And people wonder why I don't allow peanut butter in my home.

Girl dies after boy's peanut kiss

Associated Press
Published November 29, 2005

SAGUENAY, Quebec -- A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter snack, hospital officials said Monday.

Christina Desforges died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss that occurred the previous weekend.

Desforges, who lived in Saguenay, about 155 miles north of Quebec City, almost immediately was given a shot of adrenaline, a standard tool for treating the anaphylactic shock brought on by a peanut allergy, officials said.

An autopsy was being performed.

The symptoms of peanut allergy can include hives, plunging blood pressure and swelling of the face and throat, which can block breathing.

Peanut allergies have been rising in recent decades. The reason remains unclear but one study found that baby creams or lotions with peanut oil may cause children to develop allergies later in life.

End

When Christian and I were first dating, he ate a PB sandwich and then kissed me, not realizing that food allergies didn't just make one daintily sneeze into a delicate lace hanky. Fortunately, I only got fashionably pouty lips.

I shall now be posting as Lucky Kissy-Elf.

Hee. I love Christmas.

The laws of the universe state that....

despite the fact that only two other people are left in the office on the day before Thanksgiving, both of them will walk by your chair mere seconds after you just couldn't contain that tiny fart any more.

Fuzzy chestnuts of wisdom.

Cousin Stephanie and I went to see Jarhead on Saturday. Another cousin, Aaron, is in the movie, but apparently not recognizable as we couldn't find him despite our combined effort.

It was a good if slightly frustrating movie (too many unanswered questions), but one scene in particular (a shower scene, of course) did provide the answer to at least one oft-asked question, albeit not one I think the film intended to ask: the question of why there is so little male full-frontal nudity in mainstream Hollywood films.

I have no need to see that many dangling testicles in such vivid and, well, enormous detail. Ever. Again. Please.

That line is busy. Please try your call again later.

Christian and I went to a movie last night with my sister, Tina, and we were chatting about her recent long trip to South Carolina, where she visited a friend she hasn't seen in a while, and Florida, where she apparently went to a psychic. I mean, the point of the trip was not to see the psychic, she was just incendental. But a psychic? Tina???

Anyway, Fred, Tina's boyfriend, has a second home near his family in Florida, and when his sister and mother were visiting, they went to this psychic who, according to Fred's mom and sis, gave them some shockingly accurate information and predictions. Tina, being adventerous, said that she'd like to go, too, and was told to bring photos of those about whom she had questions. She brought a picture of her friend Deb who recently passed away from ovarian cancer, and, as many things have come out in the past few years about my grandfather on my Dad's side of the family, she brought a picture of both my grandfather and my long suffering grandmother, who, according to her children, was an amazing parent and obviously quite a saint for staying with my asshole grandfather and not poisoning his soup.

When the psychic was "reading the pictures" and telling Tina about other people whose pictures she brought, the psychic spoke in the terms of "so and so wants me to tell you," or "so and so says." But, when Tina asked about our grandfather, the psychic only commented on his personal tendencies, like stubbornness and thrift, and didn't have any interesting "messages" from him to relay. This left Tina wondering, and I quote, "does this mean he's roasting in hell and unavailable for comment?"

God, I hope so.

It hearkens me back to days of yore.

Despite the fact that, as a teen, I never went to any formal dance other than the one I attended with my father (it's not like it sounds), I still fostered a longing for frothy dresses like the ones the bitchy girl tried on in Pretty in Pink. I wanted tulle and ribbons and yards and yards of lace. I remember when a Gunne Sax dress was the height of Spokane couture and the girls with the shimmery white dresses with matching white satin pumps were the envy of all the poor girls whose moms only shopped the sales.

Since those halcyon days, however, I have developed scorn for most formal wear manufacturers. Most gowns are cheaply made with easily torn seams, frail zippers and insufficient lining. Shopping last night for a gown for New Year's Eve was an interesting lesson in "what the hell were these people thinking?" It seems that every dress this year is in the style of the dreaded mermaid tail. Cut on the worst line possible, the dresses accentuated my hips and had too little fabric to suitably cover my bust. And really, on stage, there is nothing more hideous than a dress that looks like a tube that flares out at the knee. Pretty.

Imagine my shock when I saw a glimmer of a dress hidden behind the rack of tried-on clothes that had a fitted bodice with a full skirt and a matching bolero, in the highly coveted brown satin. And I was even more shocked when it was Jessica McClintock, that bastion of 80's prom wear. Huh, I though. Can this be? Can the stronghold of all that is the 80s have a pretty and well-made dress? Of course, they didn't have it even remotely in my size, but when I looked it up online, they had it in the closest approximation of my massive bosom's measurements, but, alas, with no bolero. However, I found a fabulous fabric last night with which to make a jacket, so all I need to do is send a pattern and the fabric to my mom.

That wind you feel whistling past your window? That's me breathing a sigh of relief.

Of course, it might not fit. Gack.

It's not Photoshopped, it just looks that way.

From our fabulous vacation last week:

All of us in the 50th Anniversary Teacup:




















The 50th Anniversary Christmas Tree:





















Me and me lad in front of the castle (it only looks like a pastiche-we really were there):

One, two, and she's down for the count.

As if coming back from an excellent Disneyland vacation with some kind of illness wasn't bad enough, I found out on Friday that offers went out for a production for which I auditioned in June and not only did I not get the lead, I didn't even get the secondary role which I would have sung the shit out of. I had a good audition, am ideally suited for this rep and know the GD personally. It's totally ridiculous. For Pete's sake, I've been singing this rep for ten years and I kick ass at it. The GD actually applauded and said "bravo" after I sang. Like I posted in an earlier tirade, I just don't run with the right crowd and don't suck up enough. Either that, or I'm too fat.

The only thing I'm trying to remember is that, every time I haven't gotten something I really wanted, something better came along. I'm hoping this is the case this time, as I'm pretty depressed.

Why is the cafeteria trying to kill me?

Today's menu:

FRIDAY
©Chicken Barley Clam Chowder ¨Vegetable Gumbo
Swimming Rama-Thai Chicken in Peanut Sauce with Jasmine Rice
¨Rama Tao Hoo-Thai Tofu in Peanut Sauce with Jasmine Rice
©Salmon Fillet with Dill-Cucumber Sauce, Red Quartered Potatoes, Broccoli & Julienne Carrots
Gyro Sandwich Halibut Fish & Chips
Cobb Salad Cheesy Cobb Salad Shrimp Caesar Salad

If you knew me, you'd know why this was funny. What did I ever do to the cafeteria to make it want to bump me off? It's not a beneficiary on my life insurance.

He really does love his little brother.

Can you tell that Jayden decided what he and his brother, Kyan, should be for Halloween?

Jayden does look awfully proud of his newfound authority:

But is this the face of a criminal?

I think not. Just look at those little squishy cheeks...I just want to bite them!

No violence will be necessary at this juncture.

On Monday afternoon, I left work early due to a skull-cracking headache, and came home to this:

The Oxacan pottery from Mexico finally came (YAY!!!), packaged in its own little custom crate. I pried the cross-bars off with a hammer (with many splinters resultant) and opened the box:

















to find much packing material, including shredded newspapers, all in Spanish, bubble wrap for later enjoyment:
















and the first two (thankfully intact) items on top were the teapot and creamer:

















For a minute, I was ramping up to be seriously pissed as I thought we had been sent the wrong items, as I remembered that we bought the blue pot and accessories, but Christian reminded me later that WE wanted the yellow as it reminded HIM of the sun and his Mexican ancestry. He really just wanted his way.

All complete, the set looked spectacular, and slightly Italian, which makes sense, due to the Mediterranean influence from the Spaniards:

















I shall now be able to drink tea and remember the terrifyingly aggressive ware hawkers who were like gorillas in that, if you made eye contact with them, they charged. So very much worth the wait.

I sense a longing for seed....

My bird has bested me, and now she has injured her one and only love (she bruised Fritz's foot, his tiny and precious little footsie) and drew blood from MY NEPHEW, so to the bird behaviorist we go. Yes, I know. Bird behaviorist? Why don't I call a pet psychic while I'm at it? I was already the crazy lady on the block strewn about with snakes and frogs and turtles, but now I'm teetering precariously close to being profiled on Animal Planet's Barking Mad. I used to truly scoff at people who spent hundreds if not thousands of their slave wages on their pets, but now I truly understand. I have been deeply hurt by my bird's rejection of me and my offering of love, and I want to know WHY. Why will she seem to love me one minute and attempt to rip my arm off the next??? Why does she injure Fritz when she obviously adores him? I don't want to come home one day to the sight of carnage, so I shall nip (har) this behavior in the bud.

Progress reports shall be forthcoming after the visit on the 14th.

Fun Fur doesn't kill people...

people who knit with Fun Fur get killed for using it.

Tropical Standard Time

When we went on our Disney Cruise in May, we stopped in Mazatlan, where we were morally compelled to purchase a spectacularly gorgeous Oxacan teapot, creamer and sugar bowl at a chi-chi boutique in the fancy tourist district by all the mega-resorts where you never actually have to see a local. Now, the price started at $100 over they-must-be-smoking-crack-as-there's-no-way-I'd-pay-that-much-for-pottery, but I think we ended up spending around $350, which was probably still about 10 times too much, but the items were supposedly painted by a one-eyed paraplegic with severely impaired fashion sense, so we thought it was worthwhile to put food on his table to feed his inevitable 27 children we would have been told about had we refused to purchase the items.

As the items were very heavy and we had to fly home from LA and the idea of schlepping a box full of breakables through the airport filled me with horror, we let them ship the box for $70. They asked for our email and told us that we'd get a DHL confirmation number within a week.

A week turned into a month, turned into two and then three. Christian called and called, but he only ever got a fax tone or someone who couldn't help but PROMISED to have the shipping manager call him back.

Well, lo and behold, Christian checked his junk email and found a message from LAST WEEK stating that our package was shipped and that the store would follow up to ensure that our items were intact. I checked the tracking code and the package should be here today, only five months late.

If anything is broken, I'm flying down to Casa Maya and beating them all round the head and shoulders with pottery shards.

Looking down at the two inch space between the hem of my skirt and the tops of my socks, I made a shocking realization.

I have hairy knees.

Dear Santa:

I've been very good this year. Well, except for my absences from church because of my disagreement with the American Catholic Church's stance on the ordination of gay priests.... Other than that, though, I've been very good.

I've numbered my list to make it easier to keep track.

I'd like:

1. A video iPod with every episode of Alias loaded on it.
2. Addi Turbo needles in the 47 inch length in sizes I don't yet have (0 and 1, 9-the end).
3. The latest seasons of Gilmore Girls and Alias (see above).
4. These shoes, size 8 1/2. You might have to sell Blitzen to get them, though.

5. A career.

Thank you.
Suzy

I will not be kind until I'm asked properly.

OK, so I know this is really mean and that the people who have this bumper sticker do so because they want to share the message of love, peace, cooperation and hippie tripe, but I must air my grievance against the appalling structure of the phrase:

"Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty."

Hmph. There is no symmetry in the composition. The implied command is to:

1. Practice random kindness.
2. Practice senseless acts of beauty.

1. I understand this part. You can practice kindness, as kindness is a noun, like football or music, both practiceable things. The adjective describing the noun "kindness" is "random," which defines the type of kindness you are exhorted to practice. Fine. All well and good.

2. Here's where I get annoyed. After the conjunction "and," one would and should expect to find another noun that can be practiced and an adjective describing that noun. I mean, I need to be told what to do here! Give me a clear directive! And we do, but what we get is "(Practice) senseless acts of beauty", which consists of an adjective, a noun and a prepositional phrase. There are two nouns in this half of the sentence, but one of these nouns, "beauty," has been unwillingly conscripted into adjective status, as "beauty" here is used to describe the type of act. It's not a senseless act of whimsy or obfuscation, but "beauty." Here, "acts of beauty" could be interchanged with "beautiful acts," without a change in meaning.

Now, if the lack of consistent adjective usage wasn't enough to make me writhe in agony, I shall deconstruct further and reach the root of my hatred. As we are asked in the beginning of all of this to practice things, we should be able to tell WHAT things by looking at the nouns associated with the verb "practice." To do this, we should be able to take out the adjectives and prepositional phrase and determine our newfound mission. If we do this, we are asked to:

Practice kindness and acts.

Ha! Not much of an order, is it, bumper sticker manufacturers and the sheep who buy their crap!

NOW, if we were asked to "Practice Acts of Random Kindness and Senseless Beauty," we would, in fact, be asked to do one thing, namely, perform ACTS. The type of acts then would be merely adjectives; acts of "Kindness" and "Beauty," which can both be performed conjointly.

Another, lengthier option would be to change the phrase to "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty." This has a nice symmetry to it and is perfectly correct, but it's a bit bulky. I don't like the repetition of a word in a wordy sentence of words in all its wordiness. It's just too much.

Ha! I win! I shall print up new bumper stickers and go on a spree of scraping and plastering, making sure to achieve maximum penetration of the hippie cars, especially in Fremont! Or not. I need some tea.

Do you think I can pass for Puerto Rican?

I just got a call from the Director of the Seattle Choral Co., for whom I was one of the two mezzo soloists last season. His group is performing West Side Story with the Seattle Symphony on New Year's Eve, and he asked me to sing the part of one of Maria's three friends, so I'll FINALLY GET TO SOLO WITH THE SEATTLE SYMPHONY! Sheesh, every other mezzo I know has done it, so it's my turn!

It's not absolutely certain yet, but wouldn't that be cool???

Lucky, lucky me.

I hate my boobs, hate them with the white hot intensity of a thousand burning suns. They're huge and ungainly and have caused me no end of grief, discomfort and misery. From the moment in the sixth grade when I embarrassingly realized I had them after seeing a picture taken of only my midsection when I stood up too soon in a photo booth, I wished that I could stay 10 forever. I hated the knowing, "she's growing up so fast" look adults gave me when they saw the bra lines through the back of my lavender polo shirt, I hated the snickers of the boys and the angry and resentful comments of the girls whose friendship I so desperately craved who hadn't yet had to go to JC Penney's and be humiliated by the kindly older woman in the lingerie section when she came into the dressing room and checked the fit of the industrial, 1980's, white cotton bralette. I hated the fact that when I got to high school, boys would stare overtly at my chest and comment on the size of my bra in front of their girlfriends. I was awkward and anxious and despised being the center of that kind of attention. I ached to be slim and boyish and be able to wear tank tops in the summer and pretty, frilly strapless dresses, and not have to hide in oversized sweaters stolen from my dad, who would then get irritated when his sweaters came back stretched out.

I have never understood why any woman would pay any sum of money to increase their bust size and why so many of them have told me how lucky I am to have such an ample bosom. Why could they just not be happy to have clothing fit them, to be able to button sweaters and shirts without gaping and pulling and wear the same size on top and on bottom? I've kept the dress I wore to my rehearsal dinner in my closet as I love the crazy pattern and the memories, but despite the fact that it still fits through the hips and butt, my boobs have gotten two cup sizes bigger in four years. I'm wearing the dress at work today, unbuttoned on top, with a slip underneath and a sweater over, but the sweater keeps slipping off my chest due to the slinky fabric, so I've been walking around all day surreptitiously holding things in front of my chest and pinching the fabric closed with my fingers, like a nervous habit.

After my hysterectomy, my ovaries kept churning out hormones, but my uterus wasn't there any more to tell them when to stop. So, for a year, my boobs would get bigger every month and never shrink back after the estrogen flood stopped. I went from being a 36DDD to a 36G or H. Most people scoff disbelievingly when I tell them that I'm a 36, as I'm such a big girl, but I have teeny, tiny bones-little itty bitty fingers are my proof. My wedding ring is a size 5 1/2. Besides, it isn't the rib cage size that indicates breast size, it's the cup size. I remember watching a terrible daytime talk show where young women dressed too provocatively and their families were ashamed. One such woman's sister was saying that, because her trampy little sis had a size 38 D chest, she felt as though she had the obligation to expose it. I blinked disbelievingly at the screen. 38 D?? Whoopee. The D is the only thing that matters in boob sizing, not the 38, and D is absolutely nothing.

Even now, as an adult, I have grown men in my workplace who have never looked me in the eye. During a production where I wore a corset and had extraordinary cleavage, my torso was under great discussion in the men's dressing room. Even the other girls in mine had to ask what size I was, as my God, they're just so huge.

Every large chested girl will sing the lament of the baggy waist and tight chest in everything she tries on. If it fits in the bust, it will be massive in the waist. All of my shirts need to be tailored, but I don't have the skill or the money, and if I do end up having clothes that fit both my bust and waist, my bust looks even more enormous by comparison.

I think I will inevitably have to get a reduction, but I don't want to get a divorce, which would probably be a preoperative procedure for me. Breasts hold a weird fascination for straight men for two sacs of fat and glands.

Just give me a trench coat and a D&D name and I'll take my place in the Pantheon of geekdom.

I have snakes and I'm obsessed with early music, science fiction and Disney. I'm one step away from living in my parents' basement, partying on the sly with my SCA friends in their parents' basements, smoking pot and giving boys I like obscure and mythologically significant names.

Despite feeding the nerd fire with my extremely dorky posts, I must talk about my pets AGAIN. Just when I think I have them all figured out, they spin me around and make me pin the tail on the donkey. Frederick magically (or should it be magickally?) started eating again last week, Gwendolyn is constantly out of her shell, Stanze walked RIGHT INTO my hand last night...it's madness, I tell you. MADNESS.

Last night, using the dowels Christian bought to make the birds perches for when they're out of the cage (they need foraging areas you know, as we couldn't POSSIBLY let them think they weren't in the wild jungles of Ecuador), I managed to get Stanze out of her cage without grievous bodily injury. I figured out that, if you use one dowel to distract her beak and the other one to press against her abdomen, she's too busy concentrating on annihilating the first to fly away from the second. Some birdie instict kicks in and, while teaching that first dowel who's boss (she is, in all things), she'll unconsciously step onto the second. Now, this only works for as long as it takes to actually lift her from the cage, as she quickly figures out that she can run up the dowel on which she's sitting and bite bite bite those hateful fingers, so I have to have the first dowel ready to intercept her as she guns for my offending hand. She's speedy.

Bloated with my success at getting her out of her cage, I removed her from the living room (and her cage area) into the bedroom to lessen her sense of protectiveness for her daily stepping up practice. I was still a little leery of offering my hand as a sacrificial meal, so I passed her from dowel to dowel for about fifteen minutes until she stopped running at my digits and could sit still and take the proffered dowel with her feet rather than her beak. However, after about another five minutes, she got a really cheesed off look on her face as though to say that she got the point and look how good of a bird she was being, not having bitten me in ten whole minues, so could she please fly about a bit. Please?? She flapped pathetically to my bedside table without waiting for permission and hid beside a glass and back scratcher as though she thought the horrible probing stick couldn't see her through the magnifying properties of the water. I didn't want her to get the crazy idea that she was in charge, so I set my hand about six inches in front of her and said "come here" in my most stern and "I'm actually terrified of you but am pretending that I'm not" voice. She ran across the top of the table right into my palm and looked up at me with those little black, blinking eyes. Crack. My heart split in two and lay throbbing on the floor. I picked her up and she kept cocking her head and looking at me with the same bewildered expression which I'm sure I was giving her. She let me kiss her and kiss her and kiss her and I gave her a good scratch in return. It was the happiest I've been in months.

Of course, when she got within five feet of her cage, she whipped herself into a frenzy of hormones and fluff and chattered angrily at me when I put the cover over the cage, but I knew we had made progress.

My bird loves me.