This will not be an exhaustive list, mind you. However, there will be an exam.

These are things I have learned recently:

  1. Terry Kaye (whose malapropisms deserve more than the singular blog post I have devoted to them) has a dirty mind. While I was in Lanham the week before last, she IM’d me to ask if I was “in the orifice.” Needless to say, I did not dignify her query with a response. Tsk, tsk. Terry, I feel certain that you are the recipient of divine disapproval right now.
  2. That I cannot pat my head while rubbing my belly under stress. If I am calm and relax, sure, I can do both simultaneously. If, on the other hand, you ask me to do the same thing while one person is shouting insults at me and another is trying to knock me senseless with a wiffle bat — no. I can not do it.
  3. That age will inevitably humiliate me. While hacky-sacking recently, something terrible happened in my spine — one can only imagine that it was the vertebral equivalent of a train wreck. Three days later, I found that I could not stand up without propping myself up against a building. I have recovered greatly since then (partly with the assistance of massage) but I have learned to live in fear of what my body might do to me if I fail to treat it right.
  4. That air travel doesn’t just kind of suck, it really truly madly deeply sucks.
    • Addendum 1: going through security in Bellingham is approximately three times more civil and less painful than doing the same at SeaTac. Likewise, Reagan is far more civil than Dulles or BWI.
    • Addendum 2: laptops are a major liability at security checkpoints because they effectively turn one item into 2 and multiply the number of items that need to be repackaged at the end of the line. Nothing makes me feel more foolish than dropping my laptop while hopping on one foot trying to tie my shoe with my belt unbuckled. Ugh.

    On the other hand, there is something almost godlike about seeing the world from 37,000 feet — well, a god with terrifically bad eyesight and a bad case of indigestion.

  5. That it is possible to accidentally stumble across a decent sushi restaurant by accident. This has never really happened to me before, and the sushi restaurant in question (whose name I have already forgotten) also did quite decent Thai food. Actually, I fear I am reversing things — it was a Thai restaurant that, like Bellingham’s Pad Thai, offers decent sushi. In any case, good company and good food make a welcome and comfortable oasis on a cold night.
  6. That is is impossible to make cats do anything useful.  Except for gourmet cats who may be willing to be involved in food preparation.  I initially considered myself very fortunate to possess one of these rare felines, but I have discovered that they generally consider their work well done after they have shared their opinions with you…  at length.