Hope You Had a Nice Tryptophan!

Is everyone stuffed and bloated?

Another Thanksgiving down the hatch. I tried a few new recipes this year, thanks to Better Homes and Gardens and the Food Porn Network: Butternut Squash Lasagna, Green Bean Bake Revisited, and Nutty Brussels Sprouts. Thumbs up on all three.

The weekend yielded a surprise in addition to the usual driving, cooking, and visiting: I actually went out on Saturday night! I know, it was hard to fit a cute outfit over my oxygen mask and giant Medic Alert jewelry, but I managed. First we caught a very decent band (best cover of "Purple Rain" EVER) and later, I met a playwright that a new friend of mine had been wanting to introduce me to.

So how did it go? Well, within five minutes of meeting him I managed to insult his taste in music and spill my drink on him. (I was gesturing wildly with my beverage, holding forth on what an auditory laxative Michael Jackson’s "Man in the Mirror" is. But it turns out the guy likes the song. Maybe he even played it on the jukebox. Maybe.)

Ah, I love the smell of alienating new acquaintances in the morning.

Yesterday I did a little mildly hungover shopping with my best friend. Upon entering Target, I nearly ran over a woman that looked soooo familiar to me.

“Hi!” I shouted in her face with manic intensity. How did I know her? “How are you?”

She seemed to recognize me too, and responded with, “Great! Hi! How are you?”

I replied that I was fine, and we went on our separate shopping journeys. But how the hell did I know her? “I know that woman. But how do I know her?” I hissed to Cindy.

She shrugged and said, “You’ll figure it out.”

But I’m tenacious. I can’t let something go until I solve the puzzle. Aisle after aisle and I continued wondering aloud how I knew her: Did she work for one of my clients? Had we been at a meeting together?

No, I didn’t feel this to be the connection. And more unnerving: I was sure I knew her in a somewhat uncomfortable light. I racked my brain, trying to unearth every mildly awkward exchange I’d had with someone I may know professionally in the last two years. It took some industrial digging equipment, because there were many.

Was it someone I knew in a fiction writing-related capacity? Did she work for UW-O? No and no, although she had quirky glasses that gave her a distinct professorial look.

Alas, nothing was obvious. “This is driving me nuts!” I said to Cindy as we paid for our merchandise, my mind a thousand miles away from the transaction at hand.

“I know,” she said calmly. She’s going to be a good mom someday, with patience like that.

After I’d returned home it continued to bug me. But then last night, while watching Growing up Orangutan (have you ever seen an Orangutan baby? Adorable!!!!!) and continuing to plunder my mental filing cabinets for anything, any remote idea about how I knew the woman I recognized in Target, it dawned on me.

She was my gynecologist.