fun with bodies

Every Body and a Lot of Things Took a Bath Sunday

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

bathingbeautyEvery Body and a Lot of Things Took a Bath Sunday

OK, that’s an exaggeration. The two cats did not have a bath though it may not be a bad idea.

The day started with Berry getting a bath. Early evening I had a long, luxurious soak. We’re wrapping up the evening with patio cushions soaking in the tub. In beween bathing events in the tub, there were laundry, dishes, more laundry, and another glorious day in the garden.

gruelLittle Berry Berry is still quite sick. Per the vet’s instructions, I have been feeding him extremely stinky critical care food watered down to the consistency of gruel via a syringe shoved into his mouth every two hours. It’s not pleasant for either of us, but he hasn’t eaten much at all for nearly 3 weeks. Critical care, indeed.

The good news is he seems a little better; the bad news is the gruesome gruel method of feeding provoked a bout of diarrhea this morning. And so we had Bath No. 1.

He was filthy before the attack of diarrhea, but it was harmless dirt. I didn’t want to bathe him given how sick he is and how cold it is. However, the stinky food excreted and soaked into his fur made a bath mandatory. He’s lost nearly 25% of his body weight over the past weeks and every lost ounce showed once he was soaked and lathered.

Poor little guy. We are not going to properly bond at this rate. The wet dog in the picture is Babette. Little Berry looked even more pitiful.

The diarrhea necessitated the washing of couch throws and pillows, my pajamas and the floor. All three probably needed cleaning anyway, but I really wanted to get into the garden. However, stinky critical care food excreted through the bowels of a sick dog left me no choice. I hate being a grownup pretty much all the time, but today especially so.

leafmulchingI did finally get into the garden. I managed to tame the leaves in the fenced part of the yard. The new little electric lawn mower is a peachy leaf mulcher and the old electric leaf blower is a champion mulch placement device. The garden beds giggled as I tucked them in with a couple inches of leafy blanket.

I do not understand why people wage such wars against leaves -war that involves raking and bagging or raking and burning. Chopped up leaves are a blessing and a boon to garden soil particularly that which tends toward clay. And mine doesn’t just tend; I could open a pottery studio. But over the years, leaf mulching has made it possible for me to plant daffodils like a normal gardener which means I don’t have to use the pick axe and auger.

meBy the time I was done, various body parts were complaining loudly. I crawled into the bathtub with Dr. Teal’s Chamomile Epson Salt Moisturizing Bubble Bath. Epsom salts are a gift! Sore muscles and menopause symptoms both will benefit from a long, leisurely soak in slickery, fragrant Epsom salts.

Following the bath, it was time for the next gruesome gruel feeding, but thankfully this one was uneventful. I was thus able to drag patio cushions upstairs to soak in a bath doctored with dishwashing soap and Oxyclean. After the wet summer, I’m afeared the mildew stains are permanent. I’ll probably ending up “dying” the cushions with house stain. I don’t really want dark brown cushions, but they’ll probably not show dirt like pale blue does.

bathingcushionsSo now I’m sitting here drinking wine from the Dollar General (no kidding – another blog post for another time) and thinking about the conversation I just had with Chef Boy ‘R Mine. Damn, I raised him well. (Connie preens and twirls.)

The Doctor and The Lioness

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

lionessI grew up, as did many folks my age, watching shows like Wild Kingdom and Flipper and Born Free. After years of such fare, I either internalized a phenomenon that I couldn’t articulate until after my son was born or, more likely, I just bore witness to behavior I would acquire on my own.

Said phenomenon was a set of behaviors centered on an attitude. Before Chef Boy ‘R Mine, I attributed the onset of these behaviors and that attitude to any number of things: my sense of justice, PMS, love, exhaustion. After Child-of-Mine’s birth, we coined a phrase to label this state of being, force of nature, whirlwind of 6’ woman with hair on fire. We called it Don’t-Fuck-With-The-Mama.

Think for a moment on every story you’ve ever heard or read about the mama bear, the lioness or the normally sweet-tempered family dog who turned into a wailing banshee of hell’s fury unleashed when the pups, cubs, kittens were endangered.

My child was a medical miracle and his first few months of life involved a lot of doctors and an insurance company who did not understand DFWTM.

I don’t yell. I don’t, generally, curse when confronting the problem. I don’t flail about or commit bodily harm – at least I haven’t yet. But I am either an immovable object or an unstoppable force. I say “unacceptable” a lot.

mama bearDFWTM extends to anyone I care deeply about though it is much stronger when my son is involved. Go ahead; ask me about the time I interrupted a board meeting of a health insurance company to question their decision to deny my son a surgeon with actual cleft-lip repair experience? Or the time my son was bullied to the point of blood on a school bus and the driver let him off at the regular stop as if nothing had happened. You’ll not want to ask me about the principal at the local elementary school unless you have a lot of time. It’s probably best that we don’t get into the Unfortunate Incident With My Mom’s Doctor or the ridiculous employment rules that endangered my ex-husband’s life.

I am fiercely protective of who and what I love.

The past months have been DFWTM. This time it’s not my son, but my husband-in-fact-if-not-legally. It’s further indictment of the sad state of healthcare in this country that most of my truly epic DFWTH moments center on medical folks. I have many stories about the wondrous effects medical professionals have wrought. I give praise where it’s due. And I put on storm trooper boots and wage battle when they err. Sometimes the iron fist is velvet-gloved as in the recent statement, “I believe that I must insist you consult with his transplant team before you continue” and other times a tad more confrontational such as the, also recent, “You will not talk to me that way especially when you do not know what you’re talking about.”  But it’s pretty much a given that the shit is about to hit the fan, when I quit dealing with the person responsible for the mess and pick up the phone to involve someone else.

After these events, when I sheathed my talons and the adrenaline has receded, I wonder how it is that some of these folks have habituated these behaviors? Do they not deal with lionesses protecting cubs? Or are the lionesses losing their ferocity? Or are the lionesses submitting to an authority who hasn’t earned the privilege of trust?

Taylor Mali’s quote on authority comes to mind, particularly as I have just written an entire paragraph of questions.

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

I entreat you to advocate, vigorously, for those you love. Lives depend on it.

A new trend in female grooming?

/ wvfurandroot / 11 Comments

It really gets tiresome.

I collected a machete and box of Band-Aids and took them to the bathroom. I got out the razor and the shaving cream.  I sighed.  For 38 years, I have performed this unpleasant and, sometimes, dangerous task.

I shaved my legs and, while doing so, wondered who, exactly, introduced this practice. I also wondered why it went viral. And I wondered if it was ever ever ever going to be passé.  [Note:  I do know Ancient Romans were into de-haired legs.]

Immediately following the car wreck of 2007 and for months thereafter, I had heaps of medical appointments. Between the chiropractor, physical therapist, podiatrist and orthopedist, I was to-ing and fro-ing much too much. I think the record was 8 appointments in one week. Bear in mind, I owned a body that had been infiltrated and colonized by pain endorphins. Work and doctoring were all I could manage. Shaving my legs was not physically possible and even if I could have managed it, I probably wouldn’t have. There’re only so many hours in a day.

During these appointments where I sat naked wrapped in paper with my hairy legs chill-bumped, I would read whatever magazines were in the exam room. It seems that doctors’ patients are uncommonly fond of gosspip rags. Either that or the docs are. [Exception: my shrink’s office is filled with the New Yorker and Car & Driver. Go figure.]

I wonder how often Miley shaves?

Slowly, inevitably perhaps, I became well-versed about Lindsey Lohan, Brangelina, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and all those paparazzi-chased folks.

Perversely, it started to interest me. I would tut tut when reading about LiLo’s latest boondoggle. Sneer at Paris Hilton’s cluelessness. Horrified that Jessica Simpson doesn’t brush her teeth daily.  I also looked at the fashion faux pas and fab fashion pics – sometimes thinking the fab was more of a faux pas, but those folks are never going to hire me to be the fashion editor.

Eventually, the myriad of medical appointments came to an end along with my celebrity gossip. I started itching to know the recent state of Brad and Angie’s marriage and whether or not Lindsey had learned how to disguise her alcohol monitoring bracelet as a cool fashion accessory.

I started going online for my gossip. While not as satisfying as a magazine, it more than meets my needs.

[Of course, you understand how much it pains me to admit to all this, but it is germane to leg shaving and I will get to that.]

I started reading the Huffington Post regularly during the last presidential election. They have one of the greatest celebrity gossip pages around. When I click on a link, it will often take me to a gossip rag or blog I haven’t heard of. It’s like a treasure hunt.  [Angelina Jolie may be pregnant again.]

Tonight after the unpleasant hacking at my legs and sick of the election (and sick about the election), I went gossiping for some fluffy, banal entertainment. One link led to another and then another and I found myself reading an article with the blaring headline – Natalia Vodianova Reveals Hairy Legs at Harper’s Bazaar Party. [Let’s not even get into how bizzare it is that a major magazine has nothing more important than this to publish.]

I hadn’t a clue who Natalia Vodianova was, but I was rather intrigued at a woman who would show up at a Harper’s Bazaar party with unshaven legs and, presumably, wearing something that revealed such.

Peach fuzz, I tell ya.

Frankly, it was a lot of hullaballoo about nothing.
Because Natalia (who is a super model, I learned) may have a habit of this, the writer thoughtfully provided another link proving she’d done it before.

Well the accompanying photographic proof got my attention – imagine being a super model and doing a fashion shoot in short shorts and NOT shaving your legs. Still and all, my primary thought was if the hair on my legs looked like that I would never shave.

But in the same article, there’s a reference (linked) to something called Team Mo-‘Nique. In the interest of research, I clicked. Mo’Nique is an actress or something. But she has some bodacious hairy legs (I can relate) and flaunts them regularly. Lately, it seems she presented her hairy gams at the Golden Globes.

She says, I must show America what a real leg looks like . . . because it’s too much in the morning, every morning, to shave, to cut, you got Band-Aids baby, she said. I really think hair on a woman’s legs is a black woman’s thing.

Girl! We could be twins!

If she’s right, I may masquerade as a black woman. But probably not. I’ve been conditioned to think a hairless leg is more attractive than a hairy one. And I can’t figure out how it is that she isn’t walking around scratching all the time.

She and I have pelts of similar hairiness. If I go too long without shaving, it itches and ingrown hairs develop and it’s altogether unpleasant.- more unpleasant than contorting my body in the bathtub or shower on a regular basis.

Which means, of course, that if Natalia and Mo’Nique are trend setters that are going to start a viral change to female grooming, I’m still going to be pretzeled in the shaving-legs asana – perhaps not as often as I do now, but still… Being the trendy person I am, I would hate to commit such a fashion faux pas as displaying smooth, denuded legs.

Clearly, if Team Mo’Nique sweeps the Olympics of Personal Grooming Habits, I’m going to have to wear pants on the days intense itch provoked shaving instead of wearing pants on the days I don’t shave. Either way, I am not going to be able to wear dresses as much as I like lest I assault someone’s, perhaps my own, standards of female pulchritude.

 [And don’t get me started on the price of razor blades.]