10 resons why life with arthritis is so good

1.  You get to use medicine named after the guy who is either happy in an old-fashioned kind of way or very comfortable with his sexuality. 

2.  Rubbing Bengay in your eyes is fun to watch for those around you.  You, on the other hand, can't watch yourself being funny because - well, you have Bengay in your eyes.

3.  After all the pain, the only thing that keeps you going is the thought of lamb kabob at your Dad's birthday party.  After doctor's visit you find out it's off limits.

4.  So is stinky cheese.

5.  And beer.

6.  Carpal tunnel in right hand and arthritis in left, make sweeping the floor an unforgettable activity.

7.  You get to relive your childhood by having your significant other dress you in the morning.

8.  You finally have a fair chance at competing with 60+-year-olds in getting a spot for Celebrex commercial.

9.  If you got $1 for every time someone said you are too young to have arthritis, you could afford all those Celebrex co-pays!

10.  At least it's not lupus!

Dedicated to the Fashion Week, Tommy Hilfiger and Nice Subway Strangers

It's Fashion Week in NY.  Did you know?  I only found out this Thursday under peculiar circumstances...

My closet ate two of my skirts and countless number of tops.  It's true and it can happen to you if you are not vigilant and stuff your closet with everything: from bags of old clothes prepared but never quite given to donations to ill fitting shoes you are not ready to part with to confiscated toys.  Somewhere in between the bag of unmatched children's socks and an old pillow are my missing clothes.  But to find them, I would need to organize my closet, so for now I am doing without.

The absence of skirts coupled with the fact that quite a few of my other skirts have salt and snot stains on them - winter, I know you are here! - resulted in having nothing to wear one fine Thursday morning.  Frantically going through every piece of clothing I own and rejecting them one by one - snot, too small, too summery, too dressy, salt, snot, yogurt, snot, too small, wore just yesterday, damn it, I should've left 5 minutes ago!!!!- I finally came to a piece that resulted in a "maybe".  It was kind of summery, somewhat ill-fitting (yes, I gained weight like I do every winter and summer and fall ) and a jumper to boot, but running 15 minutes late made the "maybe" piece a winner.  In retrospect I realize that even my closet exercised a better sense of fashion by refusing to consume this jumper.  But maybe my closet just got overly fastidious, after all it was Hilfiger! 

Despite my unseasonal garb, the entire day went just fine.  Going back to work, the subway was overflowing with people, but I don't think that it's fair to blame my jumper for it.  As I squeezed myself between two people who insisted on standing close to the doorways, I came standing right in front of a seated guy about my age.  "Asian," I thought, so I figured that I had about 50% chance of getting his seat at Delancey, only three stations away.  Yes, racial profiling in NY subway system is so rampant, it's appalling.  As I was shamelessly calculating my chances to get his seat, our eyes met and he uttered the unicorn of subway phrases, only few of the riders claim to have heard and scientifically proven to be non-existent.  "Would you like a seat?"

 I was caught a bit off-guard.  I was not pregnant - did he know something I didn't? - or sick or elderly.  But then my instincts kicked in and I said, "Sure!  You are being awfully nice.  Thank you."  "He must be getting off next stop," I told myself.  He did not.  I stubbornly pushed away the obvious.  "He must be a REALLY nice guy," I thought.  We passed Delancey, and my benefactor was still standing only a few inches away from me.  I looked at my jumper, my protruding stomach and remembered slightly greenish tint on my face from watching Interny till wee hours the night before; all the dots connected and I could no longer deny it.  "The nice SOB thinks I'm pregnant."  As this thought entered my mind, I glanced to the left and saw my neighbor studying pictures from the Fashion Week shows.  "Is it Fashion Week?  Again?  (Sigh.)  I am so out of vogue.  (Deep sigh.) I bet this fashionista would never wear a jumper that made her look pregnant, " I sulked.

And then another thought entered my mind.  "Too bad for her."  I got a seat in an over-crowded subway car.  Half of those well dressed fashionable women were getting killed by their high heels and poked in the ribs by neighbors' elbows.  And frumpy and pregnant looking me was comfortably sitting.  Right then and there I made a decision to upgrade the jumper to an all-season regular.  With that thought I peacefully drifted off to dream about fashion, jumpers and Interny.

Quote of the month - February 2011

This is more appropriate when the elections will heat up, but I re-discovered it today, so I am posting it now.

Cколько правды в глазах государственных шлюх.

Юрий Шевчук


Rough translation, "There is so much truth in the eyes of political whores." Y. Shevchuk

Finally, update

Remember how I was gushing in the not so distant past about finally finding movies hubby and I both enjoyed? Yeah, scratch that. Turns out that after seven years of marriage, I still haven't learned how to interpret certain words, phrases and body language of my significant other. I mistook his hearty laughing for, you know, enjoying a comedy. How could I? But I feel it was an honest mistake anyone could have made, well, anyone married to SubHub that it.

When the initial shock - and I am hardly exaggerating - wore off, I had asked him what exactly was wrong. Turns out, nothing in particular. He was just "disappointed". I pressed for details, but alas, couldn't squeeze much more than I already did. Hence, I am left to guess. Was it the lack of depth in acting? Could the actors not convey the deep and conflicting feeling of their characters the way Pluto did when he was stripped of his "planet" status? Or was the plot not as intriguing as the M Theory? The suspense is just killing me. And if I wasn't able to tell a difference between him liking and disliking comedy, is it possible I had misread some other things? (Insert an obligatory joke about SubHub regularly faking it because I won't make it as a sacrifice on the altar of marital harmony...)

And now instead of hope in finding common entertainment, my heart is heavy with invisible and unproven black matter. Yes, we've been watching "Universe" again, how did you guess?