whiskey in a teacup . com

Sometime last night or this morning, the site done got hacked and subsequently my account was disabled.  The process of fixing it was remarkably easy, thanks to the nice folks at my hosting company and my nice husband who I married primarily because 1) he’s cute and 2) I don’t ever, ever want to need to know what the fuck the nice folks at the hosting company are talking about.

During my first phone call to the tech support department, the guy was telling me about upgrades that needed to be installed and permissions that needed to be changed, and he was talking all fast and I was saying, “Mmhm.  Mmhm,” and then I perceived a very slight hesitation in his voice.  It was the exact same thing that happened many times in Germany when I would ask a gramatically simple question like “Which direction is Invalidenstrasse?” and the response would be this barrage of rapid, colloquial German that was several orders of magnitude above my level of comprehension; each time I would stand there blank-faced saying, “Ja.  Ja,” trying to pick out some word or phrase from the well-meaning Aryan, and after a moment they would say, “Oh, you speak English?” and shame me by showing off their impeccable bilinguality.

So basically the same thing happened with the tech support guy, and after a moment’s pause he spelled the word A-T-O-M for me and I said, “Right,” and he said, “I don’t think you’re an idiot or anything,” and I said, “I’m just writing down what you’re saying so my husband can help me,” and he immediately switched to a remedial lanuage of less-technical jargon that mere proles like me are able to understand.

I had to call back after “we” had made all the updates and changes they ordered, and I had to verify my identity by verbalizing my account password, which is based on a private joke and is really really stupid when said out loud , and then the tech person had to pull up the site to see if it was back online, and of course the first post on the page is about condom catheters.  I can only imagine how embarrasing that exchange would be if instead of a personal website about your stupid dorky life that is tediously named after a song lyric you ran some kind of weird fetish site with a graphic domain name and photos of you doing stuff you shouldn’t do with the Tivo remote.  Actually, it would probably be no more embarrassing than what I went through this morning.

Let it henceforth be known that I strongly dislike condom catheters!

A condom catheter is exactly what it sounds like: a condom attached to a long tube that drains into a leg bag.  The upside is that you don’t have to insert anything into the urethra, which decreases the risk of urinary tract infection and is theoretically more comfortable.  Another upside is that it’s much easier for everyone involved to just empty urine from a leg bag than to, say, disconnect a G-tube, remove a wheelchair tray, perform a manual or Hoyer lift transfer, and then change a wet brief every few hours.  The downside is that they fucking blow.

One problem is that they never seem to stay on.  They come off and before you know it, the poor guy is sitting there with urine-soaked pants.  To combat this problem, most brands come with adhesive inside the condom to help them stick to the penis.  Since these things have to be changed frequently, this means you’re constantly applying and removing a very sticky item to a very sensitive area, which leads to the next problem: skin breakdown.  This can range from mild redness to ulcerated areas with bleeding.

The third problem is that they’re frustrating to apply.  As a woman, most of my pre-healthcare penile experience involved penises that were in operational mode.  The first time I found myself with a patient’s penis in one hand and a condom catheter in the other, I thought, “Oh, this seems familiar enough.  I know what this is all about.”  But the thing is, when you apply a condom catheter you’re applying it to a flaccid penis, and you swiftly realize, “Hm.  This is not the same.  This is not the same at all.”  Trying to apply a short, sticky sheath to a wriggly, wiggly penis can be a Sisyphean task, especially when you know the damn thing is just going to come flying off anyway.

They serve a purpose, to be sure, and some guys really seem to prefer them, but I for one do not like condom catheters.

I don’t know what happened but apparently comments were broken for a couple days.  They should be fixed now, although my blog troubleshooting had to be done while 1) in possession of virtually zero knowledge of how this shit works, except that I type stuff in the box and it gets computertated* and 2) on an evening when I’m so tired that I daydreamed I was riding on Falkor from The Neverending Story and singing “What About Me” by Moving Pictures.  I know that sounds like some kind of corny bullshit someone would make up to illustrate how tired she is, but in this case it’s true.

Comment away, or don’t.  See if I care!

*special Squidbillies reference for my beloved husband!

So the mister and I recently went to Berlin for slightly over a week.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable, edifying, enriching, and exciting (and alliterative!) trip and I will share stories about it in the coming days.  For now, you can view some photos I took, and be delighted by the following fact:  When we touched down at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport for our connecting flight, the first thing I saw (and this was, of course, my very first impression of Europe as a whole) was a little bunny rabbit hopping along the runway.

This morning, I was crouched down near my cabinet at work, deep in the task of organizing some medical supplies.  One of my clients rolled by in his power wheelchair, and as he went I began to perceive a certain familiar scent.  Smelling people’s bowel movements is part and parcel of working in healthcare, especially with people who are incontinent, but something about this particular odor struck me as…odd.  Uncontained.  Unusually close to floor level.  I glanced into the hallway and noticed that as the client continued on his journey, he left behind him a trail of liquid stool that stretched the entire length of the hall.  When I called out for him to stop driving, he jerked the chair to one side, creating tire tracks of muddy poo.

It turned out his colostomy bag had come unclipped, and the mess (which covered the floor, his chair, and his clothes) was truly something to behold.  I fixed his bag and my co-workers and I made short work of his leavings, and merrily went about our day.  This normally wouldn’t be worth mentioning, but I thought it might be helpful for those of you who are having a “shitty day” and could use a little dose of “Well, at least I’m not cleaning that up”.  Buck up, comrade!  At least you’re not cleaning that up!

Our downstairs neighbors were having a party in the backyard.  Through the open windows I overheard some guy saying his goodbyes, and since we are jerks who enjoy eavesdropping and riffing on innocent people, for Jared’s benefit I said “Bye!” in a silly voice.

This went over well with Jared, who laughed at length and said, “I don’t know how you manage to be so funny sometimes.  And it’s the little one-liners that are the funniest…like, your constructed jokes are not as good, but…it’s the little things, like that time you said ‘whoopdee shit’.  That was so funny!”

“I did say that recently, but I took it from MST3K.”

“That’s right!  Damn, that was funny.  What episode was it from?”

So, to sum up:  My husband thinks I’m funny sometimes, though my “constructed jokes” (whatever the fuck that means) aren’t very good, and mostly I’m just funny when I’m channeling other people and/or robotic gumball machines.  Color me underwhelmed by this compliment!

I hate to blog while on vacation, but the world must know: like the fakey U.S. version, real European absinthe is most certainly not an interstitial-cystitis-friendly beverage!

On the bright side, I finally have a solid segue for the posting of this link.

I’ll be away for a bit–you can watch this until I get back.

Hot:

A co-worker did that annoying thing of trying to force me to eat a pastry, and when I demurred she glared at my abdomen and said, “But you’re so skinny,” and I said, “This is why I’m skinny,” which might be a bit bitchy but hey, I don’t want your fucking pastry and I refuse to get into some body-image war with you.  Then another co-worker told me I didn’t look skinny, but “tight”, which means the Madonna-based strength-training stuff I do in my living room is totally working.

I learned that when an elderly guy tries to hit on you by noting your tattoos and saying, “Wanna see mine, I have one too,” you should campily reply, “Oh, from the war?” because 1) it’s funny, 2) it will make him feel weird about bothering such an innocent young thing, and 3) you’ll be absolutely right; of course it’s from the frigging war.

I felt my friend’s baby kick for the first time.

Not:

I had to call Berlin this morning and I entertained the notion of trying to conduct my transaction in German, but I pussed out and was all, “Koennen Sie Englisch, bitte?” as soon as the clerk picked up.  Suck.

I’m not afraid of getting swine flu, but I am afraid of it interfering with my travel plans next week.  Some part of me believes there would be less out-and-out panic if “swine” weren’t such a creepily suggestive word (much more menacing than “pig” could ever hope to be).  “Swine flu” calls to mind a grostesque Cronenbergian disease process, wherein you develop an eerie pink tinge to your skin and a curly little tail sprouts from your tailbone as you roll maniacally in the mud, driven mad from the virus eating your brain.  It sounds less like what it is (the flu, people!) and more like some kind of superstitious ailment a hyperreligious, scienceless group of villagers would come up with, like “A witch cursed Goody Smythe with the Alligator Pox!” or “Aye, Jebediah was never the same after he caught the Bat Ache!” or something like that.  It’s a gross, disturbing term for something that, in all likelihood, will not herald the end of mankind.  I guess we’ll see…there’s a first time for everything!