Knit Sisters

Well, here we are, friends, at the end of what can only be described as a crap-tastic week Chez Mad Dog!

The NSF grant proposal, as you know, has not ceased to kick me relentlessly in the arse, an arse-kicking that I thought would be over last night at the absolute latest, but which has instead continued into today and promises to persist for at least three or four more hours tomorrow!

Like any beating, it’s bound to feel good when it quits!

Any attempt to describe the mind-numbing agony of absurd detail that this proposal demands would, I’m sure, be futile. Our powers are only so great. But here’s a little taste: among its various insults to your discretion and intelligence, the proposal has a section in which you are called upon to speak of yourself in the THIRD PERSON.

As in, “Ellen Bales will carry out vital research that will not only excite your senses and tickle your fancy, but will also end the war in Iraq and bring food to those who hunger, water to those who thirst. Because frankly, that’s the kind of person Ellen Bales is. People not only love Ellen Bales, they envy her!”

I’m the Bob Dole of the academy. The shame is so great that I may have to start wearing a disguise.

Meanwhile, the condition of the Bales-Wellerstein homestead has continued to deteriorate and no one has had a decent meal around here for about two weeks.

“Time” was the one bright spot in an otherwise dark and cold week:

Here you can see where I split the sweater for the arm holes.

The glorious back.

How it would look if you were an ant.

But speaking of food, I faced one further, and possibly even more grave, insult this week. Unbeknownst to you, but, um, knownst to me—and how!—I have for some time been having troubles with my guts. Trouble with your guts is a bad kind of trouble, because we all know perfectly well that if you go to your doctor and tell her that you are having gut troubles, she will offer to “help” you by running a camera up your backside and into your guts and seeing what she can see.

A procedure that she will cavalierly describe as, “no big deal.”

Because to her, you see, it is “no big deal.” If that camera were rooting around in her guts, the “deal” would be much, much bigger. Much.

As proof that this week—bad though it was—could have been even worse, I was not subjected to the little camera. I was, however, diagnosed with mild “Irritable Bowel Syndrome” and placed on a special diet.

This, dear friends, is the era of diagnosis. Thirty or forty years ago, we would have just said, “Well, you know how Grandma got so there were so many things that didn’t agree with her. I reckon I’m gettin’ to be like Grandma.” Today, we have “IBS” and drugs and special diets.

We also have this:

I got a little confused when Dr. F. told me I needed more fiber in my diet. So I purchased the Benefiber and a few extra balls of yarn.

So in addition to my Benefiber—mmm, mmm!—I can also have (and I shall start at the top of the list, adding commentary as I go):

1. Water and ginger ale, although the pamphlet hastens to add that, “Many types of flavored, non-carbonated water are now available!” I suppose one is meant to exclaim, “Well, then, Skimpole, you see, things aren’t so bad after all! We are to have YET ANOTHER beverage choice!”

2. White or (are you ready for this?) brown rice.

3. Broiled fish.

4. Broiled, skinless chicken.

5. Broiled, skinless turkey.

6. Soft-boiled eggs. There is no explanation offered for the exclusion of hard-boiled eggs, but I suspect conspiracy.

7. (At this point in the list, many of those who have been placed on the special diet are already weeping quietly in the corner, but they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.) Number Seven is…a baked potato without the skin! And then, in a powerful example of kicking the dieter while she is already hungry and deprived, “DO NOT EAT FRIED POTATOES!” (Emphasis original.)

Well, fine, then. Take your crappy old French fries and stick ’em where the little camera goes. I got me a case of ginger ale and I’m ready to par-tay!

8. Toast. Right.

9. Cheerios without milk. Talk about taking the “cheer” out of Cheerios.

10. Oyster crackers. But you ain’t getting no chowder with that.

As the diet goes on in this deflating and bland vein, you find yourself kind of slumping in your chair, only to be redeemed by Number Thirty-Two:

Graham crackers!

By the time you get to Number Thirty-Two, graham crackers sound like chocolate torte. You are so grateful! Graham crackers! I get to eat graham crackers!

But there are more special treats in store for baby! Number Thirty-Three?

Fruit cocktail!

Returning to its Scrooge-like abstemiousness, the diet ends a few items later with a dispiriting pair of approved “foods”:

39. Small amounts of oleomargarine. (Really, now, who uses the word “oleomargarine” any more?)

40. Multivitamins.

Now, I am no nutritionist, but last I checked, a multivitamin is not a food. Buzz. I’m sorry. Number Forty is disqualified from the foods list.

Whaddya say we replace it with pulled pork?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Heavy sweaters, Time out of mind. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.