Once again, I found myself at my favorite local trivia night last night. And once again, I cared way more about potentially winning the "best team name" designation than I did the actual trivia contest.
Which is a good thing, as our team came in 17th out of 26 teams. (It was a tough night.)
I am, however, delighted to share that WE WON BEST TEAM NAME with the following:
"I like my beer like I like my Spice Girls...English and bitter."
A faithful reader shared that she recently read an article about at-home pap smear tests.
Without even considering the gymnastics required to execute this maneuver, let's remember that OB-GYNs go through multiple years of higher education to learn to do this effectively, safely, and correctly. My medical training exclusively consists of playing the board game, "Operation" and watching The Pitt.
This disturbing revelation follows my complete horror a few years ago when I discovered there were at-home colon cancer screening tests (looking at you, Cologuard). I began reading about these when I heard them advertised on NPR and then abruptly stopped when I learned what they entailed (tail...heh). Look, the reason you go to a medical facility for a colonoscopy is so you don't have to deal with any of this. In a medical facility, you take a nice nap, wake up, refuse eye contact with your doctor, and hope everything is normal so you don't have to endure the shame for another ten years when that doctor has hopefully retired. You know, the way god intended. It is far superior to the at-home method.
The real kicker here is that with the insanely high and rising costs of health insurance, we are now being directed toward doing much of our own medical testing. So without going too far into a spiral of how we're paying so much more for so much less, I've decided to focus on the potential upsides of where taking on our own medical care could potentially lead, including, but not limited to, the following:
While celebrating my mother-in-law's
85th birthday this past weekend, we spent some time looking through photos my sister-in-law
had included in a video she created for her mom.
As they are part of an Italian
Catholic family, many of the photos were from baptisms, first communions, and
other Catholic rites of passage.
When we came across a photo of
my husband's baptism, someone asked, "Who is that person in the photo? Who
is Tim's godfather?"
To be funny (and because I hate
silence), I was about to insert, "Vito Corleone” into the conversation, as
he is perhaps the most well-known, quintessential Italian godfather of all
time.
But before I could speak, my mother-in-law
blurted out, "My uncle, Gigi Pepe!"
Ladies and gentlemen, I stand
corrected. Gigi Pepe is unequivocally the most quintessential Italian godfather
of all time.
Capisce?
Brutalism
Last year's attempt at trying something new every month was a rousing success - ergo, I'm doing it again! This time, I'll include costs of activities and may do more than one a month, because I love it.
February - Meditate with a Monk, Shirlington Library, Arlington, VA - free
I have been tracking the progress of the Monks as they Walk for Peace, and am hopeful I will have a chance to see them as they get closer to their endpoint of Washington, DC, this week. And in the spirit of this, I took advantage of a local activity I found that provided the opportunity to "meditate with a Monk" from the Mahamevnawa Meditation Center. My husband graciously agreed to be my plus one for this activity, which took place in one of the meeting rooms of Shirlington library on a Sunday afternoon from 3:00-4:30pm. I have a hard time sitting still and focusing, so this was an excellent practice for me. The volunteers from the meditation center set out mats and cushions for all of us and we sat cross-legged and listened to the Monk, who was very helpful (and surprising to me - very witty) as he explained how anger is not productive and is essentially a disparity between what we expect and what actually happens that we can handle in much better ways, and then led us through some silent meditations. Happily, I was able to sit still and breathe and got into the zone. There's something soothing about sitting still and "being" and I really enjoyed this.
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| I had to take a very covert photo as the volunteers were setting up for the meditation. |
February - Don't Tell Comedy, Venture X, Fairfax, VA - $27/person
As it becomes increasingly difficult to find things to laugh about, this event really appealed to me. Don't Tell arranges comedy shows and keeps the exact location and comedians secret until the day of the event. Tickets were $27 per person, and they encourage you to BYOB and BYOSnacks. Yesterday morning, we learned that the event would be held at Venture X, which is a coworking space near the Mosaic District. When we arrived at the space, we were very excited - mostly to see about 60 people in the audience, as prior to arriving, I was having flashbacks to an indie film screening when my daughter and I were the ONLY people in attendance - but also because the seating and lighting made it feel very intimate and very cool. Right at 8:00pm, the emcee started the show, which consisted of five comedians (including him) and the comedy was excellent! We laughed out loud throughout, and each of the comedians had such great POVs and did not rely on raunchy humor for cheap laughs (a peeve of mine with a lot of comedy). Will definitely be going again.
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Last night was my first activity, and my friend (and one of the original Dilettantes), Amy, joined me.
January - Norwegian language lesson (beginner, obvs), Norway House, Fairfax, VA - $20/person
Back in early December, I received an email with area holiday events that included a holiday market at the Norway House in Fairfax. This place is about six miles from my house and I was not aware it existed, so I spent a few minutes perusing their web site. During this perusal, I learned that the Norway House provides Norwegian language lessons every Thursday night, with a beginner lesson at 6:00pm, and intermediate lesson at 7:00pm and conversation at 8:00pm. I emailed the instructor and she assured me that even though the class began in January of last year, anyone could drop in at any time and pick up where they were. There were about 20 people in attendance for the beginner lesson, everyone was lovely to us and made us feel welcome, and they offered Norwegian cookies and coffee before we began. And if I may steal an adage from our Greek friends, from there it was all Norwegian to me. It was obvious that over the past year we had missed some crucial vocabulary and masculine, feminine, and neutral articles that would have made this a little more "beginner." Additionally, there are some words that just don't naturally form in this American's mouth (see "kjeks" below), though I did try with varying levels of success. I so want to go back because everyone was so kind and it would be so much fun to learn this, particularly because I absolutely loved Norway when we visited a couple years ago, but I feel we missed the bat (Norwegian for "boat") in actually getting in on the beginner level. Also, sticking with something to the point of mastery goes against all that being a Dilettante means.
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| The Norway House |
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| Name of a bakery the instructor owns. I appreciate this. |
