Braced and ready for action!

Today I had an appointment at Colman Prosthetics and Orthotics. What a cool place! They do all kinds of prosthetics and orthotics and have a wall full of photos of elite athletes (both those with and without various limbs), including Calgary Flames and various Olympians. It was definitely a place that radiated positive energy and focussed on "ability", rather than lack of it.

I had my appointment and was fitted for the prescribed GII FX knee brace. I’ll start with one for the right leg and then, if necessary, get the left one later.

There are different parts to the brace and it was adjusted so that my knee cap is moved slightly towards the outside of my body.

OH -- MY -- GOD!

What a difference!

We’re talking IMMEDIATE pain relief! It was like there was nothing wrong with my knee at all. I thought, “God, I had forgotten what pain-free feels like.” I realized that I have simply become accustomed to (and yes… even in denial about….) the dull ache that is there all the time…

I walked down the hall. I ran up and down the stairs.

I immediately wanted to go outside and try it out on a run!

But alas, I am barred from running for the rest of the week, still… to give both my knees and my right shin a rest.

I asked when I should wear it and the fellow who worked more or less said to limit it to when I run, unless I really need it otherwise. I was half tempted to wear it around all day, just because it felt so damned good – despite its awkwardness.

I hope it’ll be temporary and that ultimately I’ll be able to do activity with my own two legs again, once they’re stronger.

But by George, I think we’ve found a good solution! At least for now.

Woo hoo!!!

What the sports med specialist said

As promised, I am posting an update after seeing the sports medicine specialist, Dr. Lun, today. After going over the history of the injury (since November!), I had to stand, walk normally, walk on my tip-toes, walk on my heels and of course, squat!

After that, I was poked, prodded and had my legs and knees bent in various directions. We heard “crunchies” or “clicks” in both knees and then I got bent about some more. He noticed some hyperflexibility in both my legs and hips. I knew about the hips, but not the legs. I mean, I see those little gymnasts stretching out in the gym, and I used to see dancers stretching, and I don’t even come close to what they do, but I guess for a woman in her mid-30’s, I am flexible. So, he moved me around some more to get a handle on what was a normal range of motion for me, and what could possibly be related to the injury.

I was then sent down the hall – yes, down the hall – for X-rays. They did them right then and there and I walked back the examination room with the films in an envelope under my arm. Cool, eh?

We looked at the films together and then we set out a plan of action. So, the shortened version:

Diagnosis:

• Patellofemoral pain syndrome (otherwise known as PFPS, as I found out today) – in both knees, worse in the right. I kind of knew this, though I was in denial about the left one perhaps being better, but no such luck...
• Mild tendonitis in right knee.
• Knee bones look normal (i.e. no signs of arthritis; and considering this runs rampant in my family, that makes me very happy!)

Further investigation required for my shin. The doctor isn’t convinced it is a stress fracture, simply because I wasn’t logging a large number of miles. Said it could be a condition where the lining of the bone swells up. (I forget the name… but doesn’t that sound just yummy?!)

We will do a bone scan for more information. That will happen on Tuesday and my follow up appointment with Dr. Lun is March 10.

Also, I need to rest for a solid week. I can lift weights and do my physio exercises, but for cario I can go in the pool and that’s it. Keep icing and using anti-inflammatory cream, too. After that, I can try the run/walk program again… or maybe the elliptical machine.

With a twist… (figuratively speaking…)

I must wear a prescription knee brace, specially designed for PFPS. I made the appointment today and go for a fitting on Monday. I will wear it during impact activity and it should help. When I called to make the appointment for the fitting today, I asked how much it would cost. She asked what my prescription said and then told me it would be about $200, since it is “off the shelf” and not custom-made.

All I can say is… Thank God for Medicare and thank God for student health insurance!! For those of you south of the border, Medicare covered my appointment and X-Rays today, and should also cover the bone scan, since it is prescribed by a doctor. As for the knee brace, hopefully I can claim some of that on the student health plan. I don’t know how much of it will be covered, but every little bit helps.

The whole appointment, with X-Rays and all, lasted about an hour. I must say, I was impressed with the thoroughness of it all. These guys deal with real athletes: varsity sports teams, national team athletes and even Olympians. I thought maybe I’d get laughed right out of the office; I mean… I just started on this path to fitness and health less than a year ago and Lord knows, I still have a loooooong way to go… But apparently, a sports-related injury is a sports-related injury… no matter how novice or expert you are. I was truly impressed.

I’ll update again after getting the knee brace and the bone scan. Until then… I’m going to lift weights, try not to balloon in weight, and maybe just go up to the track every now and then … just to dream a little bit...

He-girl?

At Christmas, a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless, so as to protect the innocent… or guilty, depending on your point of view...) gave me a very thoughtful gift that totally supports my efforts to get fit: a funky microfibre towel for the gym, some exercise tubing (complete with how to’s) and some divine body butter, for a treat after showering at the gym.

Well, the body butter is almost gone, the towel has been used on numerous occasions (though moreso when I had long hair to wrap up in it) and I’ve just learned how to use the tubing.

In a moment of jest she said, “You’re such a He-Girl now, with all this gym stuff!”

Moi?

A “He-Girl”?

Puh-lease!

And besides… that would be “He-grrrrrl” to anyone who cares (dares?) to address me as such.

Since I had a feeling I’d be banned again from running, I asked Chris, my trainer, for a plan that would involve six days of weight training. His first reaction was, “Wow… OK… We can do that.”

Last session I learned some new exercises to add to my basic repertoire and today I got my training log e-mailed to me. The program looks like this:

• Day One – exercises involving pushing (a.k.a. “Push program”)
• Day Two – exercises involving pulling (a.k.a. “Pull program”)
• Day Three – core
• Repeat
• Take a day off

After a rest day, I start the cycle over again. (I won't post details, since you know... he gets paid to design programs and all... Though I am happy to give referrals.)

I headed to the gym immediately after printing off my new program, asked a few questions and went at ’er.

The workout is shorter and more intense than I was doing before. And since I did the “Push program” today, I’ve really only done about a third of the program.

But…

OH MY GOD!

I love it! It’s short, intense, challenging – and fun! (Some might say… kinda like me!)

I had such a blast today with the different exercises, I just can’t wait to try the Pull program tomorrow!

Tomorrow I have the appointment with the sports med specialist and we’ll see what he says… But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he tells me not to think about running again for a while. In the meantime, I have something new to play with… And not only does it not make my injury worse…I can actually do it! And I am having fun!

Me!

In a gym!

Having fun!!

(Good grief, what IS the world coming to??)

I think we might be on to something here...!

God, I hope I don’t go getting all hairy and road-ragey now with all these weights… I am a relatively hairless creature, as far as body hair goes and I’d be most upset to start sprouting them now!

Grrr!

Sorry… make that… Gggrrrrr—LLL!

Now someone bring me a Gatorade with a parasol in it!

Puff, the not-so-happy leg

That's my new nickname for this knee and shin of mine: Puff.

I had my eleventh physiotherapy appointment today. Tim checked out my knees and right shin and noticed:

• Swelling in right knee and shin
• “Clicking” in both knees. This “clicking” is not good news, because we thought we had the left knee sorted out. Apparently not.
• Lower and mid back were pretty much seized up again.

He looked at me woefully and said, “Sorry, Sarah… You gotta rest. I thought you were ready to do the run/walk program, but it doesn’t look that way.”

I got a back full of needles… then a shin full of needles, followed by explicit instructions not to run and not to overstress my back muscles (since they’re connected to my legs and all…)

I was told that I could try the elliptical machine, but chances are… I’ll be back in the pool again.

I did try the elliptical today for about 30 minutes... Kept the resistance low and speed reasonable. (Rob the runner wouldn't even consider it a warm-up, I'm sure!) Anyway, everything was fine and I was thinking, "This feels all right! I can do this!"

Then, as if my magic, my shin swelled up so it looked more like my thigh.

sigh..... (I am icing it as I write this...)

See the sports med specialist on Thursday. I’ll update again then.

Anyone else out there ever have patellofemoral syndrome last this long? Or shin pain? Just wondering... !

Week 7 of 14

The semester is almost half-over. Today is a holiday in Alberta, so there's no school. Of course I came into school anyway, to go to the gym and do some reading. Otherwise, I'm chilling out though.

Last week was brutal... On top of all the usual insanity, I had to design and plan from scratch -- and then deliver -- two 3-hour workshops – on completely different topics; one for a class and one for the Teachers’ Convention that I attended on Friday.

Boy, was I glad to have some social time with the girls on Saturday! But that didn’t happen until after I’d had another training session and scrapped with the trainer. Poor fella. I was a complete brat with him. Too stressed out and I didn’t even realize it until after... (Yes, I apologized...)

The girls’ night was fun! I made far too much food – Spanish tortilla (also known as an egg and potato omelet) and two different paellas – a traditional one loaded with mussels, scallops and shrimp and a vegetarian one. (And no... there is no recipe... sorry! My dear friend Rosa in Valencia, Spain, taught me how to make both the tortilla and the paella. She doesn't use a recipe either...)

We had a variety of appys, salad and a few different desserts, too. Oh yeah, and we can’t forget The Matrix. That was, of course, the piece de resistance.

The rest of the weekend was spent trying to forget about school and de-stress. A little Latin dancing with T.G. helped, I must say.

Now, even though today is a holiday, I am back at the books. I can’t believe that by the end of this week, we’ll officially be halfway to the end of the semester!!

Bros before hoes

I subscribe to the Urban Word of the Day. Every day a new word or expression arrives in my e-mail box. Usually, it's nothing that would ever become part of my vernacular, but it does provide for a chuckle.

A while ago the phrase "bros before hoes" was the phrase of the day. And yes, that's how they spelled it -- as in, "garden tool"... but not. Anyway, one of the definitions is, "the law stating that always keep your buds before the significant other".

Not sure what, if any, would be the feminine equivalent. (Definitely NOT "hoes before bros!") Any suggestions?

I'm not even sure if I agree with the whole concept. Jury's still out on that one. (I fully expect a barrage of comments about it though, so please don't disappoint me!)

Anyway, for those inquiring minds who want to know... You haven't seen me cancel plans with you in the past few months, have you? One blog post (i.e. the previous one) won't change that!

So... yes, our girls' night is still on! I will still be making paella and Spanish tortilla. And we will still be watching Keanu Reeves in all his Matrix glory!

Nuff said. :-)

Out of denial and into an R.

A while ago my good friend, A. said to me, "Sarah, I think you're in an R."

"An R.?" I replied. "Me? Oh no... I don't think so. I couldn't possibly be in an R!"

R. is what we say instead of saying the scary word it represents. You know... like the 4-letter "L." word or -- even scarier -- "The M. Word".

An "R." usually coincides with "L.", but precedes "M." (... but sometimes breaks down -- or up, depending on your lexicon -- before you get to M.)

But enough word play.

A. was gently trying to nudge me out of my comfort zone of denial. You see... I've been... er... seeing someone... for a while... Months, actually.

We were friends... then a bit more than friends... And I have effectively kept him at arm's length - at least emotionally - for... well... a good long time.

A., being the good friend she is, looked me sternly in the eye some time ago and said, "So... what would you call it when you're only exclusively seeing each other, you spend time together regularly, call each other several times a week and e-mail as well? Hhhhhmmmmm????"

Um... dunno? Anything but an R., I guess.

Scares the crap out of me, truth be told.

I've already been down the marriage road... and failed. Horribly. Been down the relationship road, too.... And that didn't work out so well either.

I tell myself I'm too busy for an R. I say, "Hellooowwww??? Doing a Ph.D. here...! Oh yeah... and trying to get fit and healthy, too! No time for more than that!"

But this has... well... crept up on me.

He's been persistent... and patient. I've told him to back off more than once. And he has. I've pushed him away. And he went... but not so far that he was out of reach.

So... sigh... I guess it's time to crawl out of my shell of denial. Yes, A., you are right... I'm in an R.

There, I've admitted it.

I know the question that's going on inside your head. The answer is to be found on my blog roll... (speaking of shells...) Turtle Guy (of Dave's Armchair)... (Aren't Turtles the slow ones that always win the race?)

Oven's fixed!

Well, thanks to all of you who gave me input on the oven (and especially to you, Janice!), it is now fixed.

Dave was kind enough to pick up a new element for me, during a day of running errands. Yesterday night, Leah and I installed it together after work.

When she said, "Well, should we try it?" I got all queasy.

You know how I am about fires, explosions and the like...

I chuckled nervously and said, "OK... I really should have bought that fire extinquisher though..."

She said, "It'll be fine!"

And she was right.

Yaaay!

Needless to say, we celebrated by having frozen pizza for dinner, chased by some of Leah's divine baking.

Haven't eaten like that in ages! I mean, carrot sticks are good and all... but come on!!

Hair donation - mission accomplished

Last Friday saw the completion of a two-year mission: to grow my hair long enough to donate to a wig program for cancer patients.

This is the second time I've done this and it will be my last. Now, sadly, there is more and more grey hair. It normally takes me about two years to grow it long enough to donate. There is a lot more grey in it these days and since it is fine to start with, the grey is particularly brittle and weak - in other words, not so good for donating, since they process the hell out of it when they make wigs. So... another two years from now, there would just be too much grey to make it suitable for donating.

I decided that it's been five years of prepping, growing and donating and so, my service to humanity is done (at least in that regard). I went to see my stylist of about 7 years - Dave A. Richards of Deva Dave Salon and Boutique (www.devadave.com) and told him he could put some colour in it.

In case you're wondering, hair for donations should be all natural - no colour, perm or other chemical treatment.

For the first time in half a decade, I had colour put in my hair! Deva Dave was about halfway through the highlighting process when it finally dawned on me to ask, "Umm.... sweetheart, what colour are we putting in?"

"Blonde!" He said.

"Er... what shade?" I asked.

"Oh don't worry! It'll be fabulous!" He said, with his usual glamorous flair.

And with that, I settled back and trusted he would be right. I realized that he'd kept me talking and laughing so hard that I was oblivious to the fact that he hadn't even run some ideas past me, most likely knowing that if he'd asked me, I'd never have opted for such a dramatic change as the result was! It's definitely blonde! It's been a few days and I'm starting to get used to it... And yes, he was right... As colour goes, he is a pro.

Here we are after all was said and done...

(He got it all lovely and straight... I'll never be able to do that, I'm sure!)

Today I mailed the 9-inch pony tail to the wig maker.

Now I just have to learn how to deal with this mess of blond-ish curls on top of my head!

If you're interested in more information on hair donations in Canada, check out the Canadian Cancer Society website.

Running / knee / fitness update (Otherwise known as... three little words that freaked me out)

I've been promising to update you about my knee and the running situation… and I’ve been procrastinating. I wanted to wait until I had some good, happy, positive news to share.

The reality is that I’m struggling (again!)

I went back to the run/walk program that Tim, my physio therapist, gave me. Once you can walk pain-free for 30 minutes, you go to walking for 4.5 minutes and running for 30 seconds. You repeat that six times for a total time of 30 minutes.

Each time, you decrease the walking by 30 seconds and increase the running by 30 seconds, until finally, you’re up to 30 minutes of just running.

Tim told me to try it for a couple of weeks and then go back and see him. There was some swelling not only in my knee, but also in my lower leg during that appointment a few weeks ago. He said, “Hhhmmm…. That’s weird. That shouldn’t be happening. I’ve never seen that before.”

“Thanks, Tim. I feel like a freak of nature now.”

He smiled quietly and sent me on my way to try out the new program, telling me to keep my knee taped only when I do the walk/run program.

I followed instructions. Diligently. As usual.

I got as far as 3 minutes of walking and 2 minutes of running. Knee and lower leg still swollen… every day… I considered taking Ibuprophen, but since Tim said to try and stay away from drugs, I just kept icing.

When I finally went back to him last week, I was a little surprised. I asked, “How long does patellofemoral syndrome usually take to heal?”, I asked (using the name he’d taught me for what’s wrong with my knee).

“Four to six weeks”.

We’re now working on about ten weeks.

“So... I’m slow.” I said. He nodded… non-judgmentally.

He seemed concerned about my lower leg and started prodding around.

“Does that hurt?”

“No…”

“That?”

“Yes!”

“There? On the bone?”

“Well, whatever you’re touching, it doesn’t feel good.”

He frowned.

I’ve never seen Tim frown before.

He said, “I’m not a doctor, and so I can’t make a diagnosis…”

My ears perked up… In my experience, when someone with as much insight and knowledge as this pro has starts a sentence with something like that, I know they’re probably right, and just need to cover their butt… So… I said, “Yes…?”

“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was a…”

Then I heard three little words that made me want to spontaneously vomit:

“… possible stress fracture.”

He went on to tell me that the only way to tell would be with a bone scan and asked me to go see my doctor to get a referral to a sports medicine specialist.

Lucky for me, the university has an entire sports medicine centre, seeing as how Calgary was an Olympic city, back in 1988, and lots of elite athletes still train here.

I am far from being an athlete, but I feel lucky that I live I a city where there are sports medicine specialists handy… at the very institution where I take classes.

So… off I trotted to the doctor, who (having been Ironman athlete herself, along with being the best g.p. on the globe, as far as I'm concerned) is not convinced it is a stress fracture, but referred me to the sports med specialist anyway.

Until then… I’m back to icing… I can do the walk/run program with not more than 1 minute of running… providing it doesn’t hurt. If it hurts, I must stop.

All of this requires me to tune into my body and what hurts when.

We know I’m not good at that.

I tried to really listen to my body on Thursday… and ended up at the end of the track, quietly bawling my eyes out. Frustration and "feeling" were a bit overwhelming, I guess... and I just lost it. I’m glad I was alone up there and no one was around to witness that stellar display of pathetic wimpiness.

I am starting to think that perhaps life was easier when I was grossly overweight, with no body awareness whatsoever! Now I “feel” my body – what it is doing, if and where it hurts and what it is trying to “tell” me -- more than ever before in my life… and most of it is not pleasant.

I have asked Chris, my trainer, to give me a weight training program what will cover me for six days. I was doing a 3 day split of cardio (walk/run) and another 3 days of weights. The running has become too frustrating… and truth be told (swallowing any ounce of pride I had left…) it hurts. So, I will try focusing on gaining strength for now.

I haven’t given up on running. I won’t give up… not yet, anyway. I will try to focus on activities that I like and that seem good for me. So far, my body hasn't rebelled with injuries against weights, so I'll keep going with those. (No worries... I've no intention of becoming some big, hairy "he-girl"... I doubt Chris would design me a program like that anyway... Or here's hoping!)

I’ll keep you updated on how things go...

101 Ways ... Take two

It's here! It's finally here!

I've took far too long with the revisions and really, really wanted to have it all done before I started school in the fall, but it just didn't happen... Oh well! It's here now!

The 2nd edition of my little book, 101 Ways to market your language program: a practical guide for language schools, arrived late last week.

Now I have to get the website back up and running, contact the places that sold the first edition and swap them whatever they have left of old stock with the new edition. All that will take up time that I don't exactly have at the moment, but that's OK. I'll figure it out.

I'm just so happy that it's finally done!

This is why I became a teacher...

"... the educator must work with whatever the youngster brings to the learning situation, but the educator must never stop believing that each child is capable of something wonderful and heroic and that he or she will never exhaust his or her possibilities."

- Robert J. Starratt
Centering Educational Administration: Cultivating meaning, community, responsibility.

This is the book I am currently reading in one of my courses. Even though my students are university age and have outgrown the label of "children" that quote sums up why I am a teacher.

It's the busiest week of the semester so far and I've just been reminded why I'm doing all this.

Tex-Mex stew... and Sarah's kitchen confession

So… iPodmomma asked about the recipe for beef stew.

Sigh.

I have a confession.

I am a rebel. A maverick. A renegade.

Well… at least in the kitchen. Rarely do I use recipes for savoury stuff. For baking, I always use a recipe, but for all other stuff… not so much. And when I do have a recipe, I start changing it around before I even get started, so the result is rarely like whatever was intended by the original.

Having said all that, and setting all modesty aside, I am quite a good cook. I started cooking full dinners when I was about eleven, or so… I used recipes religiously those first few years and then followed in my mother’s footsteps and used them less and less, experimenting and trusting myself more with each passing year.

Once, at a party I had a few years ago, a fella who’d been brought by one of the guests said, “You cook like this and you’re not married? Do you want to be married… to me?!” Naturally, I chuckled.
Sure there is the occasional muck up… but it’s rare.

About a year ago I had a Korean homestay student living with me who wanted to learn how to cook Western food. So, I let her look through all my recipe books and pick the ones she wanted to learn. We made those and in that case, we followed the recipe.

When I was making something, she would often want to help. I always accepted, but I think I drove her a little crazy because she would often ask, “How much do I put?”

I would shrug my shoulders and say, “Enough.”

At first she got a puzzled look on her face and said, “Enough? How much is enough?”

I told her, “You will know. And if you make a mistake and we don’t like it, then you will know for next time.”

I just about drove her batty with that! Later, I explained that cooking does not simply have to be about following a recipe in a mechanical fashion, but understanding foods; how some foods combine with others and what goes together... and that part of the process is learning to trust yourself and think "outside the recipe".

She got me back when she was teaching me know to make “Korean sushi”, as she called it. (I forget the Korean word for it now… Gim Bap, maybe?) Anyway, I asked, “How much rice do you put on the seaweed?”

She looked at me and smiled and said, “Enough.”

So… to answer your question, there was no recipe for the Tex-Mex beef stew. I just sort of … threw it together. For what it’s worth, here’s what went in it:

• Outside round of beef (less expensive cut, good for stew) – browned in the skillet
• Added onion and garlic (for amounts, see above)
• I think I threw in some seasoning salt at that point, too.

While that was cooking, I got the crock pot started:

• A couple of potatoes, peeled, washed and sliced
• A can of beans (I forget what kind… navy beans, maybe?)
• A can of mushrooms (but only because the packages of fresh ones at the grocery store were hideously expensive and there were no bulk ones left by the time I got there.)
• A couple of stalks of celery, washed and sliced
• Oh yeah… and I also threw in some apple cider vinegar (mostly to soften up the beef, but also because my Buddist/Taoist friend [don’t ask…], Roberto, who is a chef extraordinaire always says, “Apple cider vinegar is good for your pH balance!" Roberto knows about these sorts of things, and it seems that whenever I follow his words of advice when it comes to cooking, rarely am I disappointed…)

And then I made some sauce:

• Beef bouillon
• A partial envelope of taco seasoning (hence the Tex Mex)
• A few other spices I found in the cupboard, but now I can’t remember what they were…
• A bit of corn starch to thicken it up.

Tossed it all in the crock pot and let it cook overnight. As I look back on what I just wrote, it seems like a horridly odd combination of stuff, but in my own defense, I tasted it briefly this morning and was quite pleased indeed. It will make for good lunches and dinners this week.

So there you are… sorry it’s not so precise as a “real” recipe.

Sunday night blog

OK, so I'm just off to bed and thought I’d do a quick post. What a busy weekend! There was some… er… tequila involved at A’s birthday celebration… as well as visits with Jen, Lee, Zoe, Dave and some new friends, too. The last load of laundry is in the dryer and there’s a Tex-Mex beef stew in the crock pot to cook overnight, so I have food for next week.

Next week… As I look down at my daytimer, I groan. Stupidly, hellishly busy. I am not teaching this semester and yet, I seem just as busy. How can that happen?

It’s not all bad… Tuesday night A. will get the second part of her birthday gift… An evening of Death by Chocolate at one of Calgary’s premier hotels, which puts on the weekly event, is included in there, along with a few lunches and coffees with friends I have been wanting to catch up with for weeks. Those are the moments of sanity to keep me balanced though the rest of the INsanity.

What about working out, you ask? Has it gone by the wayside? Not a chance! I’m just rolling out of bed about 6:00 a.m., to make it to the gym by 6:45 a.m. (or… OK, let’s be realistic… 7:00) just about every day next week. That’s the other bit that keeps me sane.

My knee is still not great. I tape it up when I do cardio and I’m still on a strengthening program for my legs. But, it’s coming along.

My workout goals for this month include being “detached from the outcome” of the knee… letting it heal on its own time, rather than on my (type-A, perfectionist) time… all in keeping with the theme for 2006 – “strong body, light soul”.

I’m also reading The Tao of Pooh. My brother-in-law lent me The Te of Piglet some years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt compelled to check out The Tao of Pooh and I’m glad I did… Just what I needed...

Pooh sits on my night table and I usually get in a few pages before bed. Speaking of which… I have a date with my pillow about now, so best I’d be off…

I’ll try to check in on other blogs soon… but if I don’t get to you, it’s not that I’m ignoring you! I’ll be there soon… promise!

Abbott and Costello in the 21st Century

Got this one by e-mail. Just had to share it...

2006 Version of Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?"

For those of us who remember "Who's on first?", this is priceless! You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this. For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on... If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, "Who's on First?" might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on "START".............