D'oh!

Recently I've been having Episodes of Enlightenment. These are moments
of clarity that light up a room; realizations that make others wonder
how I made it this long without a monitoring device strapped to my
ankle. Gather around, kids. It's sharing time!

The first involves our upcoming trip to Italy. The Easter Princess is
celebrating her golden jubilee and the festivities are taking place in
da' boot. She is opening the doors to her rented palace for a week and
we, as faithful minions, are invited to the week-long gala. The d'oh
moment occurred at the intersection of when The T and I were talking
about our travel arrangements while we were watching Paris Je t'aime.
The T asked if I wanted to go to Paris while on our trip. I replied,
in all seriousness, that Paris isn't in Italy. There was a long, long
pause while The T waited for my other braincell to kick in. Oh d'oh.
Paris isn't quite as far from Italy as, say, Miami is from Anchorage.
It's still a hike but we'll be on the right side of The Pond and we
could do some sightseeing before the golden jubilee starts. Got it.
Thank you for your patience during our mental construction.

The second d'oh moment which I am willing to share with you involves
the care and comfort of Mao, the über-cat. Since she is now outliving
some of her organs, namely her kidneys, I am trying to keep her
comfortable my administering subcutaneous fluids. I decided to do this
at home so that it could be done more conveniently than repeated trips
to the vet. It's not that difficult and, like when giving blood, there
is only a moment of discomfort before you get a treat.

The detail I was stumbling over was how to get the fluids warm beyond
room temperature. Room temp in our house involves wearing layers of
clothes and closing doors to slow down the gale force drafts. Would
you want something at that temp dripped onto your skin let alone
injected under it? I thought so. But the IV contraption should not be
repeatedly nuked and one bag o' juice has five or six doses in it. So
how do I get it warm? This is the moment as it happened in my head: "I
have to buy a heating pad. Then what? Then we have a heating pad. One
more thing to clutter the house. But it's for Mao. How am I going to
heat this stuff? I need a heating pad. Oh I have to get to bed. Can I
borrow a heating pad? OK, grrllz, make room for me. I wonder if LS has
a heating pad from when he went through this with his cat. Three, why
are you laying on the mattress and not the blankets? Do we need to
trim your nails so you don't poke the mattress again? I'll ask LS
tomorrow when I see him. I wonder if Goodwill has some for sale in
that weird catch-all aisle. Oh, I love getting into a warm bed ... a
warm waterbed ... A WARM CALIFORNIA QUEEN SIZED HEATING PAD.

Yup, just one more thing to clutter the house. D'oh. What makes this
particular episode more jarring for moi is the fact that I have
utilized the bed in just this capacity in the past. For instance,
Kinicky, I warm the yeast in the bed before pitching it into the wort
to begin fermentation of H20bed Ale. I also shove sweaters under the
covers while I shower in the morning so that donning them isn't quite
so jarring.

I am shocked by the obvious more often than I care to admit but I will
share the more amusing episodes with you when I can.

Sent from my iPhone