Twofer honorary menopause moment

These from Dada:

I'm typing this while the charcoal is heating on the patio. (I'm having my Memorial Day cookout. It's two days late. Reason? When I went to the store on the holiday for my bratwurst cookout items -- buns, brats, potato salad, mustard, etc. -- I returned with everything. Everything except the bratwurst! (And I had a grocery list.) I joined my wife for a veggie meal instead.)

But that's not my point. After reading your very funny MM glasses moment, I just had to share mine from this morning. (BTW, men can have menopause moments too, right? Maybe if not from that, maybe from all the cooked egg whites?)

Today was a landmark day. I would head out early to the Central Appraisal District's office to finally apply for my "over 65" property tax exemption. Mrs. Dada volunteered to go along.

"No, you sleep in, this shouldn't take me long," was my response. To make sure everything went smoothly, I even thought to take a copy of my birth certificate. I drove the 12 miles to their office very early as Mrs. Dada slept. Everything went exactly as I'd planned.

There were no crowds, I immediately signed in and moments later, before a clerk, was all set to go. That is, until she asked, "May I see a photo ID, like your a driver's license, please?"

Hopelessly groping for my wallet was futile. "Oh, I think I left it at home," I said sheepishly, sliding my birth certificate toward her. We both laughed as she slid my rejected birth certificate back to me as I related how the last things my wife always asks me as I depart the house to go shopping are, "Got the cell phone?" and "Do you have your wallet?" (It's almost embarrassing.)

This morning I wish she hadn't slept in, that she'd been around to ask me that last question; to save me 24 miles, a lot of time, and maybe an embarrassing menopause moment.

More adventures through the reading glasses

If it weren't for misadventures with readers, most days I'd have no menopause moments at all.

My patient and I wound up the annual visit with a little chitchat on aging and the challenges thereof. I gathered up my pen, my stethoscope, her chart, and prepared for a graceful exit from the exam room. Oh yeah, and my reading glasses, there they were on the desk by her chart.

"Whoa," says my patient, gently prying them from my grasp. "Those are mine...you're wearing yours!"

Fat city!

A perfect Saturday morning for pancakes, cool and breezy, and I'm blowing off exercise class for a leisurely brunch.

Is it the coolness? The ambient humidity? Why is this batter so thick? Like bread dough thick. I add more buttermilk which briefly thins it out, then it gels back into a pasty goo. I add still a bit more liquid--cautiously, one teaspoon at a time as I'd once thinned a previous batch unto ruin--then I scrape three cakes-worth into the pan scarcely able to get the stuff off of the spoon.

My kids are way past pancake smiley faces, in fact neither one was even home for pancake anything. But listen, this plaster-of-pancake could've been sculpted into 3-D clowns at this point. Midway through cake one, I realize no one could eat two of these things and rise off the kitchen chair to tell about it. My husband graciously allows that "the consistency is atrocious."

Then he leaves his panbrick half-eaten and starts to put the ingredients away.

"Did you use heavy cream to make these pancakes?" he asks, holding up a half-empty quart of heavy whipping cream that looks suspiciously like the buttermilk container.

And I realize, with a literal lump in my stomach, that I've just put away nearly a half cup of real deal cream. Back to bed for a nap, too full for anything else.