UPDATE 5/1/2009: As seen on Letterman, Iowa’s lieutenant governor makes an interesting press announcement about swine flu. (Sent in by my dad.)
UPDATE 4/30/2009: It’s here. Dangit. Luckily, I have already recruited one of the designers at work to spruce up my face mask.
Let it be known that if the swine flu gets to DC, I will be one of those people walking around outside with a mask on. Straight up.
I’m going to wash my hands now.
Categories: The District · bird flu · iowa
I had a most interesting day at the doctor’s office this afternoon. Between helping the staff catch a lost dog that was running in the street and enduring the world’s dumbest gynecology jokes, I was suckered in to updating my immunizations.
“Let’s see. Last time you were here, you told me you’d check to make sure your tetanus was up to date,” said my doctor, scrolling on her laptop. “And you told me the same thing the time before. So we’re doing it today.”
“Dang it.”
“I also want you to start the Gardasil vaccines today so we can finish the series before your next birthday.”
I’ve seen the cute commercials. I thought hell, I’m getting old but I still want to be one less.
So after my physical I sat on the table and waited for Kim, my favorite medical assistant, to stab me. Kim’s a sassy little thing with long acrylic nails** painted orange and blue for the Broncos.
“Didn’t she tell you that you could get dressed?” Kim asked. She was wearing safari scrubs. They reminded me of the Kenya song, which made me happy.
“No. She said you’d be right in.” I was wearing a nice bright floral number which wrapped around me two and a half times.
“Just goes to show you these doctors don’t know shit about what we do,”Kim said, squeezing alcohol onto a cotton pad.
I nodded in agreement. I worked in a clinic for four and a half years: The doctors are pompous assholes and the nurses are high-maintenance. Just how it goes.
She continued to lament and stuck me with the tetanus.
“Oh, that was nice. Hardly felt it. Well done, and thank you.”
A cheshire-type smirk spread across Kim’s face and she said:
“Sorry, kid. You’re not going to be as lucky with this one.”
I felt a prick and then a monsoon of hellfire spread through my arm. It was if Satan himself was pissing into my blood stream. And I started speaking in tongues.
The longer it hurt, the hotter my temper got. I felt like slapping someone and my mouth got wicked foul. The lost dog barked in the waiting room next to me.
“That’s gonna sting like hell for the next two minutes or so. Don’t touch it,” Kim said as she dumped the needle into a red waste receptacle. I watched blood bubble on the surface of my skin.
“What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Those guys at Merck are real sadists.”
**People in the medical profession shouldn’t wear acrylic; it’s unsanitary. But a lot of them do anyway.
[Jam of the Day]: Aaron Lee Martin, Long Journey Home
Technology has not been kind to me today. My work computer was a friggin’ sloth all day, and then when I got home, my laptop freaked out, apparently having been slimed, or puked on by Ecto Cooler.
While the laptop mellowed out, I went down and hit the elliptical, during which time my iPod hopelessly froze up. I’ve tried every damn thing to unfreeze and restore it, but it’s still sitting here next to me, three hours later, all a-damn-glow.
And just as I was about to resign myself for the night, my cell phone rang and the shiny lightbox on the front of my phone indicated that it was my good friend James. Oh God, I thought. Something drastic has happened.
It wasn’t quite the emergency room horror I was expecting (this is why D calls me a fatalist), but rather he and Kristi were concerned that maybe, just maybe, things were seriously awry over here at the bachelorette** pad.
“Your blog keeps puking up all this old stuff from like 2003,” he said. “Kristi just read an old blog post about your lost mitten and finding some holiday ass for your roommate.”
Oh, the humanity.
I don’t know what is going on with the blog, but this is the first time I’ve touched it all night. In fact, I thought I hid those damn archives like a month ago.
SO. If things are looking askew ’round here, I apologize. I’m gonna close up shop now and run about 80 virus scans. And so the Nancy Drew mysteries continue at the apartment. The odd story of the partially eaten Ethel Merman may be forthcoming, should nothing else break.
**I’m pretty pissed that bachelorette has yet to make it into the dictionaries of Firefox and Microsoft Word, giving me all that red squiggly line biz. I’m not trying to get all Andrea Dworkin on everyone, but seriously, WOMEN CAN BE SINGLE AND PRETTY AND SELF-SUFFICIENT AND STUFF. AND NOT SHREW-LIKE. That is all.
[Jam of the Day]: Peter, Bjorn and John, Let’s Call It Off
The avian flu hits England. The first casualties: 2,500 turkeys. [Debbie Downer soundclip here.]
Read about it:
En Francais
In English [with video]
Categories: bird flu · nastification of the world
The avian flu hits England. The first casualties: 2,500 turkeys. [Debbie Downer soundclip here.]
Read about it:
En Francais
In English [with video]
Categories: bird flu · nastification of the world
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