I entered into a whole new relationship with my left arm when I accidentally broke its elbow. I immediately felt very protective of it, checked in with it a lot, and joked about it with friends. I even named it. So in certain ways, it was kind of like having a penis for the first time. 

Angela (pronounced with a hard "g" like Germany's Angela Merkel) was so named because I couldn't straighten her out to 180°. After my operation, when I brought her home, uncasted, from the hospital, she was asleep all the way down to my finger tips. This is because the doctors had intentionally left a tube in my shoulder that was dripping some kind of numbing fluid from a canteen-like vessel. I described this construct to my friend Lizanne when she called me to see how I was doing. Her response: "Numbing fluid? Canteens? What is this F-Troop?" You probably need to be at least 45-years-old to understand how perfect that is.

The drip thing lasted for two days, and Angela stayed comatose all the while, at one point swinging away from my body when I leaned over without my sling. The move was sudden, unexpected and unpleasant, and I impulsively made the scared reaction noise "Nyahhhhh!" made popular by The Three Stooges in the 1930's. Skeeved, I decided to sit down and have a talk with Angela about our future together. It went like this:

Me: Angela that move you just made scared the crap out of me and I was hoping that we could start working together as a team. I want you to know that I'm going to do everything in my power to make you as healthy and strong as my other arm, which shall go nameless. What are your thoughts? 

Angela:

That's when I realized that this whole healing thing was on me. Angela's unresponsiveness left me feeling alone and castrated. When the numbing drip ran out of anesthesia and Angela woke up, she was more like a crying child with hunger pangs who would only eat one thing, Oxycodone. After that, it took a natural disaster, in the form of a blizzard, to make her try something new. The snow and wind left us stranded in my house, going it alone for two days. And of course there was no way that Angela and I could work together to open the PUSH DOWN & TURN child-resistant bottle of narcotics. It didn't even seem like she was trying. So the next time she needed a fix, I gave her some Motrin that was lying around in a plastic sandwich bag. It seemed to do the trick.

Angela: That Motrin was okay, but I like Oxycodone better.

Me: I miss it too.

Since bonding over our shared love for the effects of narcotics, Angela and I have been working well together. Her range of motion has progressed from 90° to 160° and she's helping out with light typing, housework and hygiene. This kind of helpfulness is something a penis could never bring to the table, so I'm grateful for what I have. I don't really know why I was so keen to have one in the first place. It must have been the pain killers. 

I broke my elbow while looking for a comet the other night. Frolicking frozen on foot with friends, I entangled my legs with my pal Elizabeth's and went down fast and hard on the pavement. But it wasn't her fault. It was just a dumb accident. That said, Elizabeth can no longer appear in public without retribution. "I heard you broke Connie's arm," is what people are saying to her at the Stop and Shop.

I saw this blame game coming, and had there been no witnesses, I could have told people that I'd slipped on black ice. Since it was pitch black when I fell, I could even have claimed that it was black-on-black ice. Then most people wouldn't have cared about it:

"I don't know anyone who goofs around in the dark of night and slips on frozen pavement. So black-on-black ice doesn't affect me. People like Connie do this to themselves. Is anyone else feeling as self-actualized as I am?"

If it had gone down this way, Elizabeth would still be free to shop locally, which ironically is what the people who needled her out of town are always harping at everyone to do.

When I fell down that night, though my elbow seared with pain, it was the nausea that made me understand that I had broken my arm. Not wanting to ruin anyone's time, I stood up and brushed myself off. Brushing yourself off is code for "I couldn't possibly be hurt. Coat-smudge is my top priority right now."

Feeling a little crazy and registering vaguely the sweet and concerned "Are you okays?" coming from the mouths of my friends, I said I thought I'd be fine. 

"It hurts though," I said, "so I'm gonna turn around and find Bo.   Please keep going though or I'll be sad, okay?" They reluctantly agreed and Elizabeth and I turned back.

I was so relieved when my safety headlamp shone on Bo that I teared up in my mouth just a little. He was bringing up the rear, laughing with his friends. Bo is my husband and an orthopedic surgeon. I figured he would tap into my anguish in one or the other of those roles. Maybe even both.

"You're kidding, right?" he said when I told him that I had fallen, hurt my elbow and wanted to head back.

"She's not kidding," Elizabeth assured him. "She fell. It made a bad noise."

He inhaled through his closed teeth, "Ssssssss! Ouch! Sorry Sweetie!" And then, "But I still can't tell if you're kidding. You could just want to go home because you're cold."

At this point, I reached up with my good arm and pointed my headlamp straight down, witch-face style, only with overhead lighting.

"Okay, she's crying," he said to his friends. "I'm going with her." Then, to me softly, "I really thought you were kidding."

"It's okay," I said, relieved to have him on board. Then, cradling my throbbing arm, I turned and power-walked the half-mile or so back to the car, never looking back. Elizabeth was beside me all the way. When we got there, she asked, "Wait, where's Bo?"

"He probably had to pee," I said.

A few minutes later, he materialized. "Sorry, I had to pee," he said.

It was bedtime for the kids, and I followed their voices through the house to find them.  In the living room, something odd on the couch caught my eye. "Ouch," I thought, when I zeroed in on it, because what I saw was a Sharpie marker swipe on one of the cushions. Sharpie marker doesn't come off, and now this dark streak was going to be part of the couch's permanent record. I added this misfortune to the list of reasons why everybody hates permanent records.

I called out to Margot and Greta, “Hey guys, will you come in here for a sec?” When they appeared, I pointed to the black mark and asked, “Do you know how this got on the couch? It stinks because it's not gonna come off.” 

They both looked blankly at the stain. 

“So neither one of you did this?” I asked. "I mean I'm sure it was an accident."

They both shook their heads.

“Okay, well thanks anyway,” I said, and then the whole bedtime thing proceeded as it normally would have.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, I saw that someone had pushed a page, hotel invoice style, under my door: 

I smiled, proud that Margot thought to attach the large post-it note to a slick piece of copy paper when she discovered its poor sliding performance. The idea of having to rewrite the admission of guilt on something with more glide, in cursive no less, would have been unpalatable to her. Then my heart scrunched up to think of her, up and alone while she completed this sad and stealthy mission, possibly wearing a headlamp. I got up and grabbed the note to show Bo, relieved, but not surprised that she decided to stick with the truth.

                    

Because they exaggerate their importance, come from a place of underlying weakness, and expect to be doted upon, sneezes are the showy narcissists of protective human reflexes. Sneezes are always met with fawning remarks, such as "Gesundheit!" ("Health!" in German) and of course, "Bless you!" This dynamic is unfair to coughs, which do similar work but are always met with words such as, "Cover your mouth, you sick bastard." 

Gushing over sneezes makes even less sense when you consider that they're usually grosser and always more dangerous to bystanders than coughs. A sneeze can send tens of thousands of bacteria-filled, microscopic droplets into the air at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. On the other hand, coughs typically deliver around 3,000 droplets at 50 mph. This is a more prudent approach to clearing pollutants from our upper airways and should be recognized. Perhaps we should say "Gute albeit!" ("Good work!" in German) to anyone who coughs. Whatever. It really doesn't matter what we say to coughers, as long as it's in German.

Why all the well wishing to sneezers? The practice started thousands of years ago when they knew that anyone who sneezed was probs gonna die. But even back then, the sneezing part of a cold only lasted a day or two. If you survived that, the coughing phase could go on and on and on, which was irritating to fellow townspeople. Many sick bastards, relieved at having lived through all the sneezing, were clubbed to death because of a nagging cough. 

Discrimination against the cough should not continue because science has shown us the benefits of this healing reflex. But the matter will soon be moot, because the common cold has pretty much been eradicated by people sneezing and coughing into their inner elbows. 

Our Westie dog, Isa, has been limping around, not using her right rear leg. The vet, thinking that Isa may have a torn ACL, put her on bed rest today. "What does that mean exactly?" I asked, "because this dog is a person with no control over her impulses. Just watch what happens when I free associate with her." I turned to Isa. "Reesaronie-onaroo (it's a nickname), I'm going to hold up a flash card with a drawing on it. When I do, please hold up a corresponding image from your pile of cards. Okay. Ready? Here goes." I then held up a drawing of a squirrel.

Isa pawed her cards around on the vet's metal table and picked one up with her teeth. "Let the record show that she's mouthing a photo of people running from a tsunami," I said.

I held up a drawing of a bird.

Isa held up her card -- "Okay," I said. "This is some kind of ring of fire."

Then I showed her a drawing of a dog watching another dog on TV.

Isa held up her card -- "It's a grainy black and white photo of a mushroom cloud."

"Don't you see doc?" I asked. "Isa is a girl who can't be on bed rest. She jumps to the wrong conclusions, and then makes sudden, ungovernable and aggressive movements.  She's happy to go about all this with just the three legs."

"Keep her in a small space, carry her outside to do her business and put her on a leash once she's out in the yard," the vet said. "Give me a call after four weeks and we'll see how her knee is doing."

On the way home, I tried to talk to Isa. "Mrs. Muroney (another nickname), first off, you're a low dog and I never knew you had knees, so that's cool. Beyond that, I hope you heard what the doctor said. You're on bed rest now, for a month. I'm worried that you aren't going to get better if you keep flying off the handle."

"It's just hard for me to take four weeks off of my work detail," she said, "especially in autumn, when falling leaves could result in severe head lacerations. And you, Missy, with no alerts, could wind up in the freakin' hospital. But I'll do it to avoid surgery. I'm just gonna need you to fill in for me while I'm sidelined."

"Just give me a list," I said.

LIST

• the no fly zone around our house - bark like hell at any bird who enters it - don't worry i marked it all off
• rabbit pellet poop in the backyard - eat it and keep eating it until someone sees what you're doing
• the chipmunk who lives under the stone step at the back door - kill that crazy mo fo
• a wet suit hanging in the outdoor shower - i guess just keep your eye on that situation - the same goes for clouds
• when dad's home - follow him around the house with your concerned face on
• you know the drill on squirrels

Happier Days

"Get out of the tub, woman. We've got a situation."

Gifted and Talented Programs in elementary schools started in the upheaval and experimentation of the 1970s, and were then known as G & T Clubs.  Teachers, weary of overseeing kids with scraggly hair, sunburns, lawn dart injuries, fractured skulls and jean-made pants would meet for gin and tonics in a special room (the teachers' lounge) after pulling the smart kids out of class and dropping them off at the library for independent reading. 

Then, during the 1980's a national commission cited G & T Clubs as an example of how the quality of American schools had eroded. A quick-thinking representative of the American Federation of Teachers stated that it was all a misunderstanding -- and that the G stood for Gifted and the T stood for Talented. "Shit happens," said the commission, as people were wont to say back then, and the matter was dropped. Legitimate Gifted and Talented Programs were then put into place.

But problems persist, especially with the name of the program, which as we now know, was hastily thrown together. Calling the kids gifted and talented is off-putting and harmful to the children who are more dumb. Also, the words Gifted and Talented are redundant, which is poor writing, and hence not at all representative of these kids who are supposed to be able to string a good sentence together.

Here are some thoughts on how schools could address this issue: 

1. Change the name to Gifted and Talented: Academics, and rename all the clubs and sports teams in the same way. For example, the softball team would become Gifted and Talented: Softball. This tactic has worked extremely well for the producers of NCIS. 

2. Drop the word Gifted, which makes one feel as though these anointed kids wake up and eat frankincense and myrrh for breakfast (for those of you who don't know about frankincense and myrrh, it's what the wise men brought for baby Jesus to eat in the manger).

3. Keep the word Talented but put it in perspective for school kids by calling the group Born Lucky and Talented (BLT). This aw-shucks approach is more palatable to outsiders and it gives a wink to the original program from the 70's, which was named after something that tastes real good.

I've got a cold that has blown through me like it's a hurricane and I'm the Wait For It trailer park, just south of town. People give names to hurricanes, so I'm calling my cold Gus, which is short for Gusto and also Disgusting. Normally, I wouldn't gripe about my condition because really, who cares about someone else's cold? But Gus has been anything but common.

It's Wednesday morning now, and though I'm feeling a little bit so ravaged, I'm clearly on the upswing. Wasn't it just Monday morning, just two days ago, when I felt that little ahem-tickle in my throat? "Wait, am I getting a cold?" I asked myself. And then it happened -- that "Sixth Sense" moment when I realized I was already dead.  

By Monday afternoon, my throat was a sexual, free-for-all fire-pit for the lusty virus reproducing in my cells. Knowing that this was a real sin, my immune system released hordes of mucus nuns to fight the evil virus by entrapping it, and then making everyone involved feel dirty.

My usual cold remedies: Airborne, Motrin, Tootsie Pops and Hot Toddies* were ineffectual, so that night I sent my husband on a guest room sleep-away from my germs. Then I lay awake in our bed with unearthly pressure in my head. At one low point, I wanted to wake him and cry about my misery. But that would have been ridiculous overkill, like the people who phoned 911 when they got lost in a corn maze.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a blur. Did the Terminix Man come while I was watching Bob's Burgers? That may or may not have happened. All I know is that at about 7 pm, Bo came home with Werthers Original candy, Cepacol extra strength cough drops and Mucinex (both day and nighttime formulas). He had been asking around about cold remedies at work and put this combination together to surprise me. It worked and I slept through the night.

Right now I'm feeling good and I'm hoping that Gus stopped here. If not, I hope that no one can trace his awfulness back to me, as cold tracing is something that we're all wont to do. 

The Team

*Hot Toddy Recipe:
 Some Tea
 Some Agave Nectar
 Some Lemon Juice
 Some Goslings Dark Rum