Ukuleles: Automatic Happiness!

Birthday week! Honestly, overall it's been really great! The birthday itself was Friday, and I skipped school to hang all day with Mads, so we went to the Heritage Museum of Asian Art in Bridgeport, which I mostly know as the home of the Mayors Daley. It was AMAZING, and so full of Little Guys! I was hoping to maybe do a double feature with the National Museum of Mexican Art, but we found ourselves in Chinatown for a late dum sum lunch, the kpop store KPOP, bubble tea and then my favorite of all the Chinese bakeries, where a large extended family of very excited Midwestern tourists tumbled in, asked me what was good and then all sang me "Happy Birthday." Even the famously stern bakery counter lady smiled and wished me a happy birthday.

Yesterday was a delightful multiple hit with acupuncture from my hilarious Dr. Rev (ironically, if you read that as "reverend" and not "Revital"), a Greek festival at a church in Edgewater (where we met some lizards and snakes too! we being S, Qinzi and her friend), eating near Hollywood Beach, then me MEETING THISTLE (a cat!) who is so stubby and fluffy and gray. Once I was home after recovering from a little too much sun, theladyscribe and I watched Good News on Netflix, which is a fantastically funny/satirical Wag the Dog/Death of Stalin-style account of, well, some Japanese Red Army hijackers demanding to be flown to Pyongyang. Highly highly recommend, it was actually so exciting to watch a film that does good stuff with the medium again!

The one... the one downside, honestly, has been that on Monday, I thought I sat funny and suddenly my lower back and hips were just UNRELENTING. Then it shot down my left leg, and when I complained about it to my doggy day camp guy, he was like, lol, oh, that's sciatica! SCIATICA. Are you for real?? The thing that every middle-aged background character actress in every sitcom growing up complained about? I do have some roll-on pain reliever now, which I plan to try in a bit, so hopefully I can get going with biking to work or at least playing softball again, but yikes!

The funniest thing, however, happened at work on Tuesday. I was hustling to the office, having grabbed a shirt I like off the floor and kind of praying that it didn't actually smell or anything; we have a daily meeting at 10, so at 9:56 or so, I swiped myself inside the lobby. Two guys in wheelchairs were utterly blocking the way, obviously chatting about something, but the elevator was starting to close, so I kinda slipped past them and made it on.

Two other guys were in there, neither of whom I'd seen before — one looking quite young, but he could have been an intern, our interns had just started. The other guy was lanky, a little taller than me, had a bit of scraggly beard, and I was certain I recognized him from something but I knew it was super rude to stare. Finally, he says (paraphrased), "Wow, I never thought that people in wheelchairs would like, trade specs on their wheelchairs like that." You know, like cars or computers or something. My first thought is Do you not have any disabled friends?

My second thought is Oh my god, it is John Mulaney!

Of course, I still had to hurry to my stupid meeting, so once the doors opened, I turned to him and apologized for running off, but (staying chill) I continued, "You are a very funny man."

"Thank you so much!" he said, so earnestly and politely and cheerfully. Well! What a week! ✶