Dr. Bester, part 2

by Phyllis

Trust me, it is a real drag not to be able to breathe properly through your nose.

I can breathe through my nose, sure, but if I close my mouth and try to focus on breathing ONLY through my nose, I feel claustrophobic and panicky and scared like I'm drowning within about a minute or so. It is NOT cool.

It used to be this was no big deal. You know, back when I didn't know any better, wasn't paying attention to how I was breathing, back when I was a kid. For a while I didn't get it when fellow classmates would tease me for sitting there with my mouth gaping open. I knew even then it wasn't gaping, but it was open, as it was a much more successful vehicle for the intake of my precious oxygen.

But as I got older and learned nearly everyone else breathes through the nose, it started to bother me. Why can't I do this? What's wrong with me? So I finally decided to do something about it when Dr. Bester said he could fix my deviated septum and that this would help me breathe through my nose. I thought the whole idea was pretty awesome.

I started making plans and appointments with Dr. Bester now in preparation for surgery. He sent me off to get some tests done and they showed that my sinuses were all very full, congested, loaded, whatever you want. (That part I believe, by the by, since it possibly provides answers to years of congestion, ear infections, lots of boogers and earwax, and all that glamorous stuff.) So while he was fixing my deviated septum, he would be performing what he called a "roto rooter job" on my sinuses. Great, let's get it all done, I thought.

Dr. Bester, part 1

by Phyllis

I admit I am copying someone a little in writing a post of this sort, but that should be okay with everyone. After all, I wouldn't have made it through junior high, high school, and college without cheating consistently. Others spent their time and effort reading and studying; I spent mine getting better at passing off the work of others as my own. Very rewarding stuff.

Anyway...Dr. Bester, yeah. That isn't his real name, you know, although you could figure out what it is if you know some of my tricks for the names I give people. Maybe you don't know my tricks, and I certainly can't reveal them. But a few seem to me a little transparent. In any case, let's talk about Dr. Bester.

Dr. Bester was (is?) an ear/nose/throat/cosmetic surgery/whatever-procedure-he-wants-to-do doctor. Of course I didn't know that many years ago when I had a slight pain in my ears and looked up an otolaryngologist with an office close to my work space in downtown Boise. I wanted to be able to shoot over for a quick appointment and get back to work.

So, as I said, after several days of what I thought was moderate pain in my ears, I set up the appointment. Dr. Bester came in, asked me a few questions, and then peered in my ears. I could tell he stifled a reaction, and looked at him quizzingly. "You aren't in pain?" he asked. I said it hurt a little. "Because you have quite an infection in there. I am amazed you are so stoic about it." I always knew I was tough.

He wrote a prescription, and wondered if I had any other questions. "Yes. How come I have never been able to breathe out of my nose?" Dr. Bester took a quick look up my nose and at my palate and told me I had a deviated septum. He could fix that.

I thought about that as I left.

Long Time, No Blog

By Phyllis

And I am going to break this silence by sharing my view on Brett Favre and his coming out of retirement to sign with the Minnesota Vikings. So here's my view: who cares about this? Not me. I never liked the Packers, Favre, the Vikings, or people who repeatedly retire and unretire. Maybe I will be interested at the end of the year when we see the results of this signing: 20 TDs, 18 INTs, and mediocrity in the NFC North.

I'd rather spend more time on this story. Seriously, a gender test? As the story says, there are "concerns she does not meet the requirements to compete as a woman." What, pray, are those requirements? The story does not say exactly, but apparently it is an "extremely complex, difficult" process. Apparently I missed a few days in Biology class.

And, no, we are not dealing with a Jarmila Kratochvilova situation here. Remember her? I do. That awesome year my parents got me a Sports Illustrated subscription for Christmas (including the swimsuit issue I snuck out of the garbage) I read all about her. And saw the pictures. The first thing I thought as a naive youngster was, "Hey, that's a dude!" Turns out it wasn't--just a woman roiding it up to break world records.

But I don't think dude when I see Caster Semenya. At least not for a couple seconds. And even if I do, it isn't because of roids or HGH or something like that. I mean, what is going on here? Protandry? A Pseudohermaphrodite? A sequential or simultaneous hermaphrodite? None of the above?

In any case, I don't envy Caster or those performing the tests or those reporting the results, either to us or to Caster. If Caster has cheated (however it was done) that is one thing. But as International Association of Athletics Federations spokesman Nick Davies says, "If it's a natural thing and the athlete has always thought she's a woman or been a woman, it's not exactly cheating."

No kidding, but have fun breaking the news to her.

See Hiccus

by Phyllis

Look, lady, don't get upset with me because I mispronounced your daughter's name.

You will get no sympathy from me. I have had my name mispronounced my whole life. And even though any primate with half a brain could take three seconds looking at my name and realize there are only TWO possible pronunciations, somehow every person I have ever known has gone with either the incorrect of the two possibilities, or some off the board bastardization.

Plus, ma'am, keep in mind, this is my surname. You know, handed down from generation to generation? So it may look funny or foreign but I had no choice. Neither did my parents. They just gave me what they already had.

You, however, chose one of those clever, cool, alternative spellings of a common English name. What were your hopes or expectations in doing this? I couldn't possibly guess. But please calm yourself, hunker down, and prepare yourself for a lifetime of people botching your sweet girl's name. It really is your fault.

What to Make of It?

by Phyllis

It's a little like having your favorite Pandora station play something really stupid all of a sudden, only this happened in reverse.

I am no stranger to Adventure's First Stop. Mostly because there is a store fairly close to my home, I buy a lot of fuel for my cars there. My sons also can go through milk like no person's business, so I have made many a jaunt up to store 211 to get a couple of gallons to tide us over. (And so long as they have the 'buy one liter of Diet Mtn. Dew get one for 50 cents' promotion going on, I will wear out a path to their door.)

While either outside filling up my tank or inside browsing the many jerky selections and deciding not to buy the refillable 100 ounce soda vat, I have heard not a few good ol' songs from some of country music's "best." I can recall Garth Brooks and his Papa Loved Mama ditty and George Strait and his Give it Away (not a RHCP cover, in case you wondered). Rascal Flatts gets some love there as well. I don't know if this is because they are tuned to a country station or what. Who cares, right?

But the other day as I topped off the car, I heard "You Take Me Up" by Thompson Twins.

Should I report this to management?

Smalltalk

by Phyllis

I am not a fan (although I expect it will be suggested to me soon).

I don't like to make it. I don't like to participate in it. That is not to say I haven't done it--just that I have always hated it. I know it sounds negative (in a good way) to say it, but I don't really like talking to people in the first place. Well, actually, the part I don't like is listening. I can talk to you all day if you like, and will act like I am listening (not an oscar-worthy performance, I must admit), but I don't really want to hear what most people have to say.

[I wonder if someone will steal my idea for a T-shirt that says "Pretend I have my earbuds in." Great idea, right?]

So for someone who doesn't like to talk to people, smalltalk is nearly insufferable. And I had three whoppers laid on me recently and I nearly lost my cool each time.

#1 - Walking through the empty halls during classtime at one of the elementary schools I work at, I see a remotely familiar person (I have worked at this school several years now) coming my direction. I make no eye contact but soon hear her say, "You working on those computers?" "Yep," I say. Not a lot of thought went into that one, though, ma'am, I think to myself. But I realize I prefer it that way. Nowhere really to take the "conversation" and it ends there as we pass each other.

#2 - This time I am working at our district's alternative High School (you figure out what that means) removing spyware some genius has installed on his PC. (Yes, I am an IT snob.) I leave the room for a minute to go check on something else, and when I return, two students are in there working with the librarian on a paper. I seat myself at the PC again and continue working on it. After nearly five minutes, the librarian offers, "So, you're in here with us?" I scarcely know how to respond to such a question without laughing hysterically, so I compose myself for a few seconds and come back with "I'm just working on the computer." End of conversation again.

#3 - The good fellers who came and installed the fence in my backyard recently had plenty to say. My favorite had to be when one had returned from retrieving a tool from his truck ("Yeah, the bed's a little high for me but hell no I wouldn't put a lift gate on it. I'd love to lower it, though.") and gave me this gem: "Hey, man, that blonde neighbor of yours?" He tailed off as he grinned and gave me a look I can only describe as disgustingly lecherous.

Admittedly, I didn't know how to respond to this, so I gave him the best conversation stopper I could think of. "Hmmph."

It didn't work.

Bad News

by Sue

Yes, it is me, Sue. I promised Phyllis once upon a time I would contribute to his blog, and then only wrote one post. So I guess it is time again. Plus, Phyllis and I were talking the other day about something, and he had plenty to say about it, but claimed he could not post a blog about it. He said at least one person he likes quite a bit might get a little sore.

And, yes, it is bad news for all you inkophiles out there. It is my contention that tattoos are not cool anymore.

Yes, I think they were at some point. It was a practice on the fringe, very cutting edge, very daring. But we have crossed over to a new era. And by my crude calculations more people have them now than don't. I am only going by what I see.

Any trip to your local WalMart will give you all the proof you need. In order to enjoy the savings and convenience of the world's most evil store, you have to sport some ink. A butterfly or other gentle creature on your ankle is fine if you are female, but you can also follow the example of every other 21-year-old girl in the world, and get the good old tramp stamp. If you are a man, go with the Kanji on the calf, bicep, or neck, or go all out and get sleeves.

I can hear tat-nation squawking already. They are telling me how cool people don't get tats like that and how they had their tattoos long ago when it was still cool. Fine, I say, but you make my point: with the WalMart riff-raff clouding the issue, you can see the practice is no longer cool; it is far too common, and, as they say, played.

If that's not enough for you, please consider my next-door neighbors: Their teenage son--the one wearing shorts so low his whole butt would be showing were it not for his colorful underpants, who buzzes around to high school and back in his Nissan Z-something listening to profanity-filled hip-hop or (c)rap or whatever it is called these days--is, like, dude, totally tatted up. So are all his buddies.

Do I need to say anything else?