I have an idea

I was sitting in a restaurant with my husband when I realised there was absolutely no reason for me to freeze when it was fantastic weather outside. So I came up with a wonderful idea to help the environment, stop global warming, prevent the obesity epidemic, and increase Americans' savings accounts.

It is absolutely beautiful outside and finally warmer than freezing. Yet, inside restaurants are freezing their customers. This makes for a very uncomfortable setting to eat a meal. Especially for us thin people who have no extra fat to warm us up. Thing is, after the very long American winters, I don't see why we can't just enjoy the nice warm weather finally, and instead we continue to freeze the inside of all establishments and work places.


So I'm starting a new campaign. Increase the temperatures in restaurants by three degrees. No one will complain with just three degrees. It's hardly noticeable. Those who will complain are those who have too much fat on their bones already and are always sweating and hot. This will make it very uncomfortable for obese people to go eat in restaurants, and in essence will force them to start cooking at home. Now since the main reason they're going to restaurants is because they're too lazy to cook, then if they stay home they won't cook as much. As a result, they'll end up losing weight. When they become thin again, they won't suffer from the warmer restaurants anymore and will be able to enjoy life again.


The increase of temperatures in restaurants will bring more skinny people to these establishments, and we all know that skinny people eat like there's no tomorrow, yet disgustingly they still stay thin. Well now the restaurants won't be losing any money from the loss of obese clientele, and instead will gain a whole lot of very hungry skinny people.


But I'm not stopping with restaurants. Now we move on to the malls and other establishments. We raise the temperatures by just a little bit. Enough to make one heck of an impact on the excess usage of electricity in this country, but not enough to collapse the capitalism on which it's built. As a result we will have very slight differences of temperatures between the outside and the inside. Kids will grow up not really noticing much of a difference if they go outside, and consequently will decide to spend more time playing outside. Bonus: childhood obesity is halted with a brilliant plan of luring kids to play outside in the nice weather, which just happens to be very slightly different from the weather inside the mall.

Another small bonus: the obese people who typically sweat a lot, will sweat even more, therefore losing more pounds from a stay at the mall.

But let's not stop at the mall, we'll encourage people to reduce their usage of electricity by keeping the houses warmer just a tad bit. Show them the huge savings they make over a year by doing so. Maybe give them some incentives through the electricity companies for saving every year. Sort of like the incentives they give to commuters who opt to give rides to others. People will learn to save and not just money, but the global environment!

For those of you who think this post is anti-fat-people, you're wrong. It's not all about you. It's about me. Always is. I've had enough of suffering from being so thin and always cold. And I'm going to do something about it!

When my nephew was three years old, he'd get quite excited and turn a bit loud. His parents would guide him gently to lower his voice. He's a quick learner. One day his mom took him to shop for food and as they were standing in line, there was a mother and a small girl in front, and the girl was quite loud. My 3-year old nephew went over, tapped on her shoulder and said, "Turn it down a notch."

Well, in that spirit I will name my campaign "Turn it UP a notch!"

Pirates of the Caribbean

We just got back from watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not going to say anything that would spoil the movie for anyone, so you can continue reading.

If you plan on watching the movie at the theatre - I highly recommend you don't leave before all the credits finish rolling. And I mean ALL.

Some people say the darndest things

I have Crohn's Disease. I've mentioned it on this blog before. I never wanted it to be a main part of my blog because it doesn't define who I am. But sure, sometimes it does feel like I'm consumed by it. Like when I decide that Pistacchios are the next best thing next to sliced bread, and I eat them as if there's no tomorrow, only to end up in crippling pains unable to get out of bed for three days. I learn lessons the hard way, what can I say.

But here's something not about me, but about an extremely couragious boy who's 13 years old, and has one of the most severe cases of Crohn's I've ever come across. He's broken his limbs so many times, that your heart breaks just hearing about it. He's on numerous medications to treat not only his Crohn's, but Osteoporosis, Arthritis, and a number of other health problems that no other 13 year old knows of. He's been hospitalized most of the past two years. Been in a body cast because of all his broken bones like that one time he took a shower. His daily nutrition goes through a tube that he inserts inside his nose. Here's a story relayed by his mother:

We are shopping in Kohl's and a cashier says loudly enough to attract negative attention, "Hey, is that thing yours?" My son looks around and points to himself as she nods yes and again loudly asks " is that thing yours?" My sons replies, " Well, lets see, it's in MY nose. No , it is not mine. I heard it is the latest in fashion and I saw a kid walking the store with it. I pulled it from his nose as I thought it would look better in mine and stuck it in." I died laughing. Clerk was mortified and I about pissed my pants. I wish you could hear the voice intonation as it was not rude just perplexed and matter of fact and sooooooo stoic.

Yeah, people say the darndest things and they just never seem to get it. Some other comments I've had to deal with:

Mybrid: "Living with Crohn's means constant diarrhea. Running to the bathroom 10-40 times a day."
Clueless person: "Diarrhea? Oh! I've had that once!!!"

Mybrid: "With Crohn's, I can't eat vegetables and fruits."
Clueless person: "So why don't you just take a vitamin and get cured?"

Mybrid: "I have a handicapped placard."
Clueless person: "But you look perfectly healthy and you can walk!"

Mybrid: "I lost ten pounds last week."
Clueless person: "Lucky you! I wish I could lose that fast. Count your blessings."


Now if you think that these remarks are solely from clueless people who do not work in the medical field, try calling a primary physician's office in a new city.

Mybrid: "I'm looking for a primary physician who's familiar with Crohn's, because I have a very complex case of it."
Nurse: "Ma'am, you need a G-A-S-T-R-O-E-N-T-E-R-O-L-O-G-I-S-T."
Mybrid: "I already have a GI doctor. I don't need one. I need a primary physician who's familiar with Crohn's, so when I catch a cold he doesn't give me the wrong medicine."
Nurse: "All our doctors know how to treat a cold."
Mybrid: "No, you don't understand! I'm looking for someone who has other patients with Crohn's and will not waste my time, nor will I waste his time, with the mysteries of the numerous symptoms this disease comes up with."
Nurse: "Ma'am, I cannot tell you about our other patients because that is confidential information."
Mybrid (losing patience): "Ok, can you just ASK a doctor there if they have anyone who's closely familiar with Crohn's disease?!!!"
Nurse: "Let me take your name and number and get back to you."

Nah, never heard back from her. I went through this routine at least a handful of times in my life, looking for a dermatologist, looking for a Rheumatologist, looking for an Oncologist. List goes on. Every single time I get the stupid response, "ma'am, you need to see a Gastroenterologist."

Ok, listen to me you damn mormons, if I've lived with Crohn's for over 25 years, wouldn't you think I'd know by now which doctor I need to see?! Just DO what I tell you and quit showing your ignorance!!!

To Anonymous

To the anonymous person from Colorado who commented at 10am EST (May 14,07) on a post in my blog from January, please email me privately! I would like to thank you!!!

The Murder Scene

My husband and I are still working on improving our new house. I'm told that this is a never ending work in progress. But we do have a list of priorities that we absolutely must complete this year or we'll be arguing or fighting about it til we divorce. We divided the responsibilities between us, and I'm left in charge of the Master Bedroom while my husband is in charge of the Kitchen. Now you know where each of us spends most of their time.

In the process of deciding what we need in our kitchen, we bought a dozen kitchen design magazines, consulted our friends, visited Home Depot, IKEA and Lowe's. Yesterday after five hours with pencil and paper and marking all the pages in the magazines identifying what we like, and after realising we do not have a million dollars to spend, we finally designed a potential layout for our kitchen island. But since we're both visual people we decided to go to the store and get some masking tape and lay it out on the floor where we want it to be installed.

I bring to you our murder scene. Before you scroll down, I do need to warn you that the scene is pretty harsh to look at and may be a bit disturbing. For those of you who think they can brave it, keep scrolling to see how my husband killed the kitchen island:


















Some of you may not find this as amusing. Not everyone likes murder scenes. In fact, one of the occupants in our house was very distressed by this development and felt that he had no choice but to avoid the murder scene at all costs. I mean, com'n, everyone knows that murder scenes cannot be violated, right?!

If you are interested in donating to our dog's therapy fund, please contact me directly.

Secret of a Marriage

Moving to a new house can put any successful marriage into a real test. And we're now into our third month of this test and not doing too great. People who've met my husband fall in love with his gregarious personality. Always cheerful, always happy, always humourous. But they don't see the dark side of him. The side that screams his head off with anger, the side that slams a fist through the wall, the side that in a blink of an eye can cause damage to a cabinet. No one believes me when I tell them about it. And it sure makes it difficult to get any sympathy to my side of the story when he blames me for his outbursts.

But he's a good man. It takes him about an hour to fully regret his behaviour and apologise with a hug.

Me, on the other hand, I can't let it go. I can't forget it. I can't forgive the anger burst. I can't just move on so fast. It takes me a couple of days. So that's why I haven't written in a few days.

The frustrating thing is that the last argument we had this weekend was just a miscommunication. Me thinking that he wanted electricity in the new island in our kitchen and trying to suggest a solution, and him not informing me that he's decided he doesn't want it.

As a project manager it's my role at work to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to the design and the client's requirements. But once I leave work I leave the hard hat behind and just act like a regular wife who can't figure out her husband and only contributes to the miscommunication.

Same with him. At work he's a master of communication. Manages dozens of people. And controls a multi million budget. But once he leaves work, there's no budget, there's no communication.

Maybe it'd be better if we continued to work while at home. We do. In a different way. Our marriage is a success because we don't give up after each argument. We keep fighting to get to the bottom of it. We keep arguing til we understand each other. We don't let go. And then we end up compromising our own needs and take into consideration the other person's needs. You'd think this would leave us both feeling short changed and angry at having to give up. But somehow we always end up happily married.

Until the next silly argument.

Lawsuits

If you think after reading the post from yesterday that I'm dangerous to society, maybe you should read the article below and reconsider who's really dangerous. Published in the Washington Post.

Lawyer's Price For Missing Pants: $65 Million

By Marc Fisher
Thursday, April 26, 2007; B01



When the neighborhood dry cleaner misplaced Roy Pearson's pants, he took action. He complained. He demanded compensation. And then he sued. Man, did he sue.

Two years, thousands of pages of legal documents and many hundreds of hours of investigative work later, Pearson is seeking to make Custom Cleaners pay -- would you believe more than the payroll of the entire Washington Nationals roster?

He says he deserves millions for the damages he suffered by not getting his pants back, for his litigation costs, for "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort," for the value of the time he has spent on the lawsuit, for leasing a car every weekend for 10 years and for a replacement suit, according to court papers.

Pearson is demanding $65,462,500. The original alteration work on the pants cost $10.50.

By the way, Pearson is a lawyer. Okay, you probably figured that. But get this: He's a judge, too -- an administrative law judge for the District of Columbia.

I'm telling you, they need to start selling tickets down at the courthouse.

Oh, where to start: How about the car? Why should Ki, Jin and Soo Chung -- the family that owns Custom Cleaners on Bladensburg Road NE in the District's Fort Lincoln section -- pay Pearson $15,000 so he can rent a car every weekend for 10 years?

The plaintiff, who says he has devoted more than 1,000 hours to represent himself in this battle, says that as a result of poor service at Custom, he must find another cleaner. And because Pearson does not own a car, he says he will have to rent one to get his clothes taken care of.

Back to the beginning. In 2002, Custom lost a pair of pants that Pearson had put in for cleaning. One week after the error was discovered, Custom gave Pearson a check for $150 for new pants. A few days later, the Chungs, Korean immigrants who live in Virginia and own three D.C. cleaners, told Pearson that he was no longer welcome at their store. That dispute was eventually put aside, and Pearson continued to use the company.

Move ahead to 2005, when Pearson got a new job as a judge. He needed to wear a suit to work every day. He dug out his five Hickey Freeman suits and found them to be "uncomfortably tight." He asked Custom to let the waists out two or three inches. Worried that he might be up against his Visa card limit, he took the suits in for alterations one or two at a time.

According to a statement filed by both parties in the lawsuit, Pearson dropped off one pair of pants May 3 so he could wear them to his new job May 6. But on May 5, the pants weren't ready. Soo Chung promised them for early the next morning, but when Pearson arrived, the pants weren't there.

At this point, I should let you in on the subject of hundreds of pages of legal wrangling. Custom Cleaners at that time had two big signs on its walls. One said "Satisfaction Guaranteed," and the other said, "Same Day Service."

Pearson relied on these signs. Deeply.

He was not satisfied. And he did not get his pants back on the same day or, for that matter, on any day.

This, he says, amounts to fraud, negligence and a scam.

A week after that routine mishap -- pants go astray all the time at cleaners -- Soo Chung came up with gray trousers that she said were Pearson's. But when the judge said that he had dropped off pants with red and blue pinstripes, there was no joy in Fort Lincoln.

Pearson's first letter to the Chungs sought $1,150 so he could buy a new suit. Two lawyers and many legal bills later, the Chungs offered Pearson $3,000, then $4,600 and, finally, says their attorney, Chris Manning, $12,000 to settle the case.

But Pearson pushes on. How does he get to $65 million? The District's consumer protection law provides for damages of $1,500 per violation per day. Pearson started multiplying: 12 violations over 1,200 days, times three defendants. A pant leg here, a pant leg there, and soon, you're talking $65 million.

The case, set for trial in June, is on its second judge. The Chungs have removed the signs upon which Pearson's case rests.

"This case shocks me on a daily basis," Manning says. "Pearson has a lot of time on his hands, and the Chungs have been abused in a ghastly way. It's going to cost them tens of thousands to defend this case."

A judge in the case has admonished Pearson about his take-no-prisoners tactics. When Pearson sought to broaden the case to try to prove violations of consumer protection laws on behalf of all District residents, D.C. Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz said that "the court has significant concerns that the plaintiff is acting in bad faith" because of "the breathtaking magnitude of the expansion he seeks."

Pearson has put the Chungs and their attorneys to work answering long lists of questions, such as this: "Please identify by name, full address and telephone number, all cleaners known to you on May 1, 2005 in the District of Columbia, the United States and the world that advertise 'SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.' "

In the world.

The answer: "None."

In a closet of a lawyer's office in downtown Washington, there is a pair of gray wool pants, waiting to be picked up by Roy Pearson.

"We believe the pants are his," Manning says. "The tag matches his receipt."

SILENCE!

It's been almost three months since we moved closer to DC. On my second week at this house I had this wonderful dream that we moved to a Penguin Colony. I would walk out to the woods, and there were Penguins coming up from the ocean and walking through the woods. I was in heaven just watching them right outside my backdoor. When I woke up I had a huge smile on my face and proceeded to tell my husband about my dream. His reaction was "ok, that's stupid! How can we have any Penguins in our backyard if they've been eaten by the snakes in the swamp?!" If we ever have kids, I think I need to start on a therapy fund for them.

So feeling rather sad about the loss of the Penguins, I told my mom about my dream. My dad's response was "you're the only person I know on earth who lives in a Penguin colony!" Within a couple of days, he sent me the new drawing above. His interpretation of where I live now.

I may live near DC but I can still dream of other places of wonder.

A month after we moved I caught a serious flu and stayed home all day. As I was recuperating, it happened to be the two very warm days outside, so I opened the sliding back door and read a book.

No. I TRIED to read a book.

Apparently, I'm perfectly fine with Big Bird outside my window, but I'm NOT fine with small chirpy birds outside my window. And oh.my.god can these damn birds settle on ONE type of sound and stick to it? What is their fucking deal? Why do they do this chirp chirp [long pause] CHIRP CHIRP ???

In the old house I couldn't fall asleep with a window open because of the crickets, frogs, and crows. So yay, I got rid of the crickets and frogs, but instead they were replaced by ten different types of birds chirping with their own accent at their different pace and attitude in life. I could not relax and enjoy a quiet book. I just wanted to scream SILENCE at the world and hope that "someone" would pay attention and possibly drop a cat on each bird in my neighbourhood, but seeing that I have a dog I didn't think it likely to happen.

I just can't stand nature noises outside my house. Give me the bus, the police car siren, the ambulance, and a bunch of rude teenagers with loud music in their cars, and I can fall asleep to the serene sound of humanity. But if those are absent, I don't want to hear anything that isn't an artificial sound. And definitely nothing that would alarm me, cause me to jump off my seat, or irritate the hell out of me because it's repetitive and won't shut up on command.

Nature should be seen and not heard. Just like small kids (which is what my father strongly believed in and he was right!).

The only acceptable sounds on earth should be music. Nature should be completely silent, and there should be these music boxes installed next to natural spots (the beach, the lake, the mountains, etc), so if you're tired of the silence, you pick the box up and you listen to the selected sound track.

Disclaimer: I suppose I should mention that I do have Sensory Integration Disorder and therefore any sound irritates me and I'd only be happy in vacuum.