Attack of the maniacal needle

Recently I had to visit an orthopedic office to see why my elbow seems to have mutinied on me. I dressed with care, wearing dress boots because of the snow. I was a little late, and sailed into the office.

If you have ever been in an orthopedic office, you know that the people there have some serious injuries. They are limping, if they are lucky to be walking at all. They are holding their arms or head at an awkward angle. Their limbs are swallowed up by bandages, slings, casts.

I had none of this. All my limbs were intact. I didn't look like I had been run over by something large and menacing. My clunky boots announced to all the good, honestly ill people in the waiting room that there was an impostor in their midst. I felt that they would rise up and throw me out if they could.

As I made my way from the sign-in desk to a chair to wait my turn, I felt the reproach of all those casts and slings. I started holding my arm against my body, as if it might, if left unprotected, suddenly detach itself from my body and clatter to the floor. I threw in a grimace or two for good measure.

When my name was called, I slunk out of the waiting room, still holding my arm as awkwardly as I could. The doctor informed me that I most likely had tennis elbow. Leave it to me to get a sports injury while being a couch potato, I thought.

The doctor thought a cortisone shot might help, and after explaining the risks -- none of which sounded any more dangerous than getting out of bed in the morning -- I agreed. He left the room. 

A young man soon brought in a tray containing the shot and jar of whatever was going to go in me. He placed it on the examining table and assured me the doctor would be in shortly. Perhaps it WOULD have seemed shortly under normal circumstances. But the doctor didn't return for at least 10 minutes, during which time I kept glancing at the shot, and with each glance the shot seemed to have inched closer and looked more menacing.

There are instances, documented in certain types of literature, of inanimate objects launching an attack upon unsuspecting individuals. In Peanuts, for instance, Linus's blanket, typically an item of reclusive temperament, can often be found attacking Lucy. I say hurrah for the blanket, but I digress.

Calvin, too, was occasionally beset upon by nonhuman things with nefarious intentions, such as his bike, suds in the bathtub, etc.

I believe strongly, therefore, that had the doctor not entered when he did, the needle would have launched itself off the table and plunged into my elbow. 

But it did get the upper hand at last. After administering the shot, the doctor began to tell me how to care for my elbow after I got home. As he talked, his head grew fuzzy. His mouth appeared to be moving, but to what purpose I couldn't tell. I abruptly informed him that I was about to pass out. 

I had one last look at the needle before lying down on the examining table, and I know it was smirking.

As I eventually made my way back through the waiting room and out the door, still woozy from the injection, I consoled myself with the thought that finally, I looked like I belonged there. 

Where is spring?

According to sources that keep track of these things, spring is losing approximately one minute per year. These sources say that this minute is getting tacked on to summer, although we suspect that the lost minutes of each year's spring is actually being held at some undisclosed research location to see if it can be bottled into some sort of fresh-smelling household cleaning product. ("All-new bathroom spray--contains actual spring!")

As alarming as it is to be losing a bit of springtime, we personally are not unhappy to hear that winter is losing a half minute per year, although if this were to get out, it would certainly cause riots among skiers, etc.

This trend is expected to continue, due to various scientific reasons which we cannot begin to understand but which are probably being taught in our modern elementary schools. This means that our lucky descendants in the year 3500 will have a shorter winter to endure, 88.71 days, a whopping quarter of a day less than at present.

"Be grateful you didn't live back in 2013," parents will say gravely to their children in the future. "Great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandma had to live through winters that were 88.994 days long."

Winter, however, is not giving up its half minute without a fight. Today, in fact, with six days to go until Easter, in our particular location we are getting more snow than we've had all winter. 

So hurry up with that all-new, actual spring cleaning product!

When is a fridge not a fridge?

This is the last installment of highlights from our visit to the historic home and craftsmen show. Next we will highlight our visit -- in the same building -- to the casino. Just kidding! Actually a casino does exist in the same building, but we did not visit it. We confess to being tempted, though. They had better food there than at the home show.


Q: What kind of refrigerator do you get for $7,000? 

A: A fridge that doesn't look like a fridge.

Of all the very interesting things we learned at a session on cabinets and kitchen makeovers, this is the fact that has stuck with us the most: that if one wishes, one can pay more for a refrigerator than, say, a car several times larger. 

This we learned from a gentleman whose appearance would lead one to believe that his chief profession is driving cross-country on a very large, impressive motorcycle. In actuality, he does kitchen renovations, crafting cabinets to look like distressed, antique furniture. Judging from the slide show he presented of his handiwork, he is very good, and judging from the number of kitchens he has outfitted with $7,000 refrigerators and other spiffy renovations, clearly his clients are not suffering from the poor economy.

The gentlemen himself owns such a refrigerator, and admitted that "when you write a check for seven grand for a fridge, your hand shakes a little."

The startling thing is, you cannot see most of these refrigerators. Many of his clients desire a "period" kitchen look, and in most periods of this nation's history, whole houses didn't even cost that much. So in an effort to appear "regular folk," the clients have their refrigerator completely framed in to appear as just part of the cabinet work, only three times the size.

In fact, pretty much everything in these kitchens he showed us is camouflaged, so that a one could be forgiven if one failed to locate the dishwasher in one's own kitchen, or was caught throwing trash into the pull-out freezer. We imagine that children growing up in such a home might be frightened upon entering another home in which the refrigerator is completely exposed; it would seem a foreign object to them, one perhaps with malevolent intentions. And young children would be completely confused when presented with a kindergarten entrance exam in which they are shown various pictures and asked to point to the refrigerator. 

"There is no refrigerator here," a child with a hidden refrigerator would say after perusing the choices.

"Doesn't know what a refrigerator is," the examiner would write on the child's chart. "Refer to remedial class."

Smaller kitchen appliances, too, are nowhere to be seen in many of these kitchens, but are cleverly concealed behind little trap doors on counters. A homeowner is likely to play some variation of "What's behind Door #1?" each morning.

I swooned over many of these photos, particularly the ones of kitchens with a primitive look. 

Eventually the cabinet man showed us a few pictures from his own house in Ohio...and also from his house in Virginia.

The Hero and I looked at each other. $7,000 fridges. At least two houses. It was looking more unlikely that our kitchen would ever receive a visit from this particular contractor, no matter how much I swooned over his cabinets.

At last we made our way home from the show. "What did you bring me?" our house, which is always wanting something new, demanded.

We looked in our bag of freebies. "Here's a brochure about windows. Or maybe you'd like to get a new gutter spout?"

Fortunately we did not have any brochures about $7,000 refrigerators or fancy cabinets. You know the house would be whining for them.

Where have all the houses gone?

Today we continue with highlights from our experience at the historic home and craftsmen show.

Another session we attended covered antique flooring, which consists of repurposed wood from old barns and attics. The wood can be used for other purposes in addition to flooring, such as cabinets, stair treads, whacking large spiders, etc. 

We were particularly interested in this session because it was led by the same company who supplied us with wood for our own flooring a few years ago, and we were curious to learn all the things that we have forgotten about wood since then. We endeavored to do this, however, without the owner noticing us. This individual felt, when we were working with him, that we fell into that class of clients who take up too much of one's time by asking questions that anyone who is about to purchase 200-year-old wood should already know. We therefore were anxious that he not recognize us.

This was easily accomplished in the large group that gathered to hear his talk, only he didn't do much of the talking, preferring to turn that over to his young adult daughter and son-in-law. They did not seem to mind people asking questions.

A question was asked about where the company's wood comes from, to which they replied that it is all Pennsylvania wood from barns, houses, and factories that have been torn down. The questioner then asked whether the company also did the demolition, or whether someone else did it and they just bought the wood.

"We have several suppliers who do the demolition and offer us the wood," the owner said.

Thinking back to the enormous amount of wood we had seen in the company's showroom and warehouses, I whispered to the Hero, "There must be a lot of old buildings being torn down in Pennsylvania." We pictured groups of young Amish men, bored with the whole community barn-raising thing, secretly going around tearing down buildings to sell the wood. Naturally the older folk would be perplexed at the increasing number of requests for help in putting up new barns: "Haven't seen this much need for a barn since the fire of '52," they might be saying.

The general consensus at the session seemed to be that old-growth wood is far superior to newer wood, which is pretty much useless, being weaker in general and above all having no "patina." Patina refers to the unique surface characteristics of wood that has aged, such as a particular hue and tone, marks from hammers and axes, etc. (When our wood floor was installed, the contractor asked if we wanted him to add a little more patina by "missing" some of the nails with his hammer. We were touched by his thoughtfulness, we said, but graciously declined.)

It struck us that someday, there will be no more old-growth wood to be salvaged from old buildings. And then where will people turn for their patina? We are afraid it will be to homes like ours, where all that old, repurposed wood is residing. Maybe people who keep their beautiful floors covered with rugs are on to something...

Next: The Princess falls in love with cabinets

Vendors unleashed

Our house is always demanding that we spend money on it. If we do not, it threatens to find some new way to torture us by falling apart somewhere, or by failing to function in some manner. So, anticipating a future need for parting with some unknown amount of money, we recently attended a historic home and craftsmen show to gather ideas for how that money might be applied.

The show featured vendors of various products for the historic home, including flooring, cabinetry, window solutions, gutter guards that you absolutely need because without them your home is doomed to water damage and you will fall off a ladder trying to clean out the gutters and will end up paralyzed and bitter, etc.

The trick at these types of shows, we quickly learned, is getting the information you need while avoiding the appearance of too much interest in the vendor's product or service, which is when the trouble begins. Another important trick -- VERY important, in our opinion -- is to get a sufficient number of free sample of cookies or whatever treat is being offered at a particular booth.

The next couple of posts will highlight some of the presentations we attended and the craftspeople we met.

Dr. Color

Despite a sign in his booth advertising that "Dr. Color is always in," we never saw the distinguished doctor in his booth. We did, however, attend his session on historic colors, or at least I did, as the Hero quickly lost interest and wandered away to investigate more free samples of Chocolate Peanut Clusters from Booth 73.

The color talk centered on "master colors," a collection of paint colors from the 19th century used by "master painters," whose job basically was to protect the "master colors." To keep these colors secret, master painters used a number to refer to each color, because if they had used names like we do today, someone might have figured out the secret formula to, say, "greenish drab." (Later, feeling pressured to use names instead of numbers, a certain company really did offer a color called "greenish drab," which we suspect is what the former owners of our home used.)

Dr. Color decried the practice that has become common among paint companies of naming colors not based on any reflection of the actual color, but rather to evoke a mood, or something that will have meaning for the customer. This has resulted in, for instance, instead of "medium brown," "weekend in the country." What might be next? "Rainy day in Chicago"? "Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?"

Such nonsense has led Dr. Color to come down squarely on the side of using numbers for colors instead of names.

There is another issue to consider with using such names for colors, and that is how we would teach them to young children. To understand "weekend in the country" as a color, the would have to know what "the country" is, and what a "weekend" is. Even that might not help all that much. Would it not be far better to stick to names that kids can readily identify with? Perhaps Grumpy Teacher or Drabbish Desk.

Dr. Color gave us no easy answers for these pressing issues. By the end of his presentation I felt the need to act, and so I went in search of some Chocolate Peanut Clusters.

Next: Where have all the houses gone?

More Proverbs for today

Today we feature a continuation of yesterday's posts, with updated Proverbs for these modern days.

• He that winketh with the eye...probably has a bad contact.

• A prudent man concealeth knowledge...the rest of us happily telleth everyone what we know.

• Anxiety weigheth a man's heart down...but it rarely keepeth him awake at night. His wife, now...

• Hope deferred maketh the heart sick...so why not get what you want right now?

• The wisest of women buildeth her house...and even ventureth to use power tools.

• Even in laughter the heart may ache...not to mention the stomach.

• The wise will inherit honor...although money would be nice, too.

• Ponder the path of your feet...and if they goeth in the direction of the mall, do not stop them.

• Do not swerve to the right or to the left...particularly on a one-lane road.

• The lot is cast into the lap...along with one's coffee when one is startled.

• Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs...rather than a woman who hath run out of chocolate.

• Whoever ignores instruction...cometh home from the grocery store with all the wrong items.

Proverbs for today

Today we bring you a few select Proverbs updated to reflect modern experience. 

• He who answereth before listening...more easily getteth rid of telemarketers.
• People curseth the man who hoards grain...and also he who buyeth up all the batteries and bottled water before a snowstorm.
• Better to live on a corner of the roof...if the cell phone reception is better there.
• All hard work bringeth a profit...which the government soon taketh away.
• If you falter in times of trouble...State Farm is there!
• Grandchildren are a crown to the aged...children, not so much.
• Iron sharpeneth iron...and produceth a noise that no one can standeth.
• A man findeth joy in giving an apt reply...but if the woman only wanted him to listen, he replieth in vain.
• Many are the plans in a man's heart...which are soon derailed by his wife and children, particularly on the weekend.
• Of what use is money in the hand of a fool...when it would be MUCH better off with me?
• There is a way that seemeth right to a man...but his wife will set him straight.
• He who listeneth to a life-giving rebuke...has turned off his hearing aid.

The power of tools

As readers of this blog well know, we NEVER engage in generalizations of any sort in posts here. This of course does not apply to men, about whom we engage in generalizations quite often.

It is well known, for example, that there exists a natural affinity between many men and all things electrical. If something whirrs, buzzes, or hums, they will want it. They will also, despite having survived quite well until the present without whatever it is, declare that it is needed. 

This fascination is thriving at our own house presently. In the span of a few months we have acquired a new vacuum, electric toothbrushes, and a blender. It is true that the latter was technically a gift for me from a relative, but thus far it has been used solely by the Hero. The new vacuum, too, is his domain, and its purchase was in fact initiated by him, I having been entirely satisfied with the one we already have.

"This one is a lot lighter," he explained of the new vacuum. "So it'll be easier to use, and we'll use it more often."

Why we might want to vacuum more often was not explained. The fact that the present machine is very heavy offers a perfect excuse for not vacuuming. But there seems to be a strong bond between the Hero and the new vacuum, so who am I to discourage that?

If there was a decent electric pet on the market, the Hero would buy that, too. Somehow he would figure out how to get the pet and the vacuum to work in concert, so that wherever the pet went the vacuum would follow along behind, automatically picking up any surprises the pet might leave in its wake.

It appears sometimes, although this could be my imagination, that issues suddenly arise that have never arisen before, and the obvious solution to them is: a new electrical gadget. For example, ordinary washcloths, the Hero recently noted, may not be getting our skin as clean as it could be. Even scrubbies may not be the best thing to use for this purpose. Possibly there is something else, the Hero suggested, that could do the job much better:

"Maybe I need a power tool."