Mammoth Tusk

Last week, a mammoth tusk was discovered by a construction crew in Seattle. They were digging 30 feet below street level when they encountered the tusk. The tusk was recovered, and sent to the Burke Museum to be restored and placed on display. It seems to me that nobody was sufficiently curious about where the rest of this mammoth is. They just dug it out, looked around a bit, and were done. You don’t just lose a giant tooth, and then walk away (or lumber away, as the case may be). Maybe this is where some sort of Prehistoric Tooth Fairy stored her booty. I’m thinking a Pterodactyl would probably have fit the bill nicely. I wonder what she would have left the little kid dinosaurs under their pillows? Maybe a nice root or leaf for the herbivores and something dead and disgusting for the carnivores? The estimated age of this giant tooth is between 22,000 and 60,000 years old. Hmmm... 22,000? Seems like a random number. Why not a nice round 20,000? I guess that extra 2,000 years must be important. They probably had to factor in Leap Year, the curvature of the Earth, and whether or not this happened on a Tuesday. According to the news story, this tusk was from a Columbian Mammoth. There have been so many of these mammoths found that they have been officially named as the State Fossil. Who knew states had official fossils? What happens if your state has no fossils? Wouldn’t you feel slighted, and want to get your shovel and toothbrush and go find one? I tried to find a dinosaur skeleton in my backyard when I was little. Utah has many, many dinosaur fossils and is home to Dinosaur National Monument (hello... “PeeWee’s Big Adventure”!). I was sure all I had to do was start digging and I’d hit a fossil or twelve. I did find some rocks with weird raised junk on them, and took them to school to show all the kids. Nobody was impressed, or thought my rocks were an important scientific find. I saw a story once about a town in England where some ancient Roman ruins were discovered. They gave the townspeople tools and instructions and let them go dig. No degrees, no experience, just a shovel and a handout. I could totally dig that (hee hee).

Insurance Bastards

In this last year leading up to my Big Giant Birthday, I’ve been inundated with solicitations from life insurance companies. All this insurance junk mail was annoying, and I really resented the fact that total strangers knew how old I was. Then, a coworker’s husband died suddenly, and I panicked a bit. I decided that maybe I should check into getting additional life insurance after all. We had open enrollment at work. I filled out my forms and the insurance company commenced taking money out of my paycheck. Then they requested additional health information. Eventually they sent me a rejection letter (all the while still taking my money). I was given one chance to respond with letters from two of my doctors. The letters were awesome, testifying that I was in good health. Then the Insurance Bastards rejected my application for the final time. Apparently they knew better than my excellent doctors. In spite of what my docs said, I guess I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I was incensed, pissed off, and more than livid. I watch a lot of murder shows on TV. A recurring motive among murderers is offing someone for their life insurance. Now when I watch these shows, I talk back to the TV. “Oh sure, THAT guy can get a million dollars’ worth of life insurance. No problem... and he’s a frickin’ murderer! But when I ask? Oh noooooo, I can’t have life insurance. I might die at any minute.” Yup I’m ticked, and now these insurance dweebs have also ruined perfectly good murder shows for me. I guess if nothing else, I’m safe from being killed for my life insurance. Still bitter though...

Bad Ballet Etiquette

My daughter and I went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of “The Sleeping Beauty”. I hadn’t seen a ballet in years, so was very excited for the event. Molly was looking forward to being my date, as the Disney version of “Sleeping Beauty” was one of her favorites. I remember Molly sitting in her high chair at age two, singing “Once Upon A Dream”. She sang it with such feeling. That memory always makes me smile. Molly and I had a high-priced snack before the ballet, adding to the feeling that we were attending something pretty upscale and high brow. We found our seats, and perused our programs until the lights went down. And that’s when we discovered we were seated in front of a serious nimrod of a woman. Maybe she thought she was attending a basketball game or a concert. Whatever the reason, she wouldn’t shut up. Loud Talker Lady was seated with a girl, and apparently needed to share her every thought. The first time this woman was delighted by the dancing, she laughed really loudly. Laughed... at the ballet. OK, there is no crying in baseball and no laughing in ballet. They tell the story through dance, for crying out loud! Some little kids came on stage and LT Lady said “Ooohhh, they’re soooo cute!”. A couple of times, she told her young companion “Wow, that’s really hard”. Seems to me ALL the dancing is hard. No need to mention it... over and over. When the bad fairy ran around the stage with (fake) snakes, this woman said “Well, it doesn’t get more evil than that”. I almost knocked myself out rolling my eyes and biting my tongue. In my head, though, I turned around, jumped on my seat, grabbed her by the ears, and screamed “SHUT THE F&*K UP!!!”. The final straw was at the end of Act III. The prince stabbed the bad fairy with his sword. Loud Talker Lady said “Whoa... I didn’t see THAT coming!”. Seriously? She was stupid as well as annoying. At that point we were saved by an intermission, and decided to leave without viewing Act IV. I couldn’t take any more play-by-play commentary. I guess I’ll have to take out a loan and get box seats next time.

Smooshing The Girls

As part of my benefits at work, I get a paid day off every year to have a physical exam. Friday was that day. I always get the first appointment, since I have to have a fasting blood test. Visions of a reward after my appointment - a vanilla latte and piece of cinnamon swirl coffee cake at Starbuck’s - kept me focused. There was a new nurse, which thrilled me. The previous nurse was nice, but hey, she was cute, blonde and skinny. The last thing I need when I’m starving is to be put on a scale by an adorable little 110-pound cutie. I made it through the blood draw, with a minimum of face scrunching (I really, really hate needles). Then came the Hurry Up and Wait part. I always race to get undressed, and then end up waiting for about 15 minutes for the doctor’s arrival. Even though I have given birth twice, and feel like I have had hordes of doctors see my lady bits, the annual physical always makes me blush. Try as I might, I can’t stop picturing the view from my doctor’s end of the check-up. It makes me grateful I never had a yearning for a job in the medical field. After the physical, I moved on to the second un-fun procedure - the Mammogram. Every year I hope technology has moved beyond smashing my boobs between two pieces of plastic. And every year I’m disappointed... and embarrassed due to being topless and felt up by a total stranger. Sometimes after snagging your boob and squashing it flat, the tech will say “Don’t move”. Umm, hello... boob’s in a vise! I’m not going anywhere! I have never been able to look down at the Girls when they are flattened. It’s just too disturbing... poor little things. At least technology has progressed enough lately for the tech to know immediately if the image is a good one. A few years ago, you had to wait a while for the film to develop and possibly go through the squishing process again. In the end, it wasn’t that bad. I was done until next year. I tucked my boobs into my socks and went merrily on my way.

Romper Room

In the late 1950’s, TV choices for preschoolers were very limited. Sesame Street hadn’t been born. Cartoons were only shown after school and on Saturday mornings. Captain Kangaroo wasn’t much of an option for me, as I didn’t like his weird girly hairdo. That left a local kid’s show called Romper Room, hosted by Miss Barbara (and later Miss Julie). I watched it every day. It was chock full of meaningful lessons told with bees. The good bees, who did what they were told, were the Do Bees. The bad, misbehaving bees who broke the rules were the Don’t Bees. I gotta say, I was drawn to the Don’t Bees. The Do Bees were pretty dorky and boring. Miss Barbara had a see-through hand mirror that she would hold in front of her face at the end of the show. She’d say “Romper bomper stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me do. Magic mirror please tell me today. Did all my friends have fun at play?”. One day she said “And I see Kim, who is sick today. We hope you feel better soon!”. I just knew she was looking at me through that magic mirror (and of course I was the only Kim in the entire world). I got my face an inch from the TV and yelled “I’m not sick! See? I’m just fine!!!”. For my fifth birthday, my mom took me to be on Romper Room. Apparently you had to have a reservation to be on the show. You couldn’t just waltz right in (even if it was your fifth birthday). There were kids who had been on the show all week. I was allowed to pick a toy off the set to play with out in the audience. I think they were trying to appease me, since they were breaking my heart on my big day. A kid who had been on the show all week looked for his favorite toy, which I had in my ticked-off little hands. Tee hee. He was really mad, and I didn’t care. This was my first brush with Schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortune of others). Hey, don’t mess with the Birthday Princess. Ask any Do Bee... it’s bad form.

My Big Old Birthday

Back in 1975, the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots was 60. The day before my dad’s 60th birthday, he piloted his last flight. We all flew with him from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole and back. As he landed and brought the plane to a stop, he said “Sayonara” softly over the microphone. It was very touching. As he deplaned, he was met by a row of pilots on either side of the stairs. There wasn’t a dry eye on the tarmac. At the time, I was 21. I thought Dad was an amazingly young 60, but still... 60 was kind of old. Fast forward 39 years, and guess who’s turning 60 on Sunday? Me that’s who. I can’t believe it... I just feel like a really, really rickety 38. Today was my last work day as a 59 year-old spring chicken. There were no lines of coworkers to usher me to my car. No family to hang out on my last day, so proud to see me walk to the copier, or use my calculator. No touching last words. I guess most of that would be because I will be back at work on Monday. I also don’t have a really important job where I hold the lives of hundreds of people in my care thousands of feet in the air. I can’t imagine being told that as of tomorrow I will be too old to do my job. I know Dad didn’t want to stop flying. He was in good health, sharp as a tack, and definitely not ready to retire from something he loved doing. Unfortunately, he had no choice. Somehow, seeing myself the same age as my dad hasn’t helped me be OK with this milestone. A friend told me “You’re upright, and can still talk in complete sentences. It’s all good”. That’s a much better mantra than the one currently running in my head “WTF??? How the f*&k did THIS happen???”. Being a glass-half-empty kind of girl, this birthday is a challenge. I know, it’s only a number, yada yada yada (still doesn’t thrill me). I might get more awesome than usual presents (I’m warming up to the idea). 60 is better than 70 (things are looking up). Hey, I’m not dead! Ha...at last a simple way to put a positive spin on my 60th birthday! Short and to the point. Not as classy as “Sayonara”, but I’m working on it.

The Pooper Vortex

One of my resolutions for 2014 was to step in less dog poop, specifically in my living room. So far, it’s not going so well. One day last week, I got home from work and greeted my three dogs. I gazed into the living room, and noticed a huge mountain of pooh. It was way too big for the usual culprit - Stella. It was also too big to have come from Lucy. It might have been deposited by Cosmo, but I doubted it. A theory evolved that a small but wily elephant had tunneled into my house using a sharpened spoon clutched in its trunk. Only that could explain the size of the pile on my living room carpet. I got some paper towels, a wash rag, and the big bottle of Pee Whiz (used to clean all types of disgusting bodily substances). After the cleanup, I went back to the living room only to find more turds strewn about the carpet. How had I missed them? I cleaned them up, and corralled the dogs for our afternoon walk. It was then that I noticed some poopy shoe prints on the hardwood floor under the living room window. I checked my shoes, but the bottoms were clean. I texted my husband and told him to check his shoes, then went for the Pee Whiz. As I walked back from cleaning the shoe prints by the window, I found more poopy prints by the front door. Now it was getting weird. I had come in through that door, but hadn’t noticed anything. Just what was going on??? I checked my shoes again, just in case I had missed a giant cow patty embedded in the soles. Still clean. Could it be time to call a priest for a pooh exorcism? I know poltergeists are playful spirits. Perhaps I had a Poopergeist. Then there’s the weather... Some places have just experienced cold temperatures due to the Polar Vortex. Maybe a distant cousin, the Pooper Vortex, took a giant dump on my carpet. My money is still on the tunneling, marauding elephant with the sharpened spoon, though. So many theories, so little time. As long as I don’t run out of Pee Whiz, I’ll be fine.