Day 15 of 'The Daily Post' - and my 200th blog post.
It’s amazing, when you come to think of it, how many body parts you can do without. Your appendix, tonsils, adenoids, gall bladder…
I made an inventory of the bits and pieces that I’ve lost. I'll start with my wisdom teeth, which I had out in my early 20s. Haven’t missed them at all. I had all four out at the same time under local anaesthetic. This didn't strike me as particularly unusual or brave at the time, but since then, I've only met one other person who hasn't had a general anaesthetic for four simultaneous wisdom extractions. I did ask the dental surgeon why he did all four at once, and he replied "It's not a very pleasant procedure, and I usually find that if I do two, then the patient doesn't want to come back and have the other two done." Actually it wasn't too bad.
Back to the inventory:
The boobs, of course.
A lymph node.
My hair.
Three moles – one which I didn’t like the look of a few years ago, and then a couple more in the armpit/chest area, that the breast surgeon removed as a bit of a freebie (“Have a mastectomy, and I’ll throw in a couple of molectomies for you.”) They were going to analyse those, but the lab lost them, which I have to say, didn’t inspire my confidence. The breast surgeon reassured me: “it’s not as if they lost them, really. It’s just that they’ll be in a huge bank of thousands and thousands of samples, and we could ask for the lab to go through all those samples and find them, but I really honestly think that would be wasting someone’s time, because I had a good look at them and they weren’t at all suspicious.” Which might have been medical speak for “my resident fouled up and forgot to send them to the lab”. I decided not to pursue the matter, since I had had all my moles checked at my annual well woman appointment, and those ones had indeed been deemed to be not worrying.
Looking at this list, it reminds me of a song. When the season is right, I can sing:
On the fifth day of Christmas, I had removed from me:
Five hundred thousand hairs (rough estimate)
Four wisdom teeth
Three brown moles
Two lovely boobs
And a lymph node.
Poor impaired me!
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Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Medical words
Day 14 of 'The Daily Post'.
Somewhere along the line, it was suggested that I might have my ovaries removed. The memory of why this was ever even floated anywhere near the cards is hazy, but I think it had to do with being part of a study. It isn't going to happen, but I rather warmed to the idea at the time. I, quite literally, liked the sound of it. Having your ovaries out is called an oopherectomy. I mean, who wouldn’t want one of those? Can’t you just hear yourself saying to all your friends and colleagues "I’m going to have an oopherectomy”. It’s up there with some new glasses, or a puppy for Christmas. And if they were anything like my friends, I’d expect them to say "ooooh, an oooopherectomy”, which I guess would be funny (at least the first time).
If you don’t fancy surgery, they can stop your ovaries working with a monthly injection. That’s called ovarian ablation. Another fine medical term. It sounds vaguely Roman Catholic to me. “Have you said your ovarian ablation yet?” “Oh yes, I did it on my way to confession – wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Though I have to say, it doesn’t do it for me quite like ‘oopherectomy’.
I liked the idea of an oopherectomy because I really didn’t like the word mastectomy. It sounds vaguely rude somehow. I never worked out whether to pronounce it m’stectomy, or mass-tectomy. The latter sounds a bit like mass exodus, which I suppose it is, on the breast tissue front. Anyway, I didn’t like the word.
Sadly, you don’t get to pick your medical procedures on the basis of their names. In any case, I always think the medics are having a bit of a laugh, actually, when it comes to naming surgical procedures. They like long medical-sounding words, to impress lay people, but really, they just take the name of the body part and add ‘-oscopy’ if they’re just looking at it, and add ‘-ectomy’ if they’re removing it. Easy peasy. For example, removing a lymph node is called a lymphedectomy. It’s true. Removing tonsils is called a tonsillectomy. Looking up a patient’s rear end is called an endoscopy. If a doctor looked at your finger and then amputated it, I expect he’d say you’d had a fingeroscopy and a fingerectomy.
This is a practice we housewives should adopt. It would make our jobs sound more impressive to lay people.
“Must hurry,” we could say to each other. “Got to do a dustectomy on the sitting room before the kids come home from school.”
“Yes, I should go too. My bathroom is in urgent need of a grimectomy, and I strongly suspect that after I’ve done a showeroscopy, I’ll be doing a mouldectomy too. But then I’m going to treat myself. I’m going to the salon for a splitendsectomy.”
“Good for you. No such luck for me. I had a note home from school, and I’m going to be doing nitectomies on all my kids, if the scalposcopy results come back positive.”
See. It’s very easy when you get the hang of it.
Somewhere along the line, it was suggested that I might have my ovaries removed. The memory of why this was ever even floated anywhere near the cards is hazy, but I think it had to do with being part of a study. It isn't going to happen, but I rather warmed to the idea at the time. I, quite literally, liked the sound of it. Having your ovaries out is called an oopherectomy. I mean, who wouldn’t want one of those? Can’t you just hear yourself saying to all your friends and colleagues "I’m going to have an oopherectomy”. It’s up there with some new glasses, or a puppy for Christmas. And if they were anything like my friends, I’d expect them to say "ooooh, an oooopherectomy”, which I guess would be funny (at least the first time).
If you don’t fancy surgery, they can stop your ovaries working with a monthly injection. That’s called ovarian ablation. Another fine medical term. It sounds vaguely Roman Catholic to me. “Have you said your ovarian ablation yet?” “Oh yes, I did it on my way to confession – wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Though I have to say, it doesn’t do it for me quite like ‘oopherectomy’.
I liked the idea of an oopherectomy because I really didn’t like the word mastectomy. It sounds vaguely rude somehow. I never worked out whether to pronounce it m’stectomy, or mass-tectomy. The latter sounds a bit like mass exodus, which I suppose it is, on the breast tissue front. Anyway, I didn’t like the word.
Sadly, you don’t get to pick your medical procedures on the basis of their names. In any case, I always think the medics are having a bit of a laugh, actually, when it comes to naming surgical procedures. They like long medical-sounding words, to impress lay people, but really, they just take the name of the body part and add ‘-oscopy’ if they’re just looking at it, and add ‘-ectomy’ if they’re removing it. Easy peasy. For example, removing a lymph node is called a lymphedectomy. It’s true. Removing tonsils is called a tonsillectomy. Looking up a patient’s rear end is called an endoscopy. If a doctor looked at your finger and then amputated it, I expect he’d say you’d had a fingeroscopy and a fingerectomy.
This is a practice we housewives should adopt. It would make our jobs sound more impressive to lay people.
“Must hurry,” we could say to each other. “Got to do a dustectomy on the sitting room before the kids come home from school.”
“Yes, I should go too. My bathroom is in urgent need of a grimectomy, and I strongly suspect that after I’ve done a showeroscopy, I’ll be doing a mouldectomy too. But then I’m going to treat myself. I’m going to the salon for a splitendsectomy.”
“Good for you. No such luck for me. I had a note home from school, and I’m going to be doing nitectomies on all my kids, if the scalposcopy results come back positive.”
See. It’s very easy when you get the hang of it.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
An American in England: the Director's cut
Day 13 of 'The Daily Post'.
I thoroughly enjoyed Calif Lorna's short movie. She's an English woman living in California, and the movie shows her asking for a glass of water, and getting lots of cliches along the way.
At the end of the clip, it says "If you can type, you can make movies". I can indeed type, thought I, so off I went to the movie-making website, and had a jolly time.
I thought I'd try a little empathising, so my movie is about what I imagine it's like to be an American in England. The English woman comes across as rather aggressive - I intended her to be conversational. I'll have to scrap her and get a more empathetic actress next time.
US expats, have you had conversations like this?
I thoroughly enjoyed Calif Lorna's short movie. She's an English woman living in California, and the movie shows her asking for a glass of water, and getting lots of cliches along the way.
At the end of the clip, it says "If you can type, you can make movies". I can indeed type, thought I, so off I went to the movie-making website, and had a jolly time.
I thought I'd try a little empathising, so my movie is about what I imagine it's like to be an American in England. The English woman comes across as rather aggressive - I intended her to be conversational. I'll have to scrap her and get a more empathetic actress next time.
US expats, have you had conversations like this?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Paul's house
Day Eleven of 'The Daily Post' (and if it's not about laundry, it's about poo).
One of the anxieties of an expat is this: when I go home, will I find everything so changed that it won't feel like home any more? This is a valid concern. Things like this aggravate it.
I hate American tv commercials, and have always considered British ones very superior. But this is making me challenge my assumptions.
What worries me about this advert is why the mother seems quite happy to let her son go out of the house on his own. Are we to assume that Paul lives next door? And if so, why does he need a backpack?
I am also worried by Paul and his family. Do they open the door to this boy and say "Hi there, John, come for a poo again? Nice to see you."?
But most worrying of all is this. It must have been made by people who know nothing of small boys, otherwise they would be aware that most of them positively enjoy pooey smells. It would be more convincing if Paul was coming round to the stinky house to have a poo (though not so good for Glade's sales figures).
My only comfort is that there are some great remakes on Youtube.
One of the anxieties of an expat is this: when I go home, will I find everything so changed that it won't feel like home any more? This is a valid concern. Things like this aggravate it.
I hate American tv commercials, and have always considered British ones very superior. But this is making me challenge my assumptions.
What worries me about this advert is why the mother seems quite happy to let her son go out of the house on his own. Are we to assume that Paul lives next door? And if so, why does he need a backpack?
I am also worried by Paul and his family. Do they open the door to this boy and say "Hi there, John, come for a poo again? Nice to see you."?
But most worrying of all is this. It must have been made by people who know nothing of small boys, otherwise they would be aware that most of them positively enjoy pooey smells. It would be more convincing if Paul was coming round to the stinky house to have a poo (though not so good for Glade's sales figures).
My only comfort is that there are some great remakes on Youtube.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Words
Day Ten of 'The Daily Post' (and it's not about laundry).
The difference between British English and American English is not just a question of accent. It's not just that we have different words for the same item: torch for flashlight, rubbish bin for trash can. It's the phraseology, the emphases, the tone, the whole way of speaking.
I'm English, but lived in Scotland for 6 years immediately before coming to the US. I have been intrigued to hear some of the colloquialisms from Scottish English in people's conversation here. Of course it isn't intriguing at all, really, but quite obvious. When Scots emigrated to America they brought their way of speaking with them, just as much as English people. Here are a few examples.
If you are English, you say "the cat needs feeding", or "the cat needs to be fed". In Scotland or over here, this would be "the cat needs fed". It sounds odd to English ears.
In England, you say "I would have gone". In Scotland, I often heard "I would have went", and I've heard that here too. Again, it sounds very odd to English ears.
But my favourite is a word that has no real English equivalent. Your bottom/bum/backside/butt/seat (that last one courtesy of my grandmother) in England, is in Scotland, your bahouki. I'm sure that must be where the American patouti originated from. I'm so glad the Scots brought their bahoukis with them when they crossed the Atlantic. It's a word that deserves to be passed on and preserved in another culture.
.
The difference between British English and American English is not just a question of accent. It's not just that we have different words for the same item: torch for flashlight, rubbish bin for trash can. It's the phraseology, the emphases, the tone, the whole way of speaking.
I'm English, but lived in Scotland for 6 years immediately before coming to the US. I have been intrigued to hear some of the colloquialisms from Scottish English in people's conversation here. Of course it isn't intriguing at all, really, but quite obvious. When Scots emigrated to America they brought their way of speaking with them, just as much as English people. Here are a few examples.
If you are English, you say "the cat needs feeding", or "the cat needs to be fed". In Scotland or over here, this would be "the cat needs fed". It sounds odd to English ears.
In England, you say "I would have gone". In Scotland, I often heard "I would have went", and I've heard that here too. Again, it sounds very odd to English ears.
But my favourite is a word that has no real English equivalent. Your bottom/bum/backside/butt/seat (that last one courtesy of my grandmother) in England, is in Scotland, your bahouki. I'm sure that must be where the American patouti originated from. I'm so glad the Scots brought their bahoukis with them when they crossed the Atlantic. It's a word that deserves to be passed on and preserved in another culture.
.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The laundry challenge
Day Nine of 'The Daily Post'.
“I love you English and Scottish women! I must admit I'm an American who has been spoiled my entire life by a tumble dryer. I'm reconciling to the idea of line-drying when I move to England in a couple of months. I have one very important question for you, though -- and please don't laugh. What do you do when it is winter and raining or snowing? The "drying cabinent" at my boyfriend's house is small and there are only two radiators that I can put socks on to warm-dry them. Do you have secret clothing lines that come out from trap doors in the halls and extend into the kitchen? I'm not being funny here -- I truly would like to whole-heartedly embrace something that is so good for the environment. I could easily dry my clothing if I had a yard in California as the weather is so nice, but what do you do in stretches of rain?”
This was a comment on my post about washing lines. It got me thinking about one aspect of expat life which is a real pain in the ass. It is this. People are used to their own way of life, and find it very hard to explain to a newbie why or how they do things. I found myself wanting to reply to Rachel, the commenter, “It’s hard to explain, but it’s just a question of muddling through. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.” And then I thought how really frustrating that would be for her.
It took me right back to my early days here, when things that seemed just a part of life to everyone, were compete mysteries to me. Mysteries that they didn’t seem able to explain. Of course part of the frustration is that you can see their point. There are so many things in life that can’t be explained very easily. Or explaining them is just the beginning. What really needs to happen, is for you to jump in, try a few things a few different ways, and then after finding one that works and repeating it for a while, you are just as much an expert as all the rest of them. A little help to get you started is, actually, a big help, but there are no short cuts to experience.
Incidentally, my husband wrote a whole PhD thesis on this very subject. What a waste of those years, when all along he had a wife who could sum it up in a paragraph! I should just have discovered blogging a few years earlier, and we’d have saved ourselves a lot of time and money - though the university might not have awarded him a doctorate and the right to wear a fancy hat on the basis of one paragraph in a blog post. Universities are picky like that.
But back to Rachel. In my early days, I often did pose questions such as hers to the blogging community, because (a) it was a lot quicker and easier than asking 10 local people, and I didn’t even know 10 local people at that point, but it meant I got 10 answers, (b) I got fed up with asking basic questions to people face to face - it didn’t make for great conversation, and (c) I quickly came to realize what a fabulous bunch is out there in the blogosphere, and what top quality answers they gave.
So, on Rachel’s behalf, tell me. How on earth DO we manage to get washing dry, in the British climate, with no tumble dryer? I mean, talk about setting a difficult challenge. Rachel’s boyfriend is already a huge step ahead of me (and I thought I was a pretty impressive laundry operator), because I don’t even know what a ‘drying cabinet’ is. Unless it’s what a Prime Minister appoints if he/she wants to counteract the effects of a government of Tory wets.
Let me start us all off. Rachel, I did have a tumble dryer in Scotland, for emergencies, but I hardly ever used it because there’s this marvellous thing called a drying rack. It’s worth taking time and choosing a good one. By good one, I mean one that will make the maximum use of the space you have available. A lot of people have the rack in the kitchen, where it is a permanent annoyance and gets in the way of whatever you are doing. Other people put it in the bath, where it stands for days on end with semi-dry clothes, because bathrooms are cold and draughty in the UK, and it’s only eternal optimism (see ‘Dunkirk spirit’ in my previous laundry post) that keeps us in the belief that the clothes will actually dry in there. Radiators are a good bet, even if your boyfriend only has two small ones in his small house. As he has perhaps already told you, size isn’t everything.
We Brits are prepared to spend more time and effort on laundry than our US counterparts, so that we are quite happy to get up from the sofa at intervals throughout the evening, even though this means interrupting our viewing of splendid BBC programmes since there are no commercial breaks (which, come to think of it, would actually be useful for laundry purposes), and remove a few dry socks to make space for the next lot of them. We are a bit laundry obsessed, truth be told, so that first thing in the morning, when we get out of bed, our topmost priority isn’t to get the coffee maker on, but to remove the dry socks from the radiators and put out the next batch of damp ones.
As for those secret lines coming out from trap doors, no, we don’t have those but it’s a magnificent idea, which you should develop, take to the Dragons’ Den (UK equivalent of the Sharks’ Tank), and use to make a fortune. Then you and your boyfriend will be able to buy a big house and install a huge tumble dryer in it.
Come on, fabulous British laundry experts. What other tips and advice do you have for Rachel?
“I love you English and Scottish women! I must admit I'm an American who has been spoiled my entire life by a tumble dryer. I'm reconciling to the idea of line-drying when I move to England in a couple of months. I have one very important question for you, though -- and please don't laugh. What do you do when it is winter and raining or snowing? The "drying cabinent" at my boyfriend's house is small and there are only two radiators that I can put socks on to warm-dry them. Do you have secret clothing lines that come out from trap doors in the halls and extend into the kitchen? I'm not being funny here -- I truly would like to whole-heartedly embrace something that is so good for the environment. I could easily dry my clothing if I had a yard in California as the weather is so nice, but what do you do in stretches of rain?”
This was a comment on my post about washing lines. It got me thinking about one aspect of expat life which is a real pain in the ass. It is this. People are used to their own way of life, and find it very hard to explain to a newbie why or how they do things. I found myself wanting to reply to Rachel, the commenter, “It’s hard to explain, but it’s just a question of muddling through. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.” And then I thought how really frustrating that would be for her.
It took me right back to my early days here, when things that seemed just a part of life to everyone, were compete mysteries to me. Mysteries that they didn’t seem able to explain. Of course part of the frustration is that you can see their point. There are so many things in life that can’t be explained very easily. Or explaining them is just the beginning. What really needs to happen, is for you to jump in, try a few things a few different ways, and then after finding one that works and repeating it for a while, you are just as much an expert as all the rest of them. A little help to get you started is, actually, a big help, but there are no short cuts to experience.
Incidentally, my husband wrote a whole PhD thesis on this very subject. What a waste of those years, when all along he had a wife who could sum it up in a paragraph! I should just have discovered blogging a few years earlier, and we’d have saved ourselves a lot of time and money - though the university might not have awarded him a doctorate and the right to wear a fancy hat on the basis of one paragraph in a blog post. Universities are picky like that.
But back to Rachel. In my early days, I often did pose questions such as hers to the blogging community, because (a) it was a lot quicker and easier than asking 10 local people, and I didn’t even know 10 local people at that point, but it meant I got 10 answers, (b) I got fed up with asking basic questions to people face to face - it didn’t make for great conversation, and (c) I quickly came to realize what a fabulous bunch is out there in the blogosphere, and what top quality answers they gave.
So, on Rachel’s behalf, tell me. How on earth DO we manage to get washing dry, in the British climate, with no tumble dryer? I mean, talk about setting a difficult challenge. Rachel’s boyfriend is already a huge step ahead of me (and I thought I was a pretty impressive laundry operator), because I don’t even know what a ‘drying cabinet’ is. Unless it’s what a Prime Minister appoints if he/she wants to counteract the effects of a government of Tory wets.
Let me start us all off. Rachel, I did have a tumble dryer in Scotland, for emergencies, but I hardly ever used it because there’s this marvellous thing called a drying rack. It’s worth taking time and choosing a good one. By good one, I mean one that will make the maximum use of the space you have available. A lot of people have the rack in the kitchen, where it is a permanent annoyance and gets in the way of whatever you are doing. Other people put it in the bath, where it stands for days on end with semi-dry clothes, because bathrooms are cold and draughty in the UK, and it’s only eternal optimism (see ‘Dunkirk spirit’ in my previous laundry post) that keeps us in the belief that the clothes will actually dry in there. Radiators are a good bet, even if your boyfriend only has two small ones in his small house. As he has perhaps already told you, size isn’t everything.
We Brits are prepared to spend more time and effort on laundry than our US counterparts, so that we are quite happy to get up from the sofa at intervals throughout the evening, even though this means interrupting our viewing of splendid BBC programmes since there are no commercial breaks (which, come to think of it, would actually be useful for laundry purposes), and remove a few dry socks to make space for the next lot of them. We are a bit laundry obsessed, truth be told, so that first thing in the morning, when we get out of bed, our topmost priority isn’t to get the coffee maker on, but to remove the dry socks from the radiators and put out the next batch of damp ones.
As for those secret lines coming out from trap doors, no, we don’t have those but it’s a magnificent idea, which you should develop, take to the Dragons’ Den (UK equivalent of the Sharks’ Tank), and use to make a fortune. Then you and your boyfriend will be able to buy a big house and install a huge tumble dryer in it.
Come on, fabulous British laundry experts. What other tips and advice do you have for Rachel?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Math(s) can be fun too
Day Eight of 'The Daily Post'.
Here's a little light relief for those of you struggling with your children's maths homework (you know who you are).
1) First find a calculator
2) Key in the first 3 digits of your phone number (forget the area code)
Ah, it's based on a US phone number, so for those of you reading this in the UK, or - who knows? - some far-flung exotic location, find a seven digit number, and for convenience, separate it into a group of 3 and 4 digits (if your birthday was May 13th 1965, you could use 135 1965 for example).
3) Multipy by 80
4) Add 1
5) Multiply by 250
6) Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7) Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again
8) Subtract 250
9) Divide by 2.
Ta daa!
.
Here's a little light relief for those of you struggling with your children's maths homework (you know who you are).
1) First find a calculator
2) Key in the first 3 digits of your phone number (forget the area code)
Ah, it's based on a US phone number, so for those of you reading this in the UK, or - who knows? - some far-flung exotic location, find a seven digit number, and for convenience, separate it into a group of 3 and 4 digits (if your birthday was May 13th 1965, you could use 135 1965 for example).
3) Multipy by 80
4) Add 1
5) Multiply by 250
6) Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7) Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again
8) Subtract 250
9) Divide by 2.
Ta daa!
.
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