoughts known directly to me. She will harangue and harass until she believes her point is made and play offended when I tell her that my mom's decisions are not her concern.

I could be completely catastrophizing this entire thing. The bone scan could come back negative for cancer, rendering this whole entry moot. It could come back positive and J's sister could act like a decent human being.

I'm not holding my breath.

34° Fog

The Thing About an Abusive Relationship

Note: I've turned off comments for all posts, as I have no desire to open myself up for attack from the legions of assholes.

Sometimes it takes a while to learn that you are in one. Especially if he doesn't hit you.

In March 2007, I wrote a brief entry about a bad relationship. It was written in a light-hearted tone, the kind I would take when swapping dating and breakup horror stories among a group. When you tell those kind of stories, you downplay the really horrible parts and focus on that one aspect of the relationship that screams "bad match!" You don't want to bring the rest of the group down.

Since I wrote that post I've done some reading. Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear. Rosalind B. Penfold's Dragonslippers: This is What an Abusive Relationship Looks Like. Kate Brennan's In His Sights. I recently finished Lundy Banecroft's Why Does he Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. In between there have been blog posts, articles and essays. There have been multiple hundreds-of-comments long threads at Metafilter and an especially excellent entry on Sick Systems at Live Journal.

All that reading to confirm what I always suspected, that he was abusive and I was lucky.

So I downplay the really horrible parts.

I talk about the arguments we would have whenever we went out in public together. But I don't talk about how those arguments lasted hours, until I was exhausted, demoralized and ready to agree with anything he said just to end the "discussion".

I don't talk about how those argument were primarily him accusing me of wanting to fuck other men and hours of him haranguing me for denying it.

I talk about him sulking when he felt like he was not getting his way about something. But I don't talk about how he would freeze me out and refuse to speak to me for days.

I don't talk about how he never allowed me to stay over at his apartment and flat out refused to spend more than ten minutes in mine.

I don't talk about the comments he would make about my body. About how he would dump me if I gained weight but expected me to stay with him no matter how he changed.

I don't talk about the time he deliberately tried to get me pregnant. Because to say it out loud meant admitting that he was escalating from verbal abuse into something much more dangerous.

When I tell the breakup story, I don't tell the part where he called me at 2:00 AM wanting to discuss things.

I don't talk about how I would go out of my way to avoid him for the rest of the time I was in school. How I would look for him where ever I went, mentally planning escape routes in case he our paths crossed.

I don't talk about how I took J to a mutual classmate's wedding after our second breakup, as I knew that was the only way to keep him from approaching me.

After the first breakup I went back to him because I genuinely believed I was the problem. I left the second time because I figured out that I was not.

But I'm not any smarter, more self-aware or more confident then other women. I figured it out sooner then most, soon enough to prevent any real permanent damage.

He was abusive. I was lucky.

Costco Tire Department, Sunday Afternoon

After what can only be described as a mediocre holiday, I decided to cap off the weekend with a quick run to Costco to pick up bread and honey. French bread, because it tastes as good as I am going to get without jetting to Paris, honey for J to make cherry mead.

As we are going on a road trip in a few weeks, I also stopped in the tire department on my way out to get a quote on a new set of tires.

I learned a few things. I learned that our vehicle had after-market rims in a weird size that Costco does not carry. I learned that the employees of Costco's tire department are incredibly competent, patient, polite and willing to walk out to your vehicle and examine the tires personally. I learned that one of them works as an EMT three days a week.

And I learned that the cold stare and silence is a very effective weapon when handling inappropriate comments about the management of children.

Especially when the child in question does not actually belong to you.

Ahead of me in line was a lovely man, of Indian nationality, in his thirties. He is equipped with empty stroller and the former occupant of the stroller, an adorable two year old girl. The gentleman was picking up his car and had some questions about the tire warranty. The little girl was wandering nearby and examining the various sized bolts and nuts stored in a rack of bins near the counter. I was standing several feet away from the gentleman, between him and the little girl, waiting my turn.

An elderly lady enters the tire area, looks at the little girl, looks at me and immediately says to me “Excuse me, your little girl is playing in the bins”.

I look at her, then away. I say nothing at first because I am confused. Why is she talking to me? I don't have a daughter.

So she is looking at the nuts and bolts. She isn't throwing them across the room, rolling them on the floor, attempting a juggling act or snacking on a nuts and bolts sandwich.

My thoughts move quickly from confused to annoyed. That she is assuming that I am the mother, even though there is zero resemblance. That I have sole responsibility for making a child stay away from the bins. That she is judging my ability to parent my non-existent daughter. That she felt that a child quietly going through bins of nuts and bolts was worth commentary, when an adult doing the same thing would provoke nary a response.

As I formulate a response, the lady speaks to me again. She repeats that the girl is playing in the bins, assuming I did not hear her the first time.

Now I am officially pissed. I give her a cold look and do not respond, turning my attention back to the counter. The silence draws out, becomes uncomfortable. Out of the corner of my eye I see the woman enter the beginning stages of anger.

Finally the man speaks. “Oh, that is my daughter” he says, with a laugh. The lady visibly relaxes, then states “She might mess up the bins”. The man shrugs it off. The clerk speaks up at this point and states that the nuts and bolts are primarily for display. The employees have a separate supply in the back. The point is dropped on all sides.

The lady isn't finished with me yet. She asks what I am doing there, am I picking up my car? I explain that I stopped in to get a quote on tires. She replies that she is checking to see if she can get her tires rotated today, if doesn't take too long. Then she looks me, an unasked question hanging in the air.

I pick up the subtext immediately. She wants me to cede my position in line so she can ask her question first. But she does not want to ask me directly. She wants me to offer to let her go first.

I begin to feel a touch bullied. Bad enough that I am getting subtle verbal chastisement over the supervision of my non-existent daughter. Now she wants me to offer, nay believes that I should offer to give up my place in line so she can ask her question?

I make a non-committal noise and turn back to the counter. The silence grows long again. The clerk finishes with the gentleman and turns back to the counter. I give him the size of the tires currently on the car and wait as he looks it up. The size he quotes me is not the the same - it is smaller, with a larger rim. I ask why they are different. He asks if we changed out the rims. I reply that I do not know, they are the tires that were on the car when we purchased it used. He offers to go out and take a look at my tires, to clear up the confusion and heads towards the back to get another employee to cover the front while he is outside.

The lady is not interested in waiting any longer. She finally asks me directly if she can get her question in before we go outside. I say yes. I have made my initial point. I can be gracious now.

She asks and receives and answer that she did not want to hear. She fusses briefly over having to bring her vehicle in on a weekday. Mercifully she is finished quickly and the clerk and I head outside, bread and honey in tow.

I get in my car, no longer angry but bemused. When you look close enough, I don't look young. I am fat and very out of shape, with grey in my lashes, brows and hair. The skin on my face is old and tired. There is significant flab on stomach that will never go away. The time when I could be mistaken for a teenager has long passed.

Yet there are still these moments. Moments when I am sized up at glance and found to be an easy target because I still look kind of young and I am female, therefore I need to be corrected. Moments in stores when someone will question me for allowing Boy Alien to walk 15 feet away from me to look at toys. I notice them, the quick glance at my hand to see if I am wearing a ring, the disapproving purse of the lips, the pointed questions to my son about the location of his mommy. I see it in the times that someone hovers a little to close to the counter, hoping to cut ahead. I ignore them.

And it wears me down.

75° Partly Cloudy
Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Cancer Strikes Again (Maybe?)

I’ve had two conversations with my parents in the last 24 hours. Yesterday was my bi-weekly check-in. Today was to return a phone call thanking me for the Mother’s Day flowers, accidentally sent three days too soon. I order from the same local florist’s website twice a year. This is the first time I forgot to check the delivery date, so mom got same-day delivery.

It was an interesting conversation and one of the rare times I could speak with my parents while they were both sober and coherent.

Last year’s breast cancer diagnosis was scraping the bottom of the shite barrel, as mom has had significant medical issues with her back, heart and intestinal system going back years. The deterioration of the vertebrate in her back is directly related to her years as a nurse, spent standing on her feet in bad shoes.

So it was disappointing, but not surprising to hear her tell me that she had fractured a vertebrate in her back and was in some pain. She mentioned it might be “mets” which I assumed was some sort of medical condition that affects the back. She explained that she was going to see a neurologist in Pittsburgh next week. I offered to try to meet them at the doctor’s office.

Today I asked her to clarify why she was going to a neurologist for a bone problem.  She explained when her back problems were diagnosed three years ago, the first doctor recommended surgery. She consulted two additional neurologists for opinions on how surgery would affect the spinal column. Majority rule said “no surgery”.

The conversation continued. No, her spinal column was not affected. Yes, it might be caused by the chemotherapy (my younger brother, D, asked the same question). “Mets” means metastasized.

“Oh shit” I replied, dropping the cheerful demeanor I have tried to cultivate when talking to her on the phone, as it is not the job of the cancer patient to reassure her loved ones. Reassure my mom did, I was finished babbling an apology for the inappropriate outburst.

“The bone scans don’t show anything but the fracture, so it is probably just that”.

My dad joined around that time, to express his relief that I sounded (and felt) better and had recovered from my first serious asthma attack. Those warnings about the late spring causing the pollen to be released all at once? No joke. I spent four days wheezing, coughing hard enough to pee myself and not sleeping, and six days inhaling, snorting or popping a medication every four hours. It was a misery I don’t care to repeat any time soon.

My dad (“not to be political”) blamed it on global warning. My mom commented that D was doing much better after several years on allergy shots. I pointed out that he started sooner and that I would not be as bad as I am if I had started shots four years ago, when the symptoms started getting serious. I am supposed to see some improvement by the end of the summer, but it could take longer. At the very least, I am able to take the shots without visibly flinching, so I guess that is something.