Monday, June 16, 2008

Trouble in Phalanges Land

Last week I had some surgery (very minor) on my right big toe. It’s the “Going to market piggy” if you are keeping score at home.

An ingrown toenail had gotten out of control and after moaning about it for a couple days, I decided to hit the local InstaCare and take care of the problem.

I’ve never really much trouble with ingrown toenails, so I might have brought this upon myself with an improper clipping technique. Important safety tip: Straight across the nail, do NOT curve down toward the ends, you are only asking for trouble apparently.

I’ll spare you the blood- and puss-filled details, but you should know that getting the lidocaine shot(s) in my toe was the worst part of that procedure.

Though watching while the doc took a pair of scissors and snipped off the nail from the tip of my numb toe down the cuticle ranks right up there in the realm of “freaky things I wish I’d never seen” (#1 on that list: the shower scene from Fat Camp Video Highlights, 1997)

Anyway, I spent the weekend in bed with my foot propped up and popping pain pills. Yes, I’m still on the pills here at work, in case the you can’t tell from my prose right now.

Also! My throat hurts because on Saturday while putting on a pair of pants, I slipped and knocked my bandaged toe on milk crate in our bedroom. You may think, “You slipped and smacked your wounded toe on a milk crate, why is it that your throat hurts?” Excellent question; my throat hurts because I screamed so loud and for so long that my throat got irritated.

Let this be a lesson to all of you: pants should always be optional.

Really, I screamed like you wouldn’t believe. Really, my throat hurt later because of it.

Here’s the image I’ll leave with you: Me, stoned to the gills on legal opiates, writhing around on the bed where I had fallen after hitting the milk crate dead on with my bandaged toe, right leg up in the air and clutching it at the calf, because I didn’t dare venture touching any closer to my actual toe, pants half on and yelling so loudly that eventually people came from down the street to see if I was OK.

More Also Stuff! Reha and the kids got me a nice hat for Father’s Day and while trying it on, I put my hand in range of the ceiling fan. Luckily, I was hopped up on opiates so I couldn’t really feel that. Though I will say this: the fan was spinning on “high” and when I stuck my hand up there, the blades came to a dead stop. Very cool. Except for the part where my hand instantly swelled up to the size of a catcher’s mitt. That wasn’t very cool.

And Even More from the Also Category! I went back to the InstaCare doctor on Saturday, because I was basically out of pain pills and my little milk crate incident had caused the toe to bleed and ooze through the 17 layers of bandages and I wanted to have it checked out. (OK, mostly I wanted more pain pills, but that’s not the important part of the story.)

The important part of the re-visit to the doc was that while the nurse was re-bandaging my toe she pressed down on it and I may have let slip something along the lines of: “Oh! Oh, please stop touching my toe.” I may have kind of yelled this with a strong emphasis on the “oh” part that made me sound like a very “fancy” lad. Maybe. I admit nothing.

Reha about busted a gut laughing at that point. “Jon, she has to touch your toe to bandage it. Stop being a baby.”

“Oh give me a break, Ms. ‘screaming so loud during childbirth that the mid-wife admonished you “less yelling, more pushing!"‘“

At which point, both the nurse and my wife stopped and gave me a look that said, “Oh no, you did NOT just compare your stupid toe injury to the pain of giving birth, Mr. “I have a penis and a teeny toe wound Man,” did you?”

“Wait, no, I’m NOT comparing this toe pain to childbirth. Not at all. I’m sure your unmedicated labor pain and pushing a human out your vagina was much worse than this little thing. I’m just saying I wasn’t ready for her to squeeze my toe and it hurt quite a bit and that you screamed A LOT during Ellis’ birth. That’s all.”

And then I had to walk/hobble home from the InstaCare facility.

Jon scribbled this mess on 06/16/08 at 12:05 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Territorial Disputes

Every now and then I like to sit in the back seat of our van with the kids.

Well, it’s not as if I like to sit back there, but Reha sometimes is driving and I’ve lost a “shotgun!” call to Lucas or Carrie and instead of using brute force to go ahead and sit in the front seat, I elect to sit in the back with the little kids.

It’s fun to sit back there. It’s a totally different perspective on the drive. Except that I invariably get into a fight with our five year old daughter.

Ellis: Daddy is pinching me!

Me: Am NOT!

Jon: Are too!

[I’ll spare you the twenty minutes of that back and forth. Kids NEVER tire of the “Are too!/Am not!” game. Though E. meets her match in me. I have stamina like you wouldn’t believe for that sort of thing.]

J: She got on my side!

E: Did not!

J [drawing an imaginary line down the seat, one that clearly shows that I have 2/3 of the seat]: Look, everything on THIS side of the line is MY side. Stay on YOUR side.

E [not falling for that crap and drawing a line giving her 2/3 of the seat]: Nu-uh. THIS is MY side. You are on my side. So I can hit you.

J: OW! Stop hitting me! Stay on YOUR side!

[Repeat that for a while at escalating volume]

Finally…

Reha [from the driver’s seat]: Listen, if you don’t KNOCK IT OFF; I am totally serious and I will separate you two.

J: She started it!

R: Jon.

J: Fine, I started it, but still.

R: You are not allowed to sit in the back anymore.

Jon scribbled this mess on 06/12/08 at 01:29 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Nomenclature

I have no idea what possessed her, but Reha was trying to tech the kids about the flowers we have in our yard. We are slowly trying to shift all the flowers and plants in our yard to “water-wise” and native plants. (We live in Utah and water is both precious and expensive in the summer). Reha is giving a small quiz to Lucas and points at a lovely columbine flower.

Re: Lucas, name that flower!

Lucas (after thinking for a few moments): Silvia.

Internet, meet Silvia the Columbine Flower.

Hi folks! Really, I look much better in person. This Jon fellow, while nice, can’t take a proper picture to save his life. Like what, he really thought “Oh, I’ll just take a photo of a beautiful flower IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT and it will come out great?” What kind of moron thinks that? Like he can just save every disaster he makes in Photoshop? Dude. Back away from the Wacom pen, you are not that talented, trust me on this. Listen, I’m a simply lovely purple columbine flower and if you saw me in person, you’d swoon, I promise. I smell nice, too. Bees go nuts for me. Don’t judge me by this guy’s “unable to take a decent photograph” skills. My name is “Silvia” and I am lovely.

Jon scribbled this mess on 06/10/08 at 09:51 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Monday, June 09, 2008

Diminishing Marginal Returns.

It’s been crazy weird busy around here and I’ll get back to regular posting later this week.

In the meantime, Episode 03 of Technology! Whiskey! Sexy! is up.

We called it Admitting It Is The First Step.

It’s genius and inspired and it will light your way in this dark and dreary world we live in.

Well, it’s not genius, so much as it is decent and acceptable.

OK, look, when I say “inspired” what I really mean is “slightly rambling and occasionally vulgar.”

Truth be told, I slipped up and klonked my head on the desk, lost my place in the middle and drooled into the mic, ruining 20 minutes of the recording. (That’s the static you hear in the middle.)

(Actually, this one is pretty good!)

Again, it’s a podcast about Technology, but Not Really.

Enjoy.

Jon scribbled this mess on 06/09/08 at 03:04 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Pinky Tuscadero

I renewed my Utah driver’s license a little while ago and when it finally came I noticed a couple things about it.

A) it has more “security features” than you can shake a stick at.

B) IT IS VERY PINK (The old ones used to be blue.)

I was talking about this with a very gay friend of mine about how I really liked the notion of some red-state mouth breathing yokel down in rural southern Utah having to flash his swishy PINK driver’s license to the clerk at the Maverick when he’s buying his Keystone Light on a Saturday night.

Amusing, no?

Now personally, I am a flaming hetero, but working in the graphics industry as I do, I’ve come to know and respect A LOT of gay men. (I’ve also come to be annoyed by a few as well, since by all accounts, they are people and people tend to annoy me on occasion).

Anyway, my gay friend is always telling me that I would make a great gay man.

And it’s true, I’d probably make a fabulous gay man. In the realm of stereotypically “gay things,” I appreciate design and beauty and even fashion a little bit. (Let’s just say this: I’m more likely to watch E! than I am ESPN. Though I’m even more likely to be watching the Sci-Fi channel which puts me in a whole different sub-class, I guess). This is how you get to the definition of metrosexual, by the way. I am a hetero guy, who doesn’t mind and enjoys certain “gay things.”

Except for the part about penises.

Just can’t get over the fact that I’m NOT into those.

Jon scribbled this mess on 06/05/08 at 09:39 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link
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