Inland Empress

I'm as bad as I feel

I spent most of today trying to locate a part of me, however remote, that doesn't ache.

Left little toenail?

Aches.

Right earlobe?

Aches.

Hair on the back of my left knee?

Aches.

Freckle on the end of my nose?

Aches.

Ahhhh ... choo. Flu season has come early to the palace, and with it the strong desire to never open my eyes again. All that light! And the air feels so heavy. It presses down on every pore.

Most of the time, it feels like every tissue in my body is dissolving into plasma mush, and the molecules are furiously rearranging themselves. I can feel it. There's a whole lot of activity going on at the cellular level, and it's bugging me. Knock it off! Either kill me or go away already. Sheesh.

As bad as I have it, it's much worse for the poor little monsterling, who's been sick since Thursday night. He's one big, green goober, huddling in front of "The Lion King" DVD until I've deconstructed the entire plot forward and backward and sworn to hunt down Michael Eisner and make him pay, dammit.

Provided I eventually get better, of course, which right now doesn't seem likely.

In the midst of all this fell Plosh's 41st birthday, which Minitaur celebrated by not sleeping. At all.

And I, trying to outdo my previous record for bad wifeliness, not only forgot to order Plosh's birthday present on time, but sent him off to work that day without so much as a goodbye kiss. I had to actually call him to sheepishly say, "Happy Birthday."

Someone at work made him brownies -- now how d'ya think that made me feel? I didn't even offer to make him a sandwich.

And now this: the flu. Plosh has been Super Dad, remaining motionless for an hour or more while Minitaur slept against his shoulder. Plosh fixed him meals and force-fed him Motrin and struggled to make sense of what Minitaur's trying to say between frantic sobs.

Me, I'm doing this. Not sure how much longer I can sit upright. Maybe I can just rest my tired, aching head on this comfy-looking keyboard. bnbvtg8cderfx5gtytfgyhbnjuikmyhgt6hfzzzzzzz ...

On the plus side, I now don't need a flu shot.

Flu Haiku

Fevered thrashing,
a plaintive cry in the night:
He wants his Mommy.

When honesty maybe isn't the best policy

I'm in the mood for a daredevil stunt, something that will get my heart pounding like 200 cups of Starbuck's. Something that will bring me as close to a near-death experience as I can get without having to drive.

Lessee ... maybe I can apply for a job, blog about the pros and cons, mention some blather about the job lacking passion, and conveniently forget my blog URL is on my resume.

Doesn't that sound scary?

Just to up the ante, let's say the people who aren't supposed to be reading this (ie, my prospective boss and co-workers) are very computer-savvy folks.

Which of the following scenarios occurs:

A. The boss offers me the job anyway, and is classy enough to never mention he read my blog. That is left to someone else in the department, who sends me a "friendly" warning to not step on any more eggshells;

B. The boss never gets back to me and offers the job to someone else. I can only guess the reason after a would-be co-worker clues me in via email;

C. The boss is bold enough to admit he read my blog, sending me a snarky email about why he's not offering me the job after all;

D. The boss emails a lovely note thanking me for my candor, explains his side of matters, and encourages me to keep writing.

Oh, ha ha ha, you think. Anne, that last one's just so funny! As if!

Okay, c'mon, guess. Which is most likely? Based on actual human behavior as we know it?

If you guessed "C" you'd be ... wrong.

It's D. Yeah, I'm still rubbing my eyes too. But I told you they were a nice bunch.

I don't have a formal job offer, but it's pending. Seriously. Can't tell you why. Secret negotiations stuff and the like.

Now all I have to do is figure out if I can afford to take it on the salary they're offering, which is just slightly less than what I'd need to make this viable.

And, by the way, in case you're reading this (and you know who you are), you folks are THE BEST.

Quick, where's the shotgun?

They met through JDate sometime over the summer. He insisted he wanted someone tall, athletic, preferably blond, not too religious, with a professional career and Ivy League education. No kids, no pets, no divorcees.

She is short, dark-haired and gets to the gym occasionally. She has a four-year-old boy from a previous marriage and a dog. When she’s not doing a little catering here and there, she’s a part-time Cantor and teaches Hebrew (i.e., she’s very very religious).

Knowing she met zero items on his checklist, she gave him a call anyway.

That was back in June sometime. The wedding’s in December. And, oh yeah, a few weeks after a doctor told her she was all but completely infertile, turns out she’s preggers.

He is Brother #4, the youngest of the siblings and a former frat boy and reformed beach bum. He called today to give us the good news. He seemed happy and relieved. After nearly 39 years of waiting, he gets his family ready-made, as if making up for lost time.

I’m the only immediate family member who hasn’t met his beloved, whom I shall dub the Cantor, so I can’t say much more than I’m thrilled for them both and confident we’ll all get along. Anybody who could get Peter Pan to grow up and like it must have her shit together.

He’d dated his last girlfriend on and off for three years before they finally pulled the plug. This time everything clicked for him. Plosh and I knew we were right for each other within a few weeks, and he proposed after six months. My father proposed to Mom three months after meeting her.

Since this is the Cantor’s second time down the aisle, the wedding will be a quiet, casual affair, most likely a brunch on the Sunday after Chanukah ends (immediately before Christmas) which will make getting airline tickets tough.

Ah, so what. I’m so happy I’m going to go make her some jewelry.

My left boob

... doesn't have cancer. This is very good news.

While this has been the normal state of affairs since I've had boobs, it became a bigger deal after a routine mammogram last month showed bright spots that indicated tiny calcium deposits forming in the tissue. In 15-20% of cases, it's cancerous.

I've undergone another whole set of mammograms, three doctors consultations and a needle biopsy -- the latter on Wednesday at the crack of dawn on a stormy day, sending me wading through flooded streets to the hospital. I could've swum there.

I got the call that it was benign just before 5 p.m. Friday, so I didn't have to lose sleep over the weekend.

I didn't plan all this to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, mind you. But there you have it: I am very much more aware of breast cancer now.

On a serious note, this awful disease is striking down a lot of wonderful women I know. Breast cancer kills 40,000 women in the U.S. each year. One in nine American women is expected to contract breast cancer sometime in her life. If I made a tally of my women friends and relatives, however, I think the number would be much higher.

So I figure my personal circle of acquaintances has more than used up its quota, which is why I was spared ... this time.

Meanwhile, I have little bits of calcium floating around my boobs that don't belong there. To keep doctors from worrying about them again next year, they inserted a titanium chip the size of a pin head into my boob that will pop up on future mammograms.

They promised I wouldn't set off airport security, but that does conjure up a rather amusing scenario ...

Back to my regularly scheduled life. Thank G-d.

I've got ants in my pants -- and everywhere else

Did you ever see that B-movie from the 1950s about the giant ants that attack a small town in New Mexico? The fallout from atomic experiments made them about as big as houses, and the locals ward them off with flamethrowers. Completely creepy.

Anyone got a flamethrower I can borrow? I need to torch my house.

Our ants are about the size of a comma, but they make up in rapacity what they lack in girth. The weather is cooler so they’ve set up shop indoors, where they’ve become an affliction of Biblical proportions. I feel certain that if Moses had set these little suckers on pharaoh in, say, the first or second plague, he’d have caved in about a week and we’d have been sent into the desert in high style instead of on the run:

“Unleavened bread, bah! Here, Israelites, bake some Danish for the trip. Maybe a nice strudel. Just take the damn ants with you!”

Or something like that.

Consider:

The bugs are Argentinian ants, normally an aggressive breed that fights rival colonies to the death. They spray each other with acid, bite their antennae off and generally do not share nicely.

But like most illegal immigrants, they found life tough in their new country and decided to pool their resources and get along. And, like many of the downtrodden and frequently stomped on, they tend to have a few more babies than they can comfortably afford. Then they take jobs away from complacent, overfed domestic ants.

The Argentinian super-colony, as scientists dubbed it, now spreads through most of Southern and Central California and consists of uncountable billions of queens. Yes, queens.

So if there are billions of queens, how many worker ants do you think there are?

Yep, Biblical proportions.

Every morning we come downstairs to find a new conga line in our kitchen leading up to some overlooked crumb or unwiped grease spot. This morning, the equivalent of a new freeway snaked into our toaster oven, where a burned tater tot had become wedged.

Then Plosh found a nest in a box of cheese crackers. An entire nest. Ew.

They march in long, orderly formations up and around the garbage pail, around drains, through miniscule openings in windowpanes. We find ants on our son, in our hair, in our underwear.

The only thing that works is our orange-scented Fantastic, which instantly shrivels their evil little bodies. Die, ants, die! The Fantastic is effective for at least 5 or 10 seconds at a time. And then they put on their little ant hazmat suits and keep going.

I am therefore back where I started: anyone got a flamethrower?

(P.S. The actual factual information is recalled from memory from an LA Times article last year. We're not the only ones so afflicted; it just feels that way.)

A sour taste of heaven

Time for the sandwich maven! Today I'm inspired by Motomama, who's weighing whether to go vegetarian or not. We've been having the same discussion here in the palace, only I'm the one egging us on (no pun intended).

The hubby isn't against it, he's just wary, especially because his lactose intolerance (no dairy) and cholesterol woes (no eggs) would effectively make him vegan.

In any case, his lips will never taste this pungent sandwich, perfect for a fall day now while the best apples are still abundant. Pick one that holds up to heat, such as Roma, Macintosh or Fuji. Soft varieties such as Gala and Delicious tend to fall apart and lose their flavor. Or you could go the extra sour route and use Granny Smiths. Pucker up!

Sandwich Maven's Sour Melt

2 slices sourdough bread
brie cheese
1/2 apple, peeled, cored and sliced into thin wedges

Warm a non-stick griddle or frying pan over medium heat while you assemble the sandwich. Spread the brie cheese on one slice as best you can without crushing the life out of the bread. Try and balance the apples atop the cheese so it doesn't immediately topple out when you stick the other slice of bread on top.

Using a spatula, gingerly put your assembled sandwich on the griddle. Heat for 1-2 minutes on the first side, then flip and heat for no longer than a minute on the other. All you're trying to do is warm and soften the ingredients so they stick together.

If you're one of these wimpy types that won't eat the brie rind, this sandwich isn't for you. Using just the soft middle will create a mess, not a sandwich. Look for the fattiest brie you can find: the percentage of cream is usually written on the package. Forty percent is good, sixty percent is better.

If you like the sandwich idea but still hate brie, substitute slices of the strongest cheddar you can stand.

Serve with a mug of spiced apple cider or a strongly flavored herbal tea.

The perfect job -- or not?

If I took the time to imagine the perfect office, it'd sprawl on an idyllic, tree-lined campus with a gourmet cafeteria, numerous patios for eating and shmoozing, and a huge gym with spotless equipment of every variety. It'd be next door to a superb pre-school where I'd receive a steep tuition discount.

Every employee would have his or her own office -- no dehumanizing cube farms. You could eat off the bathroom floors, they're so spotless.

My co-workers would be a little older so I'd still have room to grow, but they'd be hip, good-looking and progressive and passionate about the environment and community service. They'd all have kids too, and have a lenient view of working from home, despite official policies to the contrary. They'd insist that job titles didn't matter, everyone's a team and responsibilities shift as needed. The boss hires smart people and then turns them loose -- he isn't into hovering or hectoring.

The firm would allow "time banking" so if you work extra hours one week, you can take a day off the next, or save your days to add onto your vacation. They'd have a generous 401k and an enviable range of benefits.

Sound too good to be true? Okay, let's throw in a couple of negatives: they'd be a bit of a commute and in the wrong direction -- further from L.A. And the pay would be correspondingly crummier.

That's the company I interviewed with today.

I'm going for a copy editing job in the book publishing arm of a software firm. Most of the department's composed of ex-news junkies like myself. And you seriously never saw a bigger collection of hot-lookin' 40- and 50-something hipsters outside of New York.

They loved me. I passed an earlier editing test with "flying colors." But I passed another, more significant test today:

Lack of passion.

Not one person there loved his or her job. Not one. The books are technical and dull, the authors are illiterate dolts, many got their contracts because they're buddies of the owner/CEO, the production pace is glacial.

But they love the company and each other. Everyone goes home after their eight hours is up (people more or less set their own hours) and then their real lives begin, whether it's family time or poetry workshops or painting, among the pursuits people mentioned.

When they asked why someone with a stellar resume such as mine (nice ego stroke, that) was doing in a place like this, I answered instinctively and honestly. I'd burned out on reporting, had enough of 60-70 hour weeks, and just wanted a nice place to work with smart, funny, cool people.

I go back for another round of interviews Thursday, but I'd really have to kill someone to blow it now. I'm pretty much in. But do I want it? Do I want to just pass time and collect a paycheck, however much I like the place?

Is this all there is?

Rejection letter haiku

Dear fill in the blank:
Sorry for the form letter
and thanks for the stamp

Unsafe at every speed

Living in the L.A. metro area means making peace with the freeways that criss-cross the landscape like fine webbing, something I've had difficulty doing. In our case, it's the 210, which connects San Bernardino to Pasadena, but also links other freeways that'll get you to Las Vegas or Phoenix.

A busy stretch of road, in other words.

Ah, there's nothing like rolling out of bed in the morning and landing on an entrance ramp. It's right at the end of our subdivision. Good for my husband, who commutes. Bad for me: I race walk. So a morning stroll puts me square in the middle of frantic, light-jumping commuters and pits me against SUVs and semis with only puny 2-lb. weights to defend myself.

Dang, but my manufacturer forgot to include side-impact air bags or a steel frame. Too late to upgrade my model now; I think I've depreciated some in 41 years.

Our house is about 60 yards from the sound wall that supposedly blocks the noise, but only if you're on the ground floor or have double-paned windows. Most nights I can manage to drift off as traffic eases up close to midnight, but then it zooms into full gear just before dawn.

It's worse in Minitaur's room and I sometimes wonder if it contributes to him waking up 5, 6, 7 times a night and needing to be tucked in again (and again).

Of course we were warned when we bought the house that the road would be coming through. The construction was pretty thrilling, I must admit, as they dug under the main road to create the overpass and ramps, and then we witnessed the 210's slow birthing pains as oversized machinery dug, leveled and paved it into existence.

Upland even celebrated with a street fair a few days before the ribbon-cutting. How many times in your life do you get to walk on a freeway? I mean, without having broken down, of course.

We strolled a mile up and back and then hiked up the exit ramp to our house, pausing to admire a display of antique cars and re-fuel our bellies at a food booth. The outing inspired me to write a short story about gasoline prices skyrocketing to the point where people have to abandon their cars and ride bikes or walk everywhere, and all of a sudden we start acting nicer too. It never sold.

The freeway debut provided one of the few fond memories I have of a California superhighway. Otherwise, my hate affair with the automobile remains furiously stoked. If there's a devil, he drives a car, a big-gas guzzling honker.

He smirks when we waste hours each day in traffic. He delights at how much money is sent to prop up Saudi feudalism. He smiles upon scofflaws who add to the coarsening of our society by ignoring traffic laws and running lights. He lets out a lusty "mwa-ha-ha" at those who grow obese in part because they have no opportunity to walk off a few pounds now that our communities are built for the convenience of drivers instead of pedestrians.

I hate driving. I hate losing my husband an extra two hours a day. I hate worrying each time I wave goodbye from the top of our driveway that the next time I see him, he'll have been pulled one piece at a time from the twisted wreckage of his aging, diminutive sports car. When he's late, I don't want the phone to ring. I'm afraid it'll be the county coroner or CHP.

And then I lie awake at night, waiting for the nearby roar of souped-up engines and lousy mufflers to subside just enough for me to fade into a troubled sleep.