No Shabbat for the Weary

Yesterday Husband and I rented a car (a shitty Hyundi Sonata – I do not recommend it) and drove up to see our friends in MA. My friend is VERY, VERY pregnant and is having the kid in 3 weeks. I went up to have a little shower for her, and Husband joined me for the ride. He hung out with Friend’s Husband and 2 ¾ year old son while we went out for tea.

We were joined by three other women at the tea house. When they saw how large her belly was, they all asked how she was feeling. “It’s like having a bowling ball sit on my pelvis,” Friend replied. “I am so ready for this baby to come out.” He is probably going to be over 9 lbs when he is born. (Reasons number 61 and 447.2 why I am not having children.)

The tea was lovely. I could have used more clotted cream, but the scone was soft and warm. I used three sugar cubes over the course of tea in my cup, but I refrained from eating any. The egg salad, cucumber and cream cheese, and the crab salad tea sandwiches were scrumptious. The ginger chicken salad and salmon salad were like mush with dill on marble bread. Most disappointing. Desserts were interesting and included a frozen strawberry filled with custard and capped with white chocolate. Overall, it was an especially worthwhile tea at only $15.95.

More important, the company was great. It was Friend, her friend who already has two kids under the age of four, two women in the process of having a kid together, and me. Out of the five of us, three had had breast reduction surgeries and one other person was planning to have one in the near future. We all agreed that it is ridiculous to shave off your pubes, especially before going to the OB-GYN. Especially if you are so pregnant that you cannot see your snatch anyway.

One of the women revealed that the hormones released post-pregnancy change the color of your pubes. I thought that sounded a bit like the leaves in autumn. Think about how lovely fall can be. People drive around the countryside looking at the leaves. While I doubt you want people observing your crotch in the same way, if you shave them off, you would miss out on an exciting event. How sad would that be?

As all good things must come to an end, Husband and I drove home after the tea. Husband was exhausted from playing with Friend’s son. “How the hell do people do that every day?” he wanted to know. I felt bad for Husband, so I offered to drive all the way back. This meant (drumroll) driving into Manhattan. Generally, the thought of driving in Manhattan terrifies me. I don’t particularly love driving too much, and I hate traffic and situations where it is likely I will run a pedestrian down while I am looking at a store window. For these reasons (plus cabs – enough said there), I have avoided driving in NYC the entire 12 years I have lived here. (OK, not the entire 12 years. Once I moved a car we had parked on W. 72nd St from a broken meter to a space three spots up the street. It was a Sunday morning at 8 am, though, so there were other cars parked there nor was there any traffic at all.)

I almost backed out of it while we stopped for gas in Westchester County. Husband reassured me that traffic was likely to be somewhat light at 12:30 am, so I took a deep breath and decided that it was now or never. Mostly the ride was fine although there was this white van full of (I swear) Mormons that was driving like 20 miles an hour on the West Side Highway/Henry Hudson Parkway and breaking at every bump as well as swerving a bit. This led me to change lanes. Go me!

I got to W. 79th, successfully navigated the traffic circle (not a soul was in sight), and then headed down Riverside Drive. I made a left on 76th, stopped at the light on West End Ave. An old man with a cane crossed the street, then the light turned green. I waved at Brother-in-Law’s soon to be ex-apartment (“Look at me! I’m driving in Manhattan!”) as I drove by carefully. Somehow, the light at Broadway was still green when I got there, so I whizzed by. Some skanky girls looked like they might try and cross against the light at Amsterdam, but fortunately decided to wait until the walk sign appeared. We found a parking spot not far from our apartment that could fit an elephant and his older brother. Like an idiot, I first attempted to pull into it, but had to get out and back in. At that point, I did not notice the cab behind me, but he gently reminded me of his presence before I backed into the spot. I waited for him to go by, backed in, pulled up a bit, backed up a bit, pulled up a bit, backed up a bit, pulled up a bit, and bam! We were in.

Yes, Saturday was very nice. Plus, while I was visiting Friend, another Friend From Home (Chicago) called and asked if Husband and I would be interested in joining her and some other folks on a 10 day tour of India in the spring. Oh, yes I would! Gonna find out more about that today. Very exciting stuff indeed.

Lady Suzanne and Her Tea

Tomorrow Husband and I are driving up to Massachusetts for the day. My friend who I have known since high school is having her second kid, and I am going up for a little celebration. We are having afternoon tea, for which I am very excited. Despite the fact that I am a foul-mouthed savage who refuses to wear make-up and thinks the height of fashion involves pink knee high boots (or black ones with lots of cool buckles) and chunky soles, I seriously love proper afternoon tea.

OK, it’s not the proper part that I love (the girly fanciness actually make me nervous at best and give me the heebie-jeebies at worst), but all the food that it entails. To beign, munching on the sugar cubes while waiting on the other goodies is fun. There is nothing like a decent scone spread think with clotted cream and jam. I also love those ridiculous little tea sandwiches which have no nutritional value whatsoever. White bread with the crust cut off filled with something mixed with gobs of mayo is just damn tasty. Finally, there are usually some sorts of cakes or cookies involved. Afternoon tea is a winning proposition for everything but my rapidly expanding gut and my increasing inability to digest these types of foods.

Of course, it will be nice to see my friends in MA and their cute kid as well. It will just be even nicer to see them while I stuff scones with clotted cream (how I love those words: both disgusting and oh so yummy at once) and jam into my craw.

The Subway, The Doctor, and The Wax (a.k.a., The Bad, The Good, and The Ugly)

Do not, I repeat, do not take the 4,5, or 6 trains during rush hours. Unless you are on your way to the dermatologist to have him look at you potentially scabies-infested arms, as I was, it is probably not worth the hassle. People are crammed into the train and you could wind up rubbing against someone with potentially scabies-infested arms. (Although it does take prolonged exposure to a person with scabies to contract them, so just hitting arms does not count. However, holding onto the same pole with arms rubbing together for 30 minutes might do the trick.) That would suck.

Any conversation that begins with “So I have this rash…” is not likely to end well. Fortunately, after I went to see the dermatologist, I learned that I do not have scabies. Whew! It makes me even happier that I did not rush out and get the insecticide medicine and smear myself with bug killer. (I’m sure some pervert out there would find that kinky – fantasy denied!) I merely have eczema as I suspected. Treatment: cool showers (sob) that are no more than three minutes long, then apply Cetaphil lotion. I love my scalding hot showers (when we were at the Dead Sea in Israel, there had a hot spring bath which Husband commented was about the temperature of my showers), but I can deal with cooler ones. (They are better for the environment, a friend told me after she saw An Inconvenient Truth.) On the other hand, my showers are generally no more than five minutes as is. Not sure how I can cut the time down. Maybe not wash my face? The cool water may encourage me to hustle anyway.

With the rash mystery solved, I went on to my next appointment of the evening yesterday. A friend is starting a career as a professional waxer and needs clients. As a favor, I agreed to let her wax my pits and lower legs. “How ‘bout a bikini wax?” she asked hopefully. “I need the practice, and you can blog about it. It’ll be great.” No, no it will not be great. Thanks, but no thanks. I mentioned the offer to Future Sister-in-Law (FSiL) and she was game, though.

I have subjected myself to waxing my legs and pits three or four times before. (Once I even had an unintended bikini wax.) Never have I chatted with my torturer, er, I mean, aesthetician about feminism, neighborhood demographic changes in Chicago, Ariel Levy, writing, Girls Gone Wild, and porn. Needless to say, it was the longest and yet least painful wax job ever. (On the other hand, she did take a picture during the process for me to use on my blog, but my ass and thighs are ginormous. Now that is painful…) If you must get waxed, I highly recommend her. Just don’t let her take a picture.

A Trip to Italy Leads to a Trip to the Doctor

I went to see my GI on Wednesday. My appointment was originally for 5:45, but the nurse called earlier in the day and asked if I could change it to 5:15. Sure, no problem.

I arrived at the office fairly promptly at 5:16. Then I sat and waited. I mean, I appreciated the extra time I had to read an appropriately nasty article about Caitlin Flanagan and her lying ways in Elle, but I was seriously getting pissed. At 5:45, the time of my original appointment, I asked the nurse what the fuck was going on. (Of course, my actual question was “How much longer is Dr. ShitFixer going to be?” in a very sweet voice.) “He’ll be right with you, although there is another patient ahead of you.” Uh huh. I see. I figured that meant he would not see me until about 6:15. Well, thanks for hauling my ass in 30 minutes earlier so that I could wait for 60 minutes instead of 30 minutes. How did they know that I had nothing better to do with my time? They must be psychics.

(You know how doctors always have policies saying that if you cancel an appointment within 24 hours of the appointment, they get to charge you some unreasonable amount of money? I have often considered sending a bill to them if they cancel on me within 24 hours of my appointment. It’s only fair. I also wouldn’t mind figuring out how much money I make on an hourly basis and charging them for my waiting time if I have to wait more than 15 minutes.)

At any rate, the doctor came in at 6:08. He asked me if I was writing in my journal. I thought it would not be a good idea to mention that I was writing about how fucking pissed off I was that I did them a favor and came in early, only to wait 53 fucking minutes for my 10 minutes with him, so I said that I was making some notes for my blog. I’m slightly disappointed that he didn’t ask what my blog was about, because I think he might have found the Campaign for Unshaved Snatch amusing. On the other hand, I also would not be able to bitch about him in this post.

Anyway, I told him that my shit logs were coming back. He asked if I had any other symptoms. I mentioned that I had developed a rash on my arm when I was in Italy. He grabbed my arm and eyed it. “You might have scabies,” he calmly told me. (Motherfucker! Can you believe that shit? ) “Could it be eczema?” I inquired. My bubbe has eczema. “Maybe,” he said. He wrote me a scrip for some ointment that I am supposed to smear on myself before I go to bed and then wash it off in the AM. If that stops the itching, then it was scabies. However if it does not stop the itching, I should see a dermatologist. Not that I don’t trust him, but I think I would rather see the dermatologist before I smear what is essentially insecticide all over myself and sleep in it. In fact, I’ll make an appointment ASAP...

Wow, I'm a Hipster!

According to this week's Village Voice, "In the club world, it's the clean kids who are the rebels." Wow, I'm better than a hipster - I am a hister rebel. The whole article is on "The Sober Hipster" and the cover shows a woman dunking a chocolate chip cookie into a martini glass full of milk. Yum. Now someone is talking my language of fun.

Bob Herbert: "Hidden in Brothels, Slavery by Another Name"

In today’s New York Times, Bob Herbert wrote a very good article about sex trafficking in New York. (This might not be accessible online unless you have a subscription to the Times. If you want to read this article and can’t, let me know and I will forward it to you.) New York State, like most states, does not currently have a law that specifically forbids the heinous crime, and therefore when brothels are busted, it is usually only the kidnapped women who face charges and are criminally sanctioned, not the evil people who forced them into prostitution. A new law in the State Assembly will change that, making trafficking a felony. Penalties range from probation for a first-time offender to a maximum of 15 years in prison. It also slightly increases the penalties for the johns.

While I am glad that a law is being put in the books, I don’t think that this is good enough. First-time offenders need much stricter penalties than mere probation. That is not going to stop anyone from trafficking in the first place, and it sure won’t stop them from going back to it. Here is my suggestion: I think these people should get the death penalty. Generally, I am against the death penalty, as it tends to be racist, classist, and an otherwise poor use of the state’s power, money, and time. However, traffickers have such a brazen disregard for the lives of women that I actually do believe they deserve to die.

As for the johns, they should be charged with rape, because that is exactly what they do when they have sex with a women forced into prostitution. Herbert’s article had a line in it that made me sick: “The word spread that there was a new girl at the brothel in Queens, and the johns began lining up.” This is something that I cannot possibly understand. It is clear that these men knew that the prostitutes were being held at the brothel against their will. The woman interviewed by Herbert said that she “was crying all night.” I can understand that some people feel the need to pay someone to have sex with them, but I cannot understand how can a person be so desperate for sex that they don’t care if they are in actuality paying a third party so that they can rape someone? If someone is sobbing while you pound away, how could one not notice and think something might be wrong? Do these johns have no humanity?

Sex trafficking is one of the most disgusting violations of human rights in the world. The people involved, both the traffickers and the john, are the worst sort of slime on the earth. They should be treated as such.

Let's Shake on It!

So my penultimate afternoon in Italy was spent looking at relics. Dr. P, Dr. H, and I went to two churches, Il Gesú and Chiesa Nouva. The only really interesting things were at Il Gesú, so I’ll spare everyone the other details and pictures.

Il Gesú was loaded with relics. This is one of the reliquary cabinets. Here is another one of the displays loaded with relics of all sorts. Most fascinating! A close up on one of the relics reveals a scary skeletal hand. Despite the cache of relic treasures, Il Gesú is best known for the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. Across from the tomb, is the best relic I have ever laid my heretic eyes on. It is the arm of St. Francis Xavier, protégé of St. Ignatius Loyola! St. Francis Xavier is credited with converted over 10,000 untouchables in India when he went there as a missionary in the 1540s. Depsite his death over 400 years ago, his arm remains impressively pulpy. (I guess all those Baptisms can really preserve a body part.) I asked Dr. P if she thought she could surgically reattach it to another body since it was in such good condition, but she looked at me like I was insane and started backing away a bit. Sometimes I really think I missed my calling as a coroner. I knew that I should have paid attention to math an science all those years ago…