Pitch

A couple of weeks ago, not long after nightfall, I heard such piercing and prolonged screaming that I very nearly called 911, convinced that a woman was being attacked. I leaned out the window and peered down the street where the only people visible were a small group of adults gathered round a baby carriage amiably chatting. Perhaps inside the carriage the baby was being eaten by a raccoon and no one cared. I couldn't see that far. But no one was being raped at knife point. That's the main thing.

I am fairly routinely drawn to the window to investigate screaming. Just now, in fact, there was a great deal of male bellowing, which I feared may be the precursor to blows. Apparently not. Many dudes yelling, yes. Dudes yelling at each other in a menacing fashion, no.

Clearly, this is rich ground for a new reality/game show. Contestants will gather in my living room and try to determine whether what they are hearing outside is a violent crime, the mercurial moods of a baby, or men under the influence of sports. Massacre or toddler? Gang fight or game day? I live across the street from a pediatric practice, a block from a sports bar, and also mere blocks from a neighborhood rife with crime, so I think it would be a real nail biter of a competition. Tune in.

As seen by others

Last night at a work event, a woman inquired whether or not I am pregnant. Weirdly, she then seemed disinclined to believe my reply. This seems a hot topic of debate of late. Apparently, I need to throw away several of my dresses immediately.

People of the world! Now hear this! I am not now, nor do I ever intend to be, pregnant. Also, please stop asking women if they are pregnant. No good can come of it. Are we good? Let's move on.

In better news, later, at the same event, someone else told me I look twenty-five.

So, let's just split the difference, shall we, and say I have a healthy glow.

Math and Science

One of the benefits offered at my job is a program through which you can set aside a sum to reimburse yourself for medical expenses using magical pre-tax dollars. The total amount is spread over the year and deducted monthly from your salary, but you can be reimbursed as the expenses come along, whenever that may be. At one point, this thing was referred to as "the cafeteria plan" which made no sense to me at all. There is some more sensible name for it now, but I can never remember what it is. You probably know, though, so if you want to back to the first sentence and just insert the name of the thing after the ninth word, it'll save you a whole paragraph's worth of time.

Generally, I've opted out, feeling that my comparatively small expenses did not merit the hassle of the reimbursement paperwork. Last year, on the contrary, I set aside $5000 for the dreaded gum surgery (which, sadly, was not the actual cost of the procedure, but the maximum allowable for the pre-tax program). There was just the one (enormous) receipt to submit, so there was no hassle per se, unless by "hassle" you mean having $5000 deducted slowly and painfully from your paycheck over the course of a year. Also, gum surgery. All this to say, it required very little in the way of organizational skills on my part.

This year, even without the specter of ruinously costly non-insured procedures on the horizon, I decided it would be an intelligent, grown-up thing to put a smallish sum into the program so that I might save money on my escalating co-pays and prescriptions and supplements and the like. Were I a different sort of person, I would have "done the math" or "crunched the numbers" and produced an actual dollar figure of the resulting savings. I regret to say that I don't even know how to determine the numbers that would be required to build that equation. I view taxes vaguely as a "thing that happens" and, except for the moment I read my annual hire letter and briefly fantasize about my illusory wealth, I try not to ever look at or, really, contemplate in any way my gross salary. I think it's for the best. So, let's say that this whole pre-tax thing means I save an amount that I roughly estimate to be "some money."

I'm on board with this idea, but out of practice with the logistics. Last week, I bought some allergy medicine at the pharmacy and only at the last minute did I remember not to toss the receipt in the recycling bin. I was prouder of myself for this than I am comfortable admitting. Having rescued it, I did what one should always do with important receipts one does not wish to misplace: I put it on top of the toaster oven. Obviously. The idea was that I would pluck it from this highly visible spot on my way to work one morning and take it to the office, where I could put it in a sensible folder called "medical receipts." And I would have done just that. Eventually. Meanwhile, I made some toast.

Do you remember that project from kindergarten where you put bits of crayon between two pieces of wax paper and then the teacher ironed them, making a kind of melty abstract piece of art? Well, it turns out that placing a receipt on top of a toaster oven, and then turning that toaster oven on, produces much the same effect. A bit more somber in tone, perhaps, due to the monochromatic nature of the source media, but similar nonetheless. The top is still legible, so you can see where I spent the money, but neither on what nor how much. Instead, I now have what appears to be a very small rorschach test, enigmatically entitled "Pharmaca."

I suspect this will not be admissible for reimbursement, but, if I whip up a little artist's statement, maybe I can sell it to a gallery.

Snapshot

Yesterday was very summery indeed. During lunch, I decided to walk up the the pharmacy. On my way, I passed the ice cream shop. Standing in front of it in the shade were three fully uniformed, physically imposing police officers eating ice cream cones.

Please instragram that using the power of your mind.  It might make you happy.

Then, on my way to the market for the dreaded lunch salad, I walked past what I thought was a farmer's market. There were little pop-up canopies and what appeared to be stacks of produce. Plus, sometimes they have a farmer's market there. Honest. And sometimes, on a different day, they have food trucks. Presumably there is no salad food truck, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to look at more interesting bread-related items.

Imagine my confusion when I got near enough to make out the broader details and discovered that it was a pop-up skate park.  I have no idea what the things were piled on the tables. They looked like grapefruit. Maybe that's a new thing. Grapefruit and skateboarding. Fighting scurvy and eliminating fossil fuels simultaneously. I didn't stop to find out.

Market research

I like to check the stats of this blog even though they are largely meaningless to me, by which I don't mean to suggest, "I'm above all that" so much as, "I have no idea what this means." Generally, not a lot of people are reading this, but I knew that. Still, some people are and that's always kind of exciting (thanks, people). Some of this some are purportedly in Russia. Hmmm. I don't really think that's true. I'd be willing to accept that maybe one lone American ex-pat in Russia somehow stumbled upon this, but Russians plural? I doubt that very much.

I am amused to report that the stats for my last post were exponentially higher than for any other. The alleged Russians were particularly active. I do believe, my friends, that the sudden flurry of interest was because I used a word that means "free from all garments." I'd just use the word now, but I don't want to get everyone in Russia all excited again for nothing. People searching for that term hoping for some hot, hot action, were led to a long ramble about how a middle-aged woman needs to eat some salad.

Sorry about that.

But also...
ha
ha
ha.