The If Question with the telegram.

Thanks for all of the well-wishes from yesterday’s post. But today is Friday and we have a weekend coming up and I am feeling GOOD about this weekend! Which probably means a disaster or two is waiting for me. Meh. A girl can still dream, can’t she?

Speaking of dreaming: this week’s If Question is…  If you were to receive a telegram tomorrow from any person in history, still alive, who would it be from and what would it say?

First, we’re going to pretend it can be a letter or an email. Because, people, I do not speak telegram. Stops and full stops and missing words…it’s beyond me. And I love you, but not enough to go google it and translate what I really want to say. So.

As for the author of my “telegram” and its contents – that’s the easy part. My telegram would be from Tom Brady, telling me that my die-hard loyalty to the Pats is legendary back east. His telegram goes on to offer me two seats at the 50-yard line (conveniently right behind the bench) for every home game. (I waffled here. I thought about having him offer seats in their box, but it would be a lot more fun being right down there with the guys. Plus, if there’s snow-throwing to be had, I want in on it!)

Tom would be kind enough to throw in plane tickets each weekend so I wouldn’t kill my bank account flying back and forth. He almost threw in another two seats – for a grand total of four tickets to each game – but I wanted to keep it a little realistic. Seriously. This way I can take my Insignificant Other for a few games, or my crazy non-football loving friends for a girls’ weekend, or my brother. I imagine my brother and I will go to a lot of games together. He’s the one who first enabled my football dorkiness; I feel I owe him a lot. As it is, we text back and forth during every game. Actually going to a game together would be the height of awesomeness. Okay, no – Brady coming up and talking to us after the game would be the height of awesomeness. But having my brother there for that would still be pretty cool.

(P.S. – In other football news, have you heard that Indy released Marvin Harrison?  Marvin Harrison! The guy has been there 13 years, is partnered with Peyton for the most pitch and catches for any QB/WR duo in the history of the NFL, and they’ve let him go. It’s also rumored that center Jeff Saturday – another Pro-Bowler – will be released to free agency. And possibly their punter, Hunter Smith. I think the only guys new coach Jim Caldwell kept were Peyton Manning and Dwight Freeney. (Oh how I’d love to get my hands on Freeney and stuff him into a Pats jersey.)

Ahem. Anyway. Yes, so my answer is Football…er, Tom Brady. That’s what I could do. What about you? What would your magical telegram say?

Love isn’t always all that complicated.

Sometimes love is romance and stories you can’t wait to tell your girlfriends the next day. Sometimes it’s a milestone your child has finally accomplished. Sometimes it’s a shared laugh while you’re snuggled under the covers with your adorable little ones. This week, love was simply gratitude.

Gratitude for the moments when I felt completely normal.

Gratitude for my friends who listened to my complaints in full detail, replete with waaaaay too many icky adjectives. And still offered comfort.

Gratitude for my boss who waved off my forgiveness for having to take so much time off for doctor’s appointments, and who asked if I had someone to drive me.

Gratitude for the advice to drown myself in water, because it really did help to manage the pain.

Gratitude for everyone who has been so forthcoming with so many personal details about how they manage their IC.

And gratitude for my own smucking drama and imagination, because nothing could really be as bad as I’m making it out. (Although it does really suck.)

But mostly, gratitude for normalcy. I have never placed a high emphasis on normal, but man, do I ever treasure those moments now. So much that I wanted to mention it twice!

Happy Love Thursday everyone! Shout with joy from the rooftops about your Big Moments, but be sure to appreciate the small ones, too.

Cops and robbers: the grown-up version.

Remember playing cops and robbers when you were little? You’d divide up who was a cop and who was a robber and then you’d run around and burn off some energy while you tried to capture the robbers, while the robbers tried to rescue their captured cohorts from the designated jail? No one ever told me there was a grown-up version!

One of my friends from ThePlaceThatShallNotBeDiscussed was telling me about her weekend, specifically about how she was up until 5 a.m. on Saturday night. I thought she was waiting up for her husband who just started working the midnight shift as a cop. Nope, she was over her brother and sister-in-law’s playing cops’n'robbers. Apparently, her brother was telling the story of an NFL-player who was the victim of a late-night burglary. Packers’ running back Noah Herron dialed 911 from his bedroom after hearing the burgler’s enter his home. Herron didn’t have any weapons in his bedroom, where he was holed up, so he quickly unscrewed his bedpost and waited by the closed bedroom door. Meanwhile, the burgler’s figured out that Herron was inside, waiting.

“Come out,” they demanded.

“No way! You come in here,” Herron replied.

“Come on out here, man,” the robbers beckoned again.

“It’s MY house!” Herron retorted, “Get OUT!”

“Alright, we’re coming in,” the robbers decided.

“Okay. But I’m gonna beat you,” Herron cautioned.

The stupid burglers walked into the bedroom. Herron swung the bedpost and knocked the first would-be robber unconscious. The second one tried to flee but was apprehended by the police who had arrived.

Wacky story, eh? It gets better. Because that’s what my friend J. and her brother were reenacting as they played cops and robbers. Her brother tried to unscrew his bedpost while J. – who is about a hundred pounds sopping wet, mind you! – pretended to be the robber coming in to kill him. She counted down and yelled at her brother to practice because he was going to die if he couldn’t do it faster!

I about died laughing. I love my friends and I want to hang out with them all the time, people! I can’t tell you how much I love that I am not the only person thinking of these crazy things to do.

Phase II: Fill out 10,000 forms and wait.

What is it with doctor’s offices making poor hapless patients wait over an hour to be seen?

Yes, that’s how Phase II began for my new reality show, cleverly titled What’s Wrong With Katie? (You in the back! Hush!) I can’t really explain the wait. The office I visited consisted of over 60 specialists (I kid you not!), so I don’t think the wait was due to a shortage of doctors. The wait might have been partially due to the fact that it took me years to fill out all of the required background information. The rule-follower that I am, I arrived thirty minutes early to fill out new patient forms. And can you believe it – I still ran over! It took me a little over 45 minutes to fill out the BOOK that they handed me on a clipboard. I really think that if there is that much required writing, they should mail/fax/email you the forms ahead of time to speed things up.

The good news was that once I did manage to sneak past security and actually saw the doctor, I really liked him. He’s young, personable, and he graduated at the top of his class at MIT. Annnnnd he also studied at Harvard. I mean, c’mon, he attended two prestigious schools in Massachusetts – what’s not to like?! (Aside from the fact that I find it incredibly difficult not to call him my pee-pee doctor, of course.) He patiently listened to my very long narrative of what’s been going on during the past eight weeks. He asked a bunch of questions and acted as if he had all the time in the world for me. I was just about to forgive him for the very long wait…when he told me that he didn’t think I had Interstitial Cystitis (IC). Then I kinda wanted to squish his cute little head like a grape.

Look, contrary to what Dr. MIT now thinks, I am not dead set on having IC. It’s just that I’ve exhausted every possible diagnosis that could come from the OB-GYN arena, my symptoms match up with those described by my friend with IC, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d really rather have something that’s TREATABLE rather than something that causes a lot of pain but is UNtreatable. If Dr. MIT can come up with something else that is treatable – or, better yet – curable! – and doesn’t involve chemo or radiation to fix it, I’m all for it. And if treatment doesn’t involve giving up caffeine, alcohol, chocolate, sketti sauce, and citrus fruits, I’ll even give him super bonus points.

That pretty much sums up this week’s installment. Next week they’re sending me for a barrage of tests: more bloodwork, x-rays, a teeny-tiny camera, and possibly a sonogram. Stay tuned. Oh, and if any of you guys see a sale on sick days some where, let me know because I’m running a little low already.

My future little hidey-hole.

I have a thing for drawers, hidey-holes, nooks and crannies, and hidden spaces. I love old-timey furniture, like roll-top desks, card catalogues, coffee tables that double as storage space, and intricate bookcase headboards. Once, I found an ancient, wooden dentist’s cabinet at an antique mall. If I had $3,000 lying around, that baby would have been mine. It had thin drawers designed to hold instruments, tiny locked cabinets for drugs (with secret compartments inside of them!), file slots, and so many other different drawers that I think it took me twenty minutes to explore every one of them. I was mesmerized.

Wouldn’t it be great to some day move to a fancy-schmancy smallish New England town and open up a scrapbook store? It wouldn’t be like today’s specialty scrapbook stores. Oh, no. It would be in a nice (but antiquey) store front not unlike The Shop Around the Corner from You’ve Got Mail. Apothecary tables, cabinets with hidden drawers, and all sorts of book cases and such would line the walls. And there would be some nice, heavy, dining room tables in the middle of the shop for you to work on layouts or artwork or rummage about.

Book Review (without spoilers): 19 Minutes

The entire time I was reading Jodi Picoult’s 19 Minutes, I kept telling everyone that they had to read it. It was insidiously compelling. At times Picoult would drift towards moments of cliched Chick Lit Writer, but she seemed to correct the problem and lose herself to the narrative by mid-novel. At least, I guess it had happened by that point; I can’t narrow it down any further than that because by mid-novel I had lost myself to the narrative before I noticed she wasn’t any more Chick Lit Writer moments.

I picked up 19 Minutes because it sounded interesting and a friend had recommended it. The story is set on a Columbine-style rampage, set in a small-town New Hampshire town. Everyone knows everyone else: the judge sitting on the case is the mother of Josie, the only victim purposefully not shot by the teenaged boy, and the former best friend of the shooter’s mother. These intricate relationships between the characters – the victims, the perpetrator and his family, and those involved in prosecuting the case – set up powerful questions. The beauty of the story is that it’s not a thriller, it’s not a crime novel; it’s a novel about the psychology of societal constructs. Is Peter – the shooter – solely to blame? Is there such a thing as Bullied Victim Syndrome (likened by Peter’s defense attorney to Battered Wife Syndrome)? What about Peter’s parents: did they own any of the blame? Or were they as much victims of the crime as the parents who lost their children to Peter’s act of violence?

Picoult kept the pace light enough to give the reader time to savor the subtlety of the questions raised, but never once in all of its heft did I feel the story could have been hurried up a bit. I appreciated that Picoult took the time to play out each scenario and develop each character. She gave enough heart to everyone involved that you felt for each of the characters. I felt myself pulling for Peter, only to turn the page and follow the prosecution for awhile, and wonder – with horror – how I could want the killer to “win”? It was hard not to identify with most – if not all – of the story’s characters. In fact, you know what? This book should be on every high school reading list. At close to 450 pages, it’s a lot (unfortunately) for today’s high schooler to chug out, but it might breed enough understanding to make a difference in a few students’ lives.

There was only one fault I found with the story. I can’t – won’t – tell you what it is because it’s a pretty significant plot twist. After so carefully and quietly presenting the rest of the story, I felt this particular plot twist was too jarring. It was the only element of the book that seemed to be stuck in there because it was an “in” thing to do, as far as plots go. At first I thought someone must have convinced Picoult to throw it in there (“C’mon! all the cool stories have something like this in there! Something no one will see coming!”). But the more I thought about it after I had finished the book, I though that maybe it was just another way for the author to make us question everything. “Okay, this is how you feel about Peter, and this is what you think should happen to people like him…What about now? How do you feel if I do this?” And it did change the way I thought.

So. Please. Go read the book. Then email me so I can find out if I’m the only person who feels this way about this certain thing that I won’t tell you about. It’s a really good book and a quick read. That happens so rarely that it would be a crime not to take advantage.

The streets of Philadelphia.

My sister Kim was nice enough to write another guest blog. Following is a sketch of the streets of Philadelphia:

My PlaceThatShallNotBeNamed is in downtown Philadelphia – you know, the City of Brotherly Love?  Center City (as it’s known locally) is a curious mix of trendy hotspots, historical museums, and obvious signs of urban decay the likes of which most cities and towns cannot fathom.  Within a one-block radius of my office, there are exorbitantly-priced condos in gorgeous historical buildings; two corners ablaze daily with a gaggle of teenage mothers (babies and toddlers in tow), smoking and killing time; dozens of cafes, fast food joints, pubs, and lounges ranging from up-scale to dive bar; and quite a few boarded up, abandoned storefronts.  Because of it’s at the hub of the multi-mode public transportation system, Center City is also home to many social service provider headquarters – the ability to get to and from downtown is much easier for those without cars than it would be to reach the out-lying neighborhoods.  Trust me.

The If Question with the dinner party.

Today’s If Question:

If you could invite four people from history to a dinner party, who would you invite and where would it be?

A funny thing happened as I was thinking of my answer. See, when I think of these If Questions, I always think of dead people…you know, to really maximize the WOW factor and magical properties of the If Question. And when I think of dead people, the first ones that always come to mind are my mom’s family. A lot of my mom’s family died young, but she has always talked about them and made them seem alive to me. I’m sort of fascinated with who they really are and what they would be like. Whether they’d turn out as I picture or be completely different. So the first people I thought of inviting to my dinner part was my mom’s mom so I could get to know her…and my mom, so she could get to know her mum. (My grandmother died when my mom was just two years old. My mom doesn’t have a single memory of her. I can’t fathom that not-knowingness.)

Once I had those two paired off, I started thinking of people for me. I thought right away of throwing in Tom Brady. He’d make great eye candy and we could talk football all night. (Who’s a little excited for next football season? THIS GIRL!) There’s three guests; I need one more. Brady was a great choice but, on the other hand, he’s alive, so I’m feeling the pressure to choose another dead person. Someone famous to utilize the power of the If Question. It took me awhile, but I came up with FDR. I love history and I’d love to hear what it was like to survive FOUR freakin’ terms as president when this country hardly seems to be able to handle one these days. I want to hear about what it was like to navigate WWII and hear the secret side of things.

Forbidden love.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love coffee? A lot. I love it a lot. I think I might even love it more now that I’m not supposed to drink it. But it wasn’t always my dearest love.

I was late to the coffee scene, compared to most. My mom didn’t let me drink coffee in high school. Maybe she would have, I don’t know; I never really cared enough to push the issue. But when I got to college, coffee was suddenly cool. My group of friends would hang out at Cafe Dolce over on Shrewsbury Street and order Italian cakes and cappuccinos. We did it to be cool, to be Grown Up, to stay up allllllll night long.

Once I learned that trick, I started worshipping at the coffee haven every half-decent New Englander knows and loves: Dunkin’ Donuts. I went to college just a few exits up the highway from my parents, and so every Friday morning I would borrow my mom’s car. I would drop her off at work, pick up a regular coffee at The Dunkin’, and run my errands. (Years later my husband tried to order a black coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, only he made the mistake of asking for a “regular” coffee instead of black. In New England, a Dunkin’ Donuts “regular” coffee is one with two creams, two sugars. You know, “regular” as in normal.)

A music music revelation.

My friend Kathy gave me some great advice yesterday: “Take a deep breath and let it out. Good!” She’s right. I need to relax. To breathe. To calm the heck down.

I don’t think I mentioned yesterday that when I stopped in at the doctor’s, my blood pressure was 140/80. That might not be astronomical, but it’s considerably higher than my usual, which is closer to 101/67. I am normally a cool cat, you guys. (Although apparently not so hip that I avoid saying things like “cool cat.”) I’ve been stressed about everything going on during the past six weeks. And this interstitial cystitis that I might have is complicated by stress. Like Kathy said, I need to breathe in <pause> and out. In…and out.

As I was driving home last night, I was thinking about how exactly I should go about this. I don’t have a lot of control over the things I’m stressing over, so just forgetting about my stressors is sort of out of the question. Giving myself a massage isn’t quite as satisfying as just lying there and letting go as I’m being pampered by someone else. Filling up on lattes…well, that would exacerbate my medical condition and pain is Up There on things to avoid. Hmmm… what other kinds of therapy could I make work? Therapy…wait a second.