Category: Wellbeing

After 12 hours off the juice (m.o.l.) we’re back on the air. Since I am not a professional athlete (no offense Jose), I am speaking – of course – about a delicious cup of Tropicana Pure Premium. (I got your euphemism right here buddy!)

Seriously (and a little less cryptically)…. A nasty little storm bit us in the civilized keester this morning, but no (permanent) harm, no foul. The power’s back on and the home is cooling off nicely. Ahhh… air conditioning….

Maybe not so much euphemism as street slang? That’s what I get for trying to use big words.

Skin care continues to be job one at the Kauffman house this week. With the advent of more widespread skin care concerns; we’ve added two pump dispensers to our bathroom, moisturizing lotion and anti-itch lotion. Having three pump dispensers side-by-side can be a real source of levity, particularly when you consider the polar nature of their purpose.

Imagine you have just finished your shower, you’re following your dermatologist’s instructions and you’re lubing up. Imagine how much fun it would be to smear some liquid soap on your arm by mistake. It’s a real kick in the ass, almost as much fun as a full court rash. Pity poor Cheryl, the odds are not in her favor during her late night jaunts to the potty. No lights, and legally blind in fifteen states (without glasses or contacts), 1 out of 3 means your hands probably aren’t getting any cleaner.

With all the stuff I’m putting on my skin at night I feel more like I’m primping for the Mr. Universe competition, than simply bearing horizontal to log my eight heavenly hours of altered consciousness (I’m referring to sleep, of course).

There is a term of feline persuasion, used as a form of derision, which is used almost exclusively to describe the hirsute sex. I willingly submit that this entry paints a bull’s eye on my back.

I have a rash. Now there’s a good time waiting to happen. Throw in a little fever and it’s a real party. Toss in a wife with a proclivity for hypochondria, and you’ve got an off hours visit to the ER. Jealous? Yeah baby, I was in like Flynn.

It’s too bad hospitals don’t have “miles” programs for their best customers.

So I had a rash. No, I won’t disgust you with the details (I will tell you there weren’t any bodily fluids or secretions involved). Yes, I had a little fever. No, the ER staff didn’t know what it was (is). Lucky for me, they did know what they wanted to do about it.
1. Give me a big ass shot of steroids, “to help me sleep tonight.”
2. Give me a script for antibiotics, just in case their suspicion that one of the spots looked a little like an infected, right, too much detail,
3. Refer me to a specialist who can tell me the same thing, at half the out of pocket expense!

Back to this shot business. It turns out they inject this steroid stuff into your muscle. When the nurse sticks you, there’s this sickening feeling that you are on the wrong end of the sushi – sushi customer relationship. It doesn’t hurt that much – but you can tell by the feel that they’ve passed through multiple layers of tissue. No, the shot isn’t what hurt, it was the aftermath. As the minutes passed, I got this horrible feeling I knew why the nurse asked, “which hand do you write with?” She figured the arm that go the shot wouldn’t be fit for writing for a while. F&$%! that hurt. The nurse came back to check on me and I thought I might get weepy, “Please make it itch again,.”

It only took 30 minutes to recover enough range of motion to lift my hand to the steering wheel (something I knew would come in handy on my 5-speed stick Civic). Now that the Motrin has kicked in, I might even get some sleep.

Spending most of my morning hours cooped up indoors, despite my office with a view, I find mornings to be more abstract construction than reality. Most of the time, life in an office is rather homogenous. Time of day, week, month, or year, it’s all the same. The scene outside my window slowly shifts, but I rarely associate the view with the barrage of senses being “in it” provides. On those rare occasions when the sight of a clear spring morning tickles my imagination, having a window is a curse. The smell of nature’s spring potpourri is in the air. The last wisps of cool, dry air linger from winter. Walking through chill shadows among the trees, there are sparse hints of warmth shining through the branches, like the sun’s promise of better things to come.

And then the phone rings, abruptly bringing my mind back indoors. I’ll take a rain check on that promise,

Addiction. Hunger. Desperation. I had looked all over, in all the usual places: my desk drawer, my briefcase, the nooks and crannies around my office, nothing. I was damn near close to loosing that which distinguishes us from animals: my ability to reason. Yet it was at this most desperate hour that a single hope shown through the mist of dire circumstance: “my car, maybe I’ll find it in my car! RELEASE THE HOUNDS!”

Fifteen minutes later I triumphantly shook a full, jingling fist of change.

DAMN THEE TO THE FIREY PITS OF MY STOMACH, VILE KIT KAT BAR!

In what may be a first for Kauffman kind, I am concerned about something working exactly as it should. I approached my desktop representative from the twin evil empires (Dell and Microsoft) with my accustomed trepidation. Yet for all my caution, I entered a seemingly random string of characters for my login password. I think I’ve discussed the rhythm method of typing before, haven’t I? Well this morning I haphazardly placed my fingers in the keyboard and fired away in a decidedly decaffeinated manner. I might as well have hung my keyboard on the wall, closed my eyes, and thrown darts at it. The one part of the performance that felt right was the “enter” key at the end. Yet despite my muddled mind I somehow managed to login successfully.

Could this be the kind of day where things just fall into place, despite my efforts? Aren’t those the best?

Damn those girl scouts and their cookies!