Prepoceros

We’re within twenty-fours hours of our California trip, so it’s that time when every thing you do revolves around getting ready for vacation. Did I remember to pack my swimsuit? Will I need a sweater? What earrings go with this top? Will my prescriptions be refilled in time? Will anything in the apartment rot and/or explode if it’s left alone for two weeks? Do my parents have enough of the kind of rawhide that Sam likes? And so on.

It took John just over an hour to pack. Me? I’m glad I managed to pick out fourteen days’ worth of clothes and only need six pairs of shoes.* Can I get by with just one purse? I was going to go with the medium black one because (a) it’s black, (b) it has pockets, and (c) it can be zipped closed, but one of my outfits is REALLY brown, so maybe I’ll bring the small not-black purse, too. Don’t even get me started on belts.

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A week ago I walked out of the grocery store and spotted a car just like mine, but with a big gash in the corner of its bumper. My momentary freak-out ended when I saw my own ungashed car two spaces away.

But the next day, as I walked up to my very own car in my very own apartment parking space, I noticed that the light was reflecting strangely off of the rear passenger-side door. Further inspection revealed that the door panel had indeed been smushed in. No paint damage, fortunately, just an obvious foot-long vertical crease. Rage! Frustration! Fistshake!

Did I mention that this car is now a month old? One month. All this time I’ve been freaking out about bumping or scratching the pretty new finish, and then some idiot had to go and do it for me.

The bastard is completely anonymous, too. On that side of my apartment parking spot are two poles and my bike, and no one parks in the next spot over, so it had to have happened while I was out somewhere. I hope the culprit gets a bad case of chicken pox. Or pubic lice. Something REALLY itchy.

Wednesday night I saw Eddie Izzard live. Overall it was great fun, but having seen some of his earlier shows on DVD, I was a little disappointed at the slower pace and repetitiveness of this one.

Best joke: Noah is ushering animals onto the ark, with his son on board helping keep count.

“Okay, here come two tigers, two cats, two gazelles, two rabbits, two geese . . . what have we got so far?”

“Uh, so far two tigers, Dad.”

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Samson and I make a good roach patrol. He brings the keen ears and I bring the spray of painful death.

I need to write about this because it’s been on my mind a lot lately. It’s about my wisdom teeth and their continued presence in my head.

I first found out that my two bottom wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and would have to be removed when I was seventeen, and for the seven years since then I’ve been (1) putting off having it done and (2) worrying about it.

I actually made and kept a preliminary appointment with an oral surgeon last year, but that was around the same time that Larry I was causing trouble, so I dealt with him first. But that surgeon’s office was done all in matchy browns and oranges with fancy chairs, like someone’s living room. Even the exam rooms were painted a soothing, sumptuous brown. The staff all wore identical burnt-orange scrubs. Would YOU want to undergo minor surgery in someone’s living room? I thought not. Garish hospital white, practical furniture, and bears-and-hippos scrubs for me, please.

Plus the surgeon was too jokey, and his hands were cold and stumpy. Needless to say, I didn’t call those interior decorators medical professionals back, even after I’d recovered from my surgery.

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First, comment filtering is magic with extra sparkles. Whereas previously I was faced with a queue of a hundred or so spam comments every time I logged in, since the switch a week ago I’ve had to moderate three whole comments. THREE. And two of them were from real people. (The third was an ad for online poker in French.)

By the way, I’m not sure if “approved commenter” status carried over in the switch, so you might have to wait a while to see your first comment post-update. If you’ve posted something that’s completely disappeared, email me (prepoceros at gmail).

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