Elisa's Journal

QuickPost | System Overview | Movable Type Publishing Platform I think eyebrow width gets a bad rap. Lips and eyes get all the attention as a message board that says, "I'm pissed, happy, adorable, hard-ass, sour, sweet, bitter, or yes, horny. Even our wrinkles receive more notice! They say, "I'm distinguished, I have character, I've had a full life, I don't believe in wearing sunglasses, I have a frequent buyer card for Darque Tan, or I'm old as dirt." But how thin our brows are, for instance, can speak volumes. You know those women who pluck their brows to a 1-micrometer thickness? Stay away from them. They're usually hard-ass bitches with a set of brass knuckles in their Coach purses. And you've seen guys and girls with the whole mono-brow thing going on? Stay away from them because they probably smell. If they don't have the time and awareness level to mow that strip once in a while, they probably don't have the time and awareness to take a shower every day. OK, I know some cultures find that bushy one-piece desirable, but those people usually stink anyway. There's an interesting brow characteristic that, I'm proud to say, I've standardized into a marker for dementia (loony-tunes crazy, for those of you who don't watch doctor shows on TV.) I've coined this marker the "Epstein Dementia Scale" after one of my old patients. Several years ago, I admitted her to the hospital for an evaluation of an abrupt onset of dementia (see above is you suffer from short-term memory loss.) Every day on hospital rounds I noticed that she painted "eyebrows" on at varying distances from her real (albeit scanty) ones. The more out of it she was, the higher the painted ones were. Eventually, they migrated north all the way to her hairline. That was the day she was double-parked in the Twilight Zone. Some cultures, for reasons that escape me, have the custom of actually shaving their brows only to apply a strip of eyebrow pencil to replace them. My daughter, Michelle, has more than once fantasized about attaching alcohol swaps to her thumbs, running up to one of them, vigorously rubbing the swabs on those pencil strips, then running away. Given the neighborhoods where she'd find her prey, I fear for her safety. Notice that no mention of specific cultures have been made here, so those who wish to protest this blog, take you little PC-tree-hugging ass, sit it in a corner, and think about how overly serious you take life.

Posted by elisa at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

QuickPost | System Overview | Movable Type Publishing Platform Annika continues to amaze me in the area of word invention. First of all, ever since she became a fan of Grey's Anatomy, she's had her heart set on becoming a surgeon. Recently, she pinpointed her future specialty: "cardioforathic surgeon." Try saying that 20 times as fast as you can and you deserve to be one yourself. Before that, after Kristina mentioned the word "geriatrics" in a conversation with Annika, she asked, "Who is Jerry Atrix?"

Other news: I've been having such a terrible time getting Lukas up in time for school lately. Yesterday, he got into the car with no shoes on and didn't realize it until we'd gone nearly a mile. If I turned back, Erik would be late, so I continued despite ear-splitting protests and rants about how it was my fault (?) When we got to school, I had to drag his shoeless body out of the back seat so he wouldn't be late for the ridiculous yet all-important TAKS test. So he went to class with a face five shades of red. Actually, it did contrast nicely with those blindly white socks of his. Today, I warned him that I would go to his room to wake him up no more than twice. On the third time, I would toss a paper cup full of ice water in hi face. Naturally, it came to that. Paper cup—5 cents. Ice water—1 cent. High pitched gasp and stunned facial expression—priceless. And yep, he woke up. A lot.

Sometimes Lukas protests that my punishments are "weird," including the pushups I demand when he’s disrespectful. So I simply remind him that I've tried all the conventional methods on him, none of which made a dent. I’ve been forced to blaze unexplored trails into new and exciting parenting territory. After all, necessity is the mother of invention or, in words that undoubtedly first spilled out of the mouth of some brilliant yet anonymous mom from long ago: "Whatever works, man!" Say your prayers for the victims of V. Tech and their families and friends.

Posted by elisa at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

QuickPost | System Overview | Movable Type Publishing Platform Poor little Annika, my youngest, made the mistake of going through her photo album last night while she was in bed. These are photos she's taken with a variety of cheap cameras that have come and gone since she was old enough to hold them reasonably steady. Sure, many of the photos are of things like cabinet handles, my butt, doorknobs and other things viewed from her two foot high perspective. But several are of our dogs in varying degrees of focus. Actually, "dog parts" would be more appropriate because none included an entire dog. We're talking a nose here, a paw there. She did find a nearly whole one of Zoe, though, and the barely healed wounds of her recent euthanasia tore open and bled again. She comes to me with the photo clutched tightly to her chest, tears streaming down her face. If only she could hug her again. if only she had played with her more. She slept cuddled up with me and I suggested she place Zoe's picture under the pillow so she could dream of happy times with her. But she gave me that "are you insane, woman?" look and said she was afraid Zoe would smother. After a while, she went to her own bed with a slightly damp Zoe in tow. This morning, she took that same picture with her to school, tucked into her binder somewhere between math and language arts. Big hearts break easily.

On the lighter side, I was talking to my eldest, Kristina, telling her how fabulous the biscuits and gravy were at Cliff's Restaurant. She shook her head in disgust and said she could never eat there again after seeing me throw up in my breakfast there a few months back. She had picked me up from my colonoscopy and my stomach had not yet recovered from the anesthesia, I guess. Annika looked at me with saucer-size eyes and asked, "Anesthesia! You mean you couldn't remember anything about your life!?"

Posted by elisa at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)