Back from the big city

Sweet Mother of Stan Lee it was prime people watching today! I wish you all had been with me.

I shall heretofore refer to my adventures in observing weird looking, badly bred, poorly behaved people as Trashspotting. Not to be confused with dumpster diving. At least the trash you see in a dumpster can be useful.

Anyway, on with my day.

I saw Dr SIL and BabyI. SIL looked fabulous, but tired, and TypeA SIL was there which was a surprise (she lives in Texas) and a pleasure since we don't get to see her much (did I mention she lives in Texas?). I found a lovely, bright flower bouquet for Dr SIL and a cute little vase the colour of my front door. I also took chocolates. Flowers are great but new moms need FOOD!

BabyI is an adorable, perfect, hefty (8lbs 4oz), scrunch-faced little love magnet who looks like a cross between his dad (Soon-To-Be-Dr BIL) and Evil Genius Husband ... so he is gorgeous. He let me sooth him to sleep which made me feel like a pro (I'm not: it was time for his nap) and very wistful in wanting three ... uh, ONE more of my own.

He is apparently eating well (mom is breastfeeding, good for her) , sleeping fitfully, and doing a good bit of spitting up. Totally normal, in other words. I wonder if it makes you more confident a mom if you just happen to be a pediatrician?

----

My mammogram went fine, they send the film out to be read so I won't know squat for over a week. So what's up with all the mammogram horror stories? That was my first one and it wasn't unpleasant at all. Aside from having my boobs handled by a female (which squiked me out; this is why I see a male OB) it was quick and kinda boring.

Yeah, your boobs do get squished for a second but it didn't hurt. When she got done I was all like: "Is that it? Where's the gruesome torture everyone talks about?". She just rolled her eyes.

Technician Humourless drew blood to test my FSH, LH, and estrogen. No one could tell me when those results would be back. I figure I'll give 'em a week. What really boils my noodles is that no one could agree what the doctor meant by "mid-cycle". The nurse said between day 15 and day 18, but I'm on CD14 and my cycles are 32 to 35 days long.

I hope the timing isn't so bad that it skews the test results. We'll see.

----

Trashspotting time!!

How about the vast woman in the waiting room of the obgyn? I don't mean that she was just large, she was quite tall as well and sported an elabourate hairdo, braided and piled up high on her head, held up by unseen forces. She was dressed quite nicely in a multilayered affair of a deep rich purple that unfortunately made her seem even more huge. The whole effect was of one of those Spanish galleons with the swelling sails (in purple in this case).

She was also one of those olifactorily impaired people who douses themselves in their perfume. I mean she was soaked. My eyes were watering. Seriously.

But here's the weirdest part. I was sitting there attempting to read one of those horrible rags like Us or People or whatever which was liberally splattered with juicy tidbits about celebrity pregnancies, celebrity adoptions, and celebrity babies and I was debating the relative guilt factor associated with my fleeing to the far corner of the waiting room to escape the Eau De Pirate Ship when I noticed a noise.

It was a bizarre, annoying, intermittent cracking sound.

What the heck?

I cast around the room surripticiously, trying to find the source, when my gaze settled on Purple Lady. Oh, surely not. I'm gonna have to blog about this chick ...

Yep, sure enough, her huge jaw was moving, bovine-like, and one carefully manicured hand with it's 2 1/2 inch acrylic nails was hoarding something. What was it? Rocks? Charcoal? It sounded like she was chewing gravel.

Alas, I never found out. Technician Humourless stepped out and mispronounced my name at that moment and I had to go get my boobs squished. *sigh*

----

I did get some consolation at the Food Lion afterward. I saw a brace of twinkies both in their bedroom slippers. Now, I'm sorry, but that just offends me. Call me elitist if you will but If I see you out in public in your bedroom slippers I'm gonna immediately think: "What a trashy slut".

Twinkie number two offered the added bonus of being dressed in pajama bottoms of a cotton so thin that I could clearly see her underpants. They were pink.

They were mere amateurs, however, compared to Greens Lady.

I was on the phone with Evil Genius Husband as I stepped into produce. He was reminding me to get something or other and I stopped hearing him at some point as I watched this chick. She was a normal looking woman, could have been some toddler's mom, except for her demeanour. She was standing, partially shielding the greens (in case you're not from the South and/or have no idea what greens are, they're dark green leafy veggies that you boil up in a pot with a touch of salt and perhaps a ham hock and eat with rice and beans. Food Of The Gods in other words.)

She was slightly hunched and kept sneaking furtive glances over her shoulder. What was she doing? Fondling carrots in an obscene manner? Stealing artichokes?

I stepped over far enough to see (I admit that I was gawping rudely. I mean, it was fascinating) and discovered that this chick had one of those thin plastic bags that you put your produce in and was rooting though the bin of mustard (It may have been turnip) greens, stripping the leaf off of the stem, stuffing said leaf into the bag and tossing the stem back into the bin.

For those of you ignorant of greens, they are just leaves. All leaves have a stem. Depending on your preference and the tenderness of the green, you cut out and discard all or part of the stem.

What this chick was doing was the equivalent of someone bringing a paring knife to the Publix and peeling their potatoes onto the floor of the produce section then happily whistling their way up to the check out with their potatoes a few ounces lighter (and thus cheaper).

WHAT THE HELL?

What sort of person would do such a thing? The same women I see in the Wal mart grazing their way through the fruits, eating a handful of grapes here, a strawberry there? This is STEALING, people!

I went back over where she'd been after she left and the floor was littered with stems, the bin was full of them (thrown down on top of the other greens). I even spoke with the produce manager and he said that it happened all the time. He also said: "And they wonder why the prices are so high". He even said that if he tried to tell them to stop they got angry with him. One lady actually called the cops on her cell phone.

DID I SAY WHAT THE HELL?