WhimsyLand

I got yet another nice rejection notice from a poetry book contest, this one noting that my manuscript was "ambitious".  I suspect that means the judges believed that my reach exceeded my grasp.  As it took 5 years to write the 100 poems that got whittled down to 65 for the manuscript, I don't think I will be fixing it in any significant way in the short term.  So, I suppose I should just get back on the horse and send it out.  Maybe I'll try some of the (few) publishers who still read manuscripts that get thrown over the transom, so to speak. 

I've been to The Doctors more times in the last week than I have in the past couple of years.  No offense to my buddies CDY and Peter, but I generally avoid MDs (PhD's and Doctors of Divinity are OK, I suppose).  My general theory is that if you don't go to a doctor, then you won't get diagnosed with anything awful.  So far, this has worked splendidly, for the most part.  Just yesterday, this neurology specialist said I didn't look anything like my true age and guessed that I didn't smoke (I did for30 years) or drink (you apparently haven't seen my wine cellar).  There are, of course, some symptoms that are difficult to ignore.  Like being catapulted out of bed with an off-the-scale, localized, momentary jab to the upper leg.  There I was dreaming about finishing this damnable Slowdown Algorithm when someone took a hypodermic needle, held it in a Bunsen burner until it was the color of that poker in the first Indy Jones movie when the bad German who looks like Karl Rove was threatening Marion, and jabbed it in my right leg, just below the hip.  Naturally, I shouted something obscene and leapt out of bed, waking Emily downstairs and scaring the bejeezus out of Junie.  I then received two or three more jabs from my invisible assailant in rapid succession.  Being a guy, I said to myself (and to Junie, who wasn't buying it), "Huh, must have been dreaming" or something.  That was 1:30 in the AM and at 2:30 it happened again.  Invisible assailant, sudden pain like a sumbitch, very surface feel to it, same spot, maybe 100-200 milliseconds in duration (you see, I was being very analytical about this), 3-4 times in succession with a little time in between to get ready for the next one.  From 2:30 to 4-ish, Junie followed me around like a devotee of someone with Tourette Syndrome, which is surely what I sounded like since this thing would hit me without warning and I was endeavoring to use the full extent of my magnificent vocabulary.  Junie, of course, dragged me to the ER (which is, but don't tell her, one of the many reasons I love her).  Between the shivering (it's damnable cold here now) driving there and the long wait (the ER had actual people with real serious problems to deal with before me), The Bug didn't bite me again until we were Officially Released with the vague diagnosis that it was something "neurological".  The Bug bit me on the way home, but I'm one hell of a driver on ice and it only gave Junie the slightest of heart flutters.  I had a couple of episodes where I jumped out of my chair (I was doing company accounting) and then decided to read what was on the ER Expulsion Report or whatever they call it and it said "600 mg of Ibuprofen".  I almost didn't take it because I just hate when people tell me what to do, but I do just happen to have this bottle the size of a large bottle of olive oil so I slammed down a couple.  One more little Bug Bite and that was that, it retreated to the snarky place it came from.  The next day, having had not actually a lot of sleep actually, not to mention Sweet Junie who had even less, we visited the GP to whom I described the circumference of the attack area (less than an inch), the duration (about 100-200 milliseconds), the average number of rapid successive events (3-4), and the ghost of the pain I could feel in that small area.  This is my New Doc, who is a very nice young lady who actually seems to be listening to me, unlike my actual registered Primary Care Physician who is my age and probably figures that whatever I've got, I deserve.  Well, anyway, the New Doc Young Lady (who has very nice calves, BTW, an observation I made to Junie with less than enthusiastic response) sprinted off to consult some computer or other and decided that I had a nerve that originated in my lower spine and wends its way down my right thigh and there you go.  I then made an appointment with the neurologist who had Not Left The Building, so to speak, somebody that all the other docs in the joint are morally compelled to recommend, I suppose, since they share the lunch room with him.  He was almost exactly my age and asked me why I seemed to be in such good shape in a number of subtle ways and I was actually hesitant to burst his bubble and tell him that I had led a ruinous life and still looked a lot better than he did, but I think he may have subconsciously known this because that's when he asked me to take off my socks and started sticking pins in my arms and jabbing sharp things in the soles of my feel, all of which elicited the same response, which was excitable, but not scatological, so I thought I passed the test.  Then he told me that this MOMENTARY EXCRUCIATING pain that I had had on numerous recent occasions could not possibly be neurological, and I should see a urologist, which is a neurologist who has somewhere along the way tragically lost an N and and E, I suppose.  For pity's sake.  Have you seen those commercials on early morning TV where the 40-50 old guys are all riding down the freeway in a convertible or fishing in some nice bass boat or whatever and one of them them has "weak stream"?  Well, that's not me and this isn't urological, dammit.  Sheesh. 

Anyway, it's been 12 hours without Ibuprofen, and Junie left for Wisconsin and I'm pining away, but no damned bug has bit me lately.  Not that it wasn't something, but my theory continues to be that if you ignore something, it will eventually go away.  It's like those movies where the hero or heroine warns everybody that the most dangerous thing you can do is Name The Thing that is the movie's antagonist.  Meanwhile, the National Geographic people have been keeping me up to date with the drums coming from Bali destined for my brother and sister.  Also, my older sister got my check so that her adopted local children get a nice Christmas.  Also, Der took my gift of a bunch of AMEX reward points and told me what he wanted, mostly gift cards to The Gap.  And all the new little brown babies (well, they're not brown, but it's such a great line by Ingrid Bergman on The Orient Express) got their Einstein toys and farm animals that sing Christmas carols when you squeeze them.  And my mailman got his Starbuck's gift card and I even sent holiday cards to most everybody, though one bounced to Die Cloud because I used the wrong address.

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Sometime in the last week, among all the excitement, I made Sherried Onion Soup with a difference.  The difference being, of course, that I was out of something, which is how the best and worst of recipes take form.  Junie and I did a mega-run for provisions at Safeway and I forgot to get sliced almonds.  So, naturally I improvised and made the soup by substituting the toasted almonds with pistachios that I shelled and threw into a hot pan for a while until I could smell their pistachio goodness.  These got thrown into the soup the appropriate time (you just have read the recipe) and the whole mélange got blenderized with this wonderful standup-self-contained blender stick that Junie got me for Christmas, and since this was our time together is was, after all, Christmas for us so I opened it.   It was quite excellent.  Four days later, I redid the recipe, substituting the onions for about 6 shallots and a half-onion and adding back the almonds that I had forsworn in the latter version.  Also pretty damned good.  Neither were at their peak, however, because I was adding 4 Big T of this really mediocre sherry which was all they had at the local liquor store.  Tonight, I bought some Sandeman's, which is quite delightful, but I hoped they had Tio Pepe, but they didn't.  Maybe I'll try Tio Pepe, almonds and shallots next. OH!  I just remembered that my recipe seems to forget that you need to throw in a teaspoon of good paprika with the sherry.  I use the delicious Hungarian kind that comes in a tin and actually isn't any more expensive if you can find it.

That's all for today.  I'm thinking I may have more tomorrow.  You just never know, do you?