Kitty Litter

Kitty Litter has been out and about hospitals and gyms for her health in the past three weeks, so pardon the lack of entries. I have, however, discovered the joys and comforts of the Asian Hospital and Healthway waiting rooms, which are a far cry from the horrid, cramped, hot, and depressing St. Luke's QC doctor's offices.

I just have one complaint: What is it with diabetes and needles anyway? Perhaps they make dinuguan or ketchup out of the liters they've taken out of me? Every time I go to my endocrinologist/diabetologist (Dr. Gatmaitan of Healthway Alabang, good guy!) he wants my blood. Seems he wants to check how much sugar I have in it. I can tell him: too much, but he doesn't believe me.

(Aside: My mother can't believe I have diabetes. I like salty food, and was being checked for my kidney health when they discovered my diabetes. Weird thing is it's my mom who has a ref full of chocolates at home. I can live without most sweets anyway.)

Through all the med tests and doctor's consultations, I'm glad I have a sense of humor, though Wynn observed that it verges on gallows and gross humor lately. I retorted, "Hey, I'm not the one who said, in a loud voice, in a crowded grocery, 'Baby, pass me a pack of sugar that doesn't look like a rat crawled on it.' And you made sure you had an audience."

One Friday two weeks ago I sat at home for three hours, was poked with a needle four times on both arms, and I discovered what a hematoma was. When someone sticks a needle into your arm and goes prospecting for the vein, well, I believe the word for it is "traumatic" and the resulting blotch on your skin looks like you've been mainlining some drug. All hail long sleeved shirts! Apparently the hematoma was the result of the technician poking around in search of a blood vein. There's quite a bit of fat in the way, something the technician wisely forebore to mention, perhaps fearing my wrath. Then last week, more blood, and horror of horrors: projectile urination. (It gets gross...er from this point on, so you've been warned.)

Lacking male organs and unable to rent them, I understandably am unable to direct urine in a clean stream. Urinating into a container is guaranteed to get me wet, in more ways than one. So imagine what it was like to have to pee four times into a tiny tube that looked like my cat's snot wouldn't fit in it. I half-expected the technician to cheerily announce, "Fill 'er up!" every thirty minutes, when she asked for a sample, but docile creature that I am, I didn't complain. What's funny is that people make a living out of examining piss and poop. They perform a valuable service, definitely, but don't ask me to sub for them.


Gym Things

I've also been going to the gym regularly to bring my weight down. My weight has gone steadily down, and that's good. At the gym, I entertain myself by playing Backstreet Boys dance songs on my mp3 player. You have no idea how well-suited their music, however corny, is to gym workouts. It's still a sight better than the songs the aerobics instructors play at thrice their original speed, and an octave higher to boot. If you've ever heard "My Humps" played at an even higher pitch than it already is, then you've had a sound preview of hell.

Even funnier are the people in the gym. There are few teens there; most, like me, look like they desperately need the gym. There's the requisite crowd of testosterone-y males who grunt, huff, puff, and drop their weights to attract attention to themselves. Too many of them like to sniff their armpits when they think no one is looking; too bad I have a mutant instinct for looking at the exact moment when people are adjusting their bra straps or briefs, picking their noses, or smelling their armpits. I'd trade this talent in for something more useful, like say a gaydar, anytime.

The women tend to be more focused on working out. I like working out because I'm alone, no one will bother me, and I get to think while my body tries to reach perfection (a state which I will reach, given my current standing, in a few hundred years, barring death and putrefaction). Unfortunately women can be very stupid; there are always one or two idiots who reapply makeup WHILE working out. Apparently they want to sweat in style.

Me? I just want to sweat. Now don't get me started on my gym clothes laundry, because that's an even worse thing. Do you work out at a commercial gym? I'll leave you with this image: When people work out, they often forget to bring hand towels, so they wipe away sweat with their hands then cling on to the equipment. Occasionally there will be one or two who will bestow the gift of their kulangot on the equipment; a souvenir of sorts.

I love going to the gym!

Labels: funny observations, gym antics, health

Last Sunday I accompanied my dad to this big bingo thingie at the World Trade Center. I had apprehensions about going because I've always feared bingo socials. My friend Kitty Kat (obviously not her name but to avoid getting sued someday, names shall be changed) once told me, seriously, of little old ladies in their province who would stretch their crutches out in the aisle to trip up winners of bingo prizes. Shudder.

But I had fun, and I even came close to winning a Honda City. We were cracking jokes; my boyfriend, Polar Bearball (you just gotta meet him) was making fun of the gigantic keys on the stage while he ran errands for us (taking my sister to her car, buying food and drinks, etc.)

When I was one number away from winning the Honda City, our tablemates got pretty excited, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited too. But G 56 simply wasn't to be. I decided to keep the non-winning card as a souvenir--which I promptly lost the next day. But I knew I would remember the day as being one I had a lot of silly fun in. I like silly days. They make good memories.

When I'd gotten over the disappointment of my loss, I headed off to buy ice cream. Ice cream cures all sorrows, after all, and sugar allotment be damned.

On my way to the ice cream stand, I noticed a guy at the other table, pounding his fists and bellowing and generally drawing attention to himself. Turns out he was also waiting for one more number, just like me; and like me, he'd missed it.

Kat Kit, my sister (not to be confused with Kitty Kat), lightened the mood by joking that we were destined for greater things: the lottery, Laban o Bawi, or Powerball (dollars!). And I had a good laugh as I played the remaining games. My dad had a few moments of excitement as he came four numbers close to a blackout for a million bucks.

Polar Bearball observed that every other table had to have someone with a similar sob story, and I found that thought funny.

I practically dragged Polar Bearball out of the place when the last game played out about two hours later. I wanted to eat, to murder some more student papers, and maybe catch the replay of CSI Miami (I have an unfortunate crush on David Caruso. I have no idea why.).

At the table near us, the same guy I'd noticed earlier was still looking pissed. He was still staring at his game card, and stabbing a finger in the direction of the number that was never called.

Labels: funny observations, Wynn

(Or, The Trouble With Brain Farts)

I got a Pocket PC just two weeks ago, and enjoyed every minute of the 72 hours I had it. Past tense.

It was supposed to be the reward I gave myself for working hard on lesson plans and editing lousy articles for six weeks straight. Now, I am not normally an OC person, but when I noticed a small blemish on the screen, out came my trusty Buddy Computer cleaner, and I spritzed the blemish until it came out with hard rubbing. I only noticed later that I’d soaked the screen completely, and that the liquid had seeped into the LCD.

Allow me to say that I am not normally this boneheaded (although that’s debatable), but it does prove my friend Michael’s theory: sometimes even smart people have to let out brain farts to maintain sanity. In my case I just wish my brain hadn’t done a gigantic fart that cost me such a large amount; in this case, it was my first paycheck as the assistant editor of a tony new bridal magazine.

“Argh,” my favorite expression, doesn’t even begin to cover it. For the sake of a small, rather negligible blemish, I lost a huge investment that I’d been looking forward to for months. That amount could’ve been spent on other, better things, or saved up for something else. The road to hell, good intentions: see the connection now, Charlie? Ah, yes, I’ve seen it before. I just forgot all about it.

Worse, all I get is sympathy. The last time I did something this stupid, people laughed at me, or downright rubbed my incompetent snout in what I’d done. Just as I deserved.

But my techie friend Marty moaned and sighed. He gave me a withering look…once. Then he left me alone. My boyfriend is even worse. When I told him what happened, he did what he does best: listened to me, sighed, then told me I was old enough to know the consequences. And damn it, did I ever.

But there are times when I know I need a major dressing down, and this was one of them. My boyfriend is intolerant of incompetence that hurts other people, but when I've bogged myself down in the process, he tends to just tell me off--once--and, having said his piece, keep any further thoughts to himself. Just once I wish he could break his rule and tell me off so that I can, well, get over it.

I am the talkative type; God knows I sometimes suspect I took on a teaching job to get an outlet for the never-ending “stream of fecal matter emanating from the nether regions of a male bovine quadruped,” to borrow a line from Buddy Tomas, author of Wala Lang. Strangely enough, though, I find myself completely silent when I’m alone. (But again, that's another story) And when that happens, there's no one else to blame, because the victim and the perpetrator of stupidity is one person. Me. Having someone else tell you off takes some of the guilt away.

Does this sound like I want a lecture? Probably. I want someone to tell me I was stupid. Amend that: I want someone I’m close to, whose opinion I trust, to tell me that I was a downright idiot. I know it. Perversely, though, I think it’ll sink in better when someone tells me about it.

I guess this is a mental fart brought on by overwork, and my current obsession with making our domicile something neater than a hamster nest. I wanted the PPC clean because I was going into the lair of the yuppie, Makati. I didn’t want to look like some Slobula tinkering with technology beyond my comprehension.

Was that desire worth five figures? Perhaps. But all I’ve really done is pay to prove to myself that I am, in fact, a Slobula dealing with complex technology beyond my comprehension.

So much for living and learning. (Cliché alert!) When will I ever learn to leave well enough alone?

Labels: funny observations, technology