The Bitch is Back!

I started this blog way back in 2013. WOW! I was in awe that Word Wench was still in Google's system and finding this blog was so simple.  Seriously, for people my age, technology is almost magic. I was happy to see all my old posts and revel in my cleverness.  Do I still have it in me?

Well, the Word Wench has come back to life so we're about to see! Stay tuned, my friends, the bitch is really back! 

WHAT'S YOUR SONG?

I go to  a spin class twice a week at my gym and always look forward to the music the instructor plays. She has such a wide variety that she personally keeps iTunes in business.  Think Tom Jones or Cher followed by Macklemore.  She can mix it up!
So I don't take kindly to substitute instructors.  They're kinda like the subs in grade school. We did everything we could to torment those poor teachers, remember? We tested boundaries and considered it a victory if we made them cry and they never came back to our school.
So,when a sub walked in to spin class, I was immediately suspect of the music she would play. Would we be stuck in Pop 40 hell or the 80's? Worse yet, would we be subjected to that club beat that is slightly less enjoyable than water boarding?  I couldn't tell, so I waited.
When she warmed us up with the song, Pretty Fly for a White Guy by Offspring,  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Punk rock at 5:30am? From a pretty non-punk cyclist chick? What gives?
"Give it to me baby, Uh huh, Uh, huh."
Such a pleasant surprise!
She explained that it's her song, along with her husband.  While she was driving a U-Haul to Arizona with her then-boyfriend, he actually proposed while Offspring was playing on the radio. She said, "yes" and by default, it became their song.
All I can say is pretty fly for a white guy! I don't blame her for marrying him!
Then, it got me to thinking. For some reason, my husband and I don't have have a song.
Do you? What's yours?

UNFORGETTABLE? NOT!

Do you have a teacher that made a difference in your life?
I did. It was Mr. Johnson. We called him Senor Johnson because he was our high school Spanish teacher.  He somehow instilled a love of the language, so much so, that I majored in Spanish in college. I don't think he had a particularly creative way to remember when to use the conditional or subjunctive tenses, but I was hooked.
Rolling the r ? Yes! Learning masculine and feminine nouns? Absolutely! Conjugating verbs? Si se puede.  I'm sure you all remember -o,-as, -a, -amos, -an, right?
My Spanish degree eventually came in handy about 20 years into my all-over-the map career.  I was a Spanish teacher for 5th and 6th graders! I was going to WOW these kiddos! They would love Spanish as much as I did. I featured a song-of-the week where students got exposure to a wide variety of Latino artists from Richie Valens, Shakira, Selena and Pitbull. We had a trabalengua every week too where students learned tongue twisters in Spanish. I was crazy, I was fun, I was unforgettable! Or so I thought....
...until I met one of those 4th and 5th graders at the university where I work. I was going to give a presentation one night in a residence hall.  The girl who greeted me looked incredibly familiar and her name rang a bell, too.
"Jessica, do you remember me?" I asked after we shook hands.
"No, should I?"
"I was your Spanish teacher," I said.  "Are you taking Spanish here at the university?"
"French," she said.
So much for being unforgettable.
But, French? Ay caramba!

PRETTY SWEET GIG

Our dog has a pretty sweet gig. Jester gets two meals per day, spaced out predictably, one in the morning and one in the evening.  His water is changed daily and ice cubes are added to cool it to the perfect temperature. He gets a morning AND an evening walk daily. He gets numerous treats and doesn't have to do much at all to earn them. In fact, all he has to do is walk into the laundry room while I'm folding clothes and a treat magically appears.  He doesn't have to shake, roll over, dance, or speak.
Jester has the run of the house and sleeps on any surface that pleases him-that would be every bed in the house and every couch and chair is fair game too. He has 24-hour access to the outside with his doggie door so he can join in bark fests with the neighbor dogs when it suits him.
He has all of his health needs met with regular visits to the vet. His daily medications are administered with a piece of cheese or he won't take them. He gets multiple belly rubs, head pets and talked to in that cute voice that makes his tail wag.  He gets baths at reasonable intervals and we'd shower him with toys but he's not interested. He gets to sleep with his humans but he rarely does because he likes to sprawl in the guest room.
The only thing we ask of him is that he takes care of business outside and barks to scare off would-be intruders.  The truth is, he'd hightail it out the doggie door if an intruder actually entered the house, leaving us to fend for ourselves.
So, I'd say this guy is living the dream for sure.  How did he luck out? Where can I find a gig as sweet as his?

Thank you, tissue donor!

The day after my ACL surgery was a lost day. I was in and out of sleep, groggy, confused, in pain and afraid to move lest I hurt myself further. A row of drugs that would rival a shelf at CVS Pharmacy sat next to me with a time schedule that I was supposed to adhere to strictly. I was determined to stay on top of the pain.

During one of my awake moments that day, I reviewed the paperwork sent home with me.  That's when I spotted the information on the tissue graft. I had used a tendon from a deceased donor  to repair my ACL.  I now had the opportunity to thank the family of the deceased. It would not be direct contact. Rather, I would send a note to the tissue donation company and they would forward it to the family.

I suddenly realized I was given a gift out of someone else's misfortune. I plan on drafting that note in a few days when the fog of surgery has subsided.

GOT CADAVER TISSUE?

A while back, my dog Jester took me down on a walk.  He saw a cat and decided to tear after it, not realizing he was attached to me by a leash. He pulled hard and got away, leaving me in a writhing heap on the ground.  I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize how bad until I visited my orthopedic surgeon. I had torn the ACL and meniscus of my left knee. I would require surgery.

"Do you want to use cadaver tissue or your own for the repair?" he asked.
"Huh?" I responded. I felt a little dizzy and even a bit nauseous.
I would've thought by now they had come up with bionic ligaments. But no. I was either using my own hamstring or tissue from a cadaver- someone who had donated his or her body to science.

"I gotta Google this," I said. I really needed more information before making a decision.

There are pros and cons to both sides. Risk of rejection of foreign tissue. Risk of infection, risk of this, risk of that.  Ultimately, I decided to use cadaver tissue because the recovery is shorter.  I was all about getting back on my feet as soon as possible.

So far, so good after two days post surgery. I can only hope that my donor was strong, healthy and athletic. For sure, the donor was generous enough to share a body part with me. For that I am grateful.

RENTER MADNESS

It's hard not to think of the "before" picture-fists bashed through dry wall, cat diarrhea matted to the filthy carpet, food rotting in the refrigerator, closet doors completely gone.

That's what the renters  left.  Anger doesn't come close to how I feel about that. But now that I've been working five weeks at clean-up, I'm sick and tired of the anger. I want to Lysol it, sponge it away with Fabuloso, and follow that with a strong dose of Clorox. This anger is not serving me, is it? I'm the one who's hurting, certainly not them. So I'll dump the anger down the toilet and flush it away with the dirty water that remains from scrubbing the walls.

I have the "after" picture to think about-popcorn ceiling gone, freshly painted taupe-neutral walls, all new lighting and ceiling fans, new flooring and new appliances. You'd never know that those college boys had been there.

I asked the universe for a good tenant this time. It would be great to find a nice professional family that will appreciate the 70's style of the place. A family that will smile at the Buddha garden spot I created on the side of the house after the storage unit was torn down. I want them to love the short commute to ASU and being close to South Mountain and the REI store. I want them to live in the house for five years and then we can retire there when it comes time to downsize.

Anger-what anger? I'm moving on!

And you know what? The universe provided!