{"id":25,"date":"2013-01-19T02:54:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T02:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tulipsbloom.com\/?p=25"},"modified":"2014-04-25T16:56:52","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T16:56:52","slug":"ode-to-malapropos-1-18-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tulipsbloom.com\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"ode to malapropos 1-18-2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tulipsbloom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/6DA33EE8-9BF1-4E1E-BEFB-57E9D01952CF.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tulipsbloom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/6DA33EE8-9BF1-4E1E-BEFB-57E9D01952CF-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Andale Mono, Times; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">To my knowledge and as a general rule, funerals are not known to be particularly funny in nature. \u00a0Neither are the associated sounds and anxieties of spending any amount of time in a dental chair. Reactions to events can be funny however. Or, more strictly speaking, <\/span><span style=\"color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">my <\/span><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">reactions can be funny at the very least. Or at the very leasty-least, funny to me (at least?). Of course, many a time I have been called funny, which seems a good enough thing in itself though this intelligence was more often than not dispensed with an accompanying finger twirl to the utterer\u2019s temple. A rather odd tic for so many of my acquaintances to suffer. Hmmm&#8230; Anyway, having more recently been attributed with melancholia than merriment (thanks mom!) , have resolved to renew my lifelong affinity for the silly, amusing and absurd. (Aside to the previous &#8211; Given the promising way it sounds, the word <\/span><span style=\"color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">Supercilious<\/span><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\"> has a very disappointing definition. Begone negative word!) <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Andale Mono, Times; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">So imagine this &#8211; you&#8217;re laying back in a somewhat comfortable lounger-type chair with an embarrassingly useless and inadequate thin paper bib fastened about your neck by a chain made for stronger work. This may or may not be after the ridiculous and ritualistic little numbers chant the dentist and his assistant recite with teeth domino poke-ity prods for effect. (2,4,5,3,3,3.\u00a0That&#8217;s good, right? No? Bad? Is this even about my teeth or are you two just flirting in code?)\u00a0An assembly of foam forms best suited as a base for Barbie furniture is then brought into play and strategically placed in your mouth leaving your tongue nowhere to hide. Something resembling a rubber jar opener is the finishing touch. They ask if you are ok. <\/span><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">Good manners<\/span>, being much faster than the slow rise of panic allows a grunt of sorts to escape which is assumed by the dental squad to mean all systems go! The dentist dons goggles and a small strong headlamp and then, with what would seem to be the nimbleness and 8 legs of a spider, deftly parades a multitude of instruments into your doll furniture filled face. Wait. Did I just think of a spider? Panic. Panic. Squirm. The dentist and his trusty assistant speak to one another, occasionally including me in their chatter but it is too late for me. I am on a countdown of sorts now, wondering how long I have been there, drooling and squirming, my tongue not amused by housing so much foam and rubber and tools and hands. I open my clenched eyes and look up at the dentist and somehow his headlamp has changed from a helpful hands-free mouth illuminating tool to an insanely preposterous and hysterically funny unicorn horn of light on some guy\u2019s head. I\u2019m beginning to choke with laughter, and try to sit up. The dentist and his assistant wonder out loud what has gone wrong and convulsed with laughter and with tears streaming from my eyes I\u2019m trying to unload the furniture from my mouth. I can hear them asking one another if I am ok but the ridiculousness of the situation prevents any response from me. It is several minutes before I can compose myself, make my apologies and try to somehow explain. The dentist dons the headlamp again and I feel the echo and shudder of laughter wanting to rise back up. My jaw had been tired from the furniture, my face\u00a0likewise tired first from the laughter and now it\u2019s suppression. I had to come back another day for them to finish.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: black; font-family: Andale Mono, Times; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">This same inappropriate laughing hysteria threatened to overwhelm me once at a funeral. Prior to its onset I was pensive and reflective, just as everyone else present. The organist played appropriately sorrowful songs until one quite well known and exceptionally lugubrious piece pushed me over the raging falls in a paper mache barrel. Maybe it was the word \u201cwretch\u201d when one already keenly feels the disconsolate weight of the world but there it was, whoosh! Without any warning an odd warble\u00a0came from my throat. Its arrival was so startling I wanted to look around to see what other source it may have come from but then the bubblings began and I quickly made exit and found myself blinking in the sunshine, happy and sad altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: black; font-family: Andale Mono, Times; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">This past week has seemed like a much longer period of time, maybe more like a month in length. Last Friday seems like a few weeks ago and since then it feels like several games of tether-ball have been played and won and lost, the rope wrapping firmly around the pole in my favor then twisting, unwrapping, flying overhead and behind again to wrap in the wrong direction. Discouraged and then trying not to start from there, dispirited and then trying to come into the moment. Here-there, to-fro, back-forth. I\u2019m like Gene Kelly dancing on and off the curb in Singin\u2019 in the Rain. I\u2019m crazed. I\u2019m fine. Good actually, sometimes. I\u2019m siiiiiiiingin\u2019 in the raaaaain!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Andale Mono, Times; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">When I was 14 and living in the mountains I went skiing with a friend. Though not from the area I believe she went skiing often with her family and had her own equipment and clothes. We were headed down the hill and as I turned to ski back across the hill the other way managed to witness her tumbling mid air, head over skis, until creating a snowy explosion of sorts upon landing. I worriedly called her name and <\/span><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;\">quickly <\/span>tried to sidestep back up to her. \u201cAre you ok? Are you ok?\u201d shuffle up shuffle up. \u00a0She was just beginning to stir as I reached her and I was so happy to see her moving and alive. I dropped to the snow in front of her and with profundity let her know right then and there what a good friend I was. \u201cYou dropped a dime\u201d I said. She was silent for a moment and then we both burst into crazed laughter that winter day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To my knowledge and as a general rule, funerals are not known to be particularly funny in nature. \u00a0Neither are the associated sounds and anxieties of spending any amount of time in a dental chair. Reactions to events can be funny however. Or, more strictly speaking, my reactions can be funny at the very least. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tulipsbloom.com\/?p=25\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">ode to malapropos 1-18-2013<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8,98],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ode to malapropos 1-18-2013 - Tulipani in Fiore (Tulips in Bloom)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tulipsbloom.com\/?p=25\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ode to malapropos 1-18-2013 - Tulipani in Fiore (Tulips in Bloom)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To my knowledge and as a general rule, funerals are not known to be particularly funny in nature. \u00a0Neither are the associated sounds and anxieties of spending any amount of time in a dental chair. 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