What’s Wrong With Me? And Other Orgasmic Tales
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Health | 10 Comments
Due to technical difficulties, this has been re-posted (RSS readers will be getting this twice).
Carine explores the pursuit of big business and the big O
Ladies!
Do you know that you are sick if you don’t have vaginal orgasms? If your libido is kind of low, you have an illness? If you are not instantly lubricated when your partner suggests lovemaking, you are diseased? And did you know that not climaxing when you engage in sexual activity means something is wrong with you?
Listen up. Your debilitating ailment has a name: Female Sexual Dysfunction, or FSD. Don’t you feel better knowing what’s wrong with you? Now you can go to reputable sites like Mayo Clinic or Web MD or AAPF (a peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians) and read all about it. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, unfortunately, not even one of those smarty-pants scientists out there has been able to come up with the Holy Grail otherwise known as female Viagra. Ain’t life a bitch sometimes? Does God hate women or what? Read more
Insurance Withdrawal
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Miscellaneous | 7 Comments
Can Carine gamble on insurance and not get burned?
Recent conversation with my vet:
Me: It’s been at least a year since I asked one of your people to fill out this “Release of Records” form and send it to my insurance company but they never did, so my last claim went unpaid.
(The insurance company needed two years’ worth of records to guard against any sneaky pre-existing conditions.)
Vet: Oh, no. We fill out all forms and fax them in immediately, but all our clients call back three and four times to complain that the insurance companies say they haven’t received it.
Me: So, I guess their thing is to wear us down in the hope that we will eventually abandon or forget the whole thing?
Vet: You know, insurance companies. (Shrug)
In case you’re still reeling over the news that I pay for something as elitist as pet insurance when there are people starving in America, all I can say is, well, yes, I pay for pet insurance. I’ve gone off the pet insurance crack pipe several times over the years, each time, succumbing to the guilt wrought upon me by the sarcastic and smirking voice, which tells me I’m a fool to fork over hard-earned dough to yet another insurance company when they always seem to find an excuse for denying my claims. Read more
Discovering Selflessness with My Friend, Madam Menopause
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Health | 13 Comments
Sacred Fire of Pele, Goddess of Hawaii Volcano, painting by Olga Shevchenko
Meet or retreat from Carine’s cast of characters in her toned down rant about “the change”
You don’t know how happy you are that I didn’t post the blog I originally wrote titled “I Hate F#*@!-ing Menopause”. I remembered just in time that I’m supposed to embrace this era of transformation, of aging with grace, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. To be 100 percent honest, I don’t love growing old but I’ve made my peace with it. I’m even doing it au naturel—never tried Botox, stopped dyeing my hair, chucked my distaste for exercise. But, menopause? Yes, that’s me in the corner over there, waving the large white flag.
My original blog was full of anger and super dirty swear words. Aren’t you glad I reconsidered? Although, to tell you the truth, I had a great time ripping Madam Menopause to shreds. I thought I was really funny, but people who love me said to keep it to myself or forever suffer pangs of regret since the Internet is the elephant that never forgets. Or, they made careful suggestions about how to tweak it. So I shelved the report on my wide-eyed midnights spent wondering whom to yell at; and of my epiphanous threat to Mr. Flash: the intention to create a brand new antiperspirant for the ENTIRE body. HA! HA! HA! No more sweating EVER AGAIN! Read more
10 Things My Dog Taught Me
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Humor | 11 Comments
Carine’s dog Tulip, photo by Pascal Giacomini
Carine observes that some of life’s best lessons come from our four-footed friends
1. When you have an itch, scratch it. If something is nagging at you, insisting a certain person or circumstance just doesn’t feel right, go with it sooner than later. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief. Plus, your wallet may still be where you left it when you go to pay for your session with that shrink.
2. If you need to fart, just do it. If you are feeling bloated with the gaseous fumes of critical words that need to be said or important ideas which need to be expressed, let them out; you’ll feel a lot better. When you’re sick, do you try to repress your cough with syrup? Stop it! Cough up the mucus, baby. Blocking a bodily function has never been a good idea.
3. Show love with enthusiasm. If there is someone in your life who you just adore—be it a spouse, friend or special family member—show them you can’t live without them (you know, get all excited when they walk in the door, jump all over them, ask if you can sit on their lap, etc.). They’ll think you’re nuts but they’ll be thrilled, and you will have them eating out of your hand. Read more
Love in the Time of Insurance
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Health | 11 Comments
Is Carine looking for love in all the wrong places? Or could angels be guiding the way?
A study I read revealed that patients who feel their doctors care about them tend to recuperate and heal faster than those who feel like they’ve just taken a quick hop on-and-off a conveyor belt. Trying to find love from your healthcare provider is an iffy and trying proposition; and I’m here to report on my recent routine annual physical examination with a general practitioner, courtesy of my brand new HMO plan. Did you say $40 co-payment for all office visits and lab tests? I was already in love (even though I resent not being able to go to my regular GP and gynecologist because they’re not in the damn network).
My visit with the doctor went like this: in the less than 15 minutes it took for me to fill out the requisite forms, I observed no less than three pharmaceutical salesladies trot in to dole out free samples to the doctor, who, in fact did offer me a drug for osteoporosis before deciding whether or not I even needed a bone density test. I think I’m pretty in the know about the reciprocal back-scratching that goes on in the medical field, but I must admit to being kind of shocked when one of the salesladies in question whipped out her appointment book and notepad to take lunch orders for how many people did you say are working in the office now? Read more
Picture House Shines Bright
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Group Posts | 6 Comments
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Wrapping up the holiday theme—sharing what bring us joy—Carine tells a story of illumination
Sometimes joy simply comes from watching others experience joy. Someone I know sent me a link to a short article about the Sun City Picture House, a movie theater that was recently opened in one of Haiti’s worst slums, thanks to the efforts of actresses Olivia Wile and Maria Bello. The article quotes Bello saying, “We had 200 kids that [opening] night with little bags of popcorn and juice. Their parents stood in the back, watching them have some joy for the first time.”
When the task at hand seems overwhelming, doing the bit that you can, can have a huge impact. The thought of distressed Haitian people being able to watch a fun movie made me so happy. Good job, ladies!
A Stinky Epiphany
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Health | 9 Comments
With her own type of “smell-o-vision”, Carine’s nose triggers lessons to be learned
I recently had an epiphany. It goes like this:
If you smell shit everywhere you go, you’re the one who smells like shit.
Sound harsh? It is the conclusion I came to after walking around for a few hours the other day, saying to my husband, “Something smells like shit in the house.” I checked the cat’s litter box, even though I had just cleaned it out. I looked all over to see if the dog had had an accident but found nothing. I opened the trashcan, hoping to find something rotten and offensive but came up empty. I then left to run an errand, and while I was in the car, thought I caught a whiff of something shitty but it went away, so I thought I imagined it. But the minute I got home, there it was again. My husband’s nasal passages are a lot like his hearing—they either work selectively or not much; I’m usually the one who smells potential gas leaks and such, so he was no help.
Later that evening, we went out to the hot tub in our backyard, and I smelled it again, so I looked around for dog poop but couldn’t find any. It was finally when I went into the bathroom to put on a robe after our soak that I noticed a brown stain on the rug. My genius side kicked in and I turned my shoe over to find a huge, caked up mess of dog shit that I must have stepped in the last time I wore those shoes, and somehow never noticed it. So much for my extra-sensory nasal passages, I thought to myself. And that’s when I had my second epiphany: Read more
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