FEEL BETTER, BRUCE!
(The title of this post has nothing to do with the post. I just want my friend Bruce, who is under the weather, to feel better).
My annual gynie exam was today. If I wanted to see the doc, I had to wait until June (BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD, people, don’t you forget it), so I chose to see her physician’s assistant, Patty, instead. No problem, right? She’s perfectly qualified.
I’m sitting there with my pants off, faded mauve lap towel covering my lady parts, having the discussion about Taking Better Care of Your Health. I didn’t mind – I saw Patty last year and she had used the opportunity to talk me into taking more calcium, so I was wondering what good advice she would have for me this time.
“Have you thought about making any changes in your lifestyle?” she asked so gently, gazing at my partially naked 200+ pound frame.
I told her about how I had changed my sleep habits, cut back on drinking, and how I was seeing a nutritionist who was nagging me to eat more vegetables and protein and whole grains and less of everything else.
“So how is the weight loss going with the nutritionist?” she asked.
“I’m not seeing the nutritionist for weight loss,” I said.
“So, you’re…” she was at a loss for words. Why would a fat woman be seeing a nutritionist if not to lose weight? (The real answer is: because her BFF dragged her to this class at church).
“Hey, I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to lose weight,” I said. “I’m just not going on a diet.”
WHAT? What kind of woman isn’t going on a diet?
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve been there and done that, and if I want to lose weight, I have to obsess every single minute every single day about food and I just don’t have the energy to do it any more,” I said.
Little did I know, I was falling right into her trap.
“How would you like to hear about a program that uses a health coach to help you lose weight in a safe and easy way?” she asked.
Who could say no to that?
“Sure,” I said.
Note to self: UR FUKED.
The physician’s assistant at my doctor’s office sells a multi-level marketing weight loss scheme of meal replacements and wanted to tell me about them. The health coach WAS HER.
Kill me now. She has my phone number. She has my medical records. She knows I want to lose weight. And she is a multi-level marketer of a SIMPLE! and EASY! program that is guaranteed to work for the low, low cost of I Don’t Want to Know.
This is so wrong, isn’t it? It isn’t right to pitch people for your get-rich quick scheme when you’re in a position to stick your gloved finger up their hoo-ha (and then their other hoo-ha right after that). That just ain’t right.
So now here are the possibilities as I see them:
1. I join her weight loss thing. It costs me a couple thousand dollars, but I lose the weight and keep it off. Everyone is happy. (Chance of happening: less than 1%).
2. I join her weight loss thing. It costs me a couple thousand dollars, and I lose the weight and but I can’t keep it off. She’s happy for the money but unhappy I’m making her look bad. I’m unhappy I spent all the money and unhappy I’m fat again. (Chance of happening: about 10%).
3. I don’t join her weight loss thing. She’s mad that I can’t see a good thing right in front of my face but I lose the weight another way and she is humbled at my next annual exam. (Chance of happening: less than 5%).
4. I don’t join her weight loss thing. She’s mad that I can’t see a good thing right in front of my face and I don’t lose the weight and I’m so embarrassed I have to find another gynie doc even though I loved that one and have been going to her for 10 years. (Chance of happening: about 85%).
Which do you think will really happen?
1906 Postcard Photo from Postaletrice. Used under a Creative Commons License.
Travel Advisory
I talked to my ex-BF, Mr. Mojo this afternoon. He spent some rather epic time in Central America, doing Things That Cannot Be Spoken Of. I told him I was going to visit and had seen the travel nurse and was all freaked out.
Mojo: Well, that’s weird. Because it isn’t normally like you to worry.
Suebob: Right. I never spend a moment having anxiety, especially about long trips.
(Here we have a hearty guffaw because he knows I am a neurotic freak and he is serving up this conversation with a big steaming side of sarcasm. Please note: he’s not the most calm and collected person when it comes to travel, either. Ahem).
Suebob: But at least I have the Hep A and Typhoid shots, and I’m covered for malaria.
Mojo: You don’t need any of that stuff. Just get some grapefruit seed extract.
Suebob: What will that do?
Mojo: It will keep you from getting anything. It works great. You put it in your water, sprinkle it on your food and you won’t get dengue, you won’t get cholera. I have to warn you though, it’s as bitter as gall, and it makes the stuff that comes out your ass look like squid ink.
Suebob: Oh, yeah, that sounds great. Thanks for telling me.
Mojo: I should have known that would freak you out.
Suebob: I’m just thinking of all the possible complications…I’m staying at some nice little guest house and there’s some…um…fecal incident and the owners are all whispering “Ay! Mira! La pobrecita Norteamericana tiene una gran problema con la mierda.”
Mojo: So what countries are you going to?
Suebob: Costa Rica.
Mojo: Shit. Costa Rica is for amateurs. What are you worried about? It’s like the kindergarten of Central America. Call me when you decide to do El Salvador and Nicaragua on foot.
Ah, I love having friends like these to ease my travel fears.
I have heard there will be blue butterflies
There’s nothing like a visit to the County Health Travel Nurse to make you feel paranoid about traveling. At home you are looking at colorful guidebooks featuring photos of azure skies, palm trees and white sand beaches. At the nurse, she pulls out brochures with photos of mosquitoes and tells you about dengue fever.
It’s like the nursing version of mommyblogging – one minute you think you are doing a good job as a parent, and the next you read something that makes you consider getting a CamelBak full of hand sanitizer.
Apparently the only place to get typhoid shots in this county is at Public Health. I had to get typhoid shots because I’m going to Costa Rica. Did I mention that I’m going to Costa Rica? I’m going to Costa Rica. NOT on a mission trip. Not for anything worthwhile. Just for the hell of it.
My BFF CC and I decided to go. She has a month off work, thanks to a budget-cutting government policy of giving her a couple unpaid days a month. She saved them all up. So now the kind citizens won’t have anyone to process their paperwork for a month, because she will be strolling the cobblestone streets of San Jose. Hey, taxpayers, if you want service, you have to PAY for it. Otherwise, adios, amigos. Que le vaya bien.
I’m not going for a month, just 10 days. But I’m GOING!
The original plan was to go to Buenos Aires, but I wasn’t feeling it. Then we talked about every other Spanish-speaking country on earth (one of our vacay requirements was that we get to practice our Spanish). Peru? Too altitudey. Spain? Too expensive. Venezuela? Too Hugo Chavez-y. Mexico? The drug cartel situation. I lobbied hard for Cartagena, Colombia, but got shot down. So. Costa Rica.
We’re going to the Caribbean side, which the nurse told me is infested with malarial mosquitoes and typhoid, as well as some great beaches. I’m not worried. Oh, ho, not ME. I never worry about anything. Poison snakes, too. I’m sure it will be fine.
I should shut up and quit whining. I’m really excited. Not about dengue fever, but maybe I’ll see a quetzal.
Ojala que sí.
Photo by Fabio Bretto. Used under a creative commons license.
Love Brings Up Everything Unlike Itself
“Love brings up everything unlike itself. Fear is detoxed, subconsciously brought to the fore whenever love arrives. Once aroused, it will either trigger us or depart from us, depending on whether it is forgiven or punished.”
~ Marianne Williamson ~
I lay awake at 3 a.m. this morning thinking about that quote and about my friend Erin.
I can’t believe that you don’t know Erin since EVERYONE knows Erin, but in the off chance that you haven’t made her acquaintance, let me tell you about her. She is an intelligent, outspoken, funny, gorgeous woman. When I say outspoken, I mean REALLY outspoken. She has given her opinions on TV news talk shows, on Huffington Post, at the White House, and in about 1000 tweets every day on Twitter.
She is the mother of two, the loving wife of Aaron, a devoted daughter and sister. She is an award-winning journalist and a member of the BlogHer staff.
Over the past couple of years, she has been fighting a battle with lupus, an autoimmune disease that has made her the veteran of too many surgeries.
She is also the recipient of death threats. Serious, ugly, horrible death threats.
It is beyond me why anyone, much less several people, would think it is ok to post this kind of ugliness aimed at anyone. That it is targeted toward a mother of small children and someone who is fighting a deadly disease is even more reprehensible.
The weird thing is that it isn’t that uncommon. Time after time when I have seen people online open their hearts fully and generously sharing stories of grief, loss and vulnerability, they are viciously attacked with the most ugly of words and accusations.
I have seen it happen to Loralee and Tanis when they talked about losing their babies, to Katie when she wrote about having a crushing headache for almost a year. To too many others to list.
I’ve seen people accused of being liars about their sick children and about their own illnesses and grief. I have seen people told they were “making it all up.” That they deserved their loss and pain.
It’s a little much sometimes. No, I’m lying. It’s a lot much sometimes.
I can’t figure it out, either, but I have two guesses –
1. People are out there waiting to prey on weaknesses. Like sharks smelling blood in the water, they see the wounded and go into an attack frenzy.
2. Marianne Williamson is right. They see someone shining bright with love and care for humanity, someone honest and open and free, and they rush toward that light, not to bask in it, not to read by it, but to try and smother it out.
Either way it hurts. It doesn’t just hurt me because I love Erin and Loralee and Katie and Tanis and all of those other honest, open people who have shared and who have been beaten down for it, though that does hurt a lot.
It hurts me because it takes away from my humanity, too. It makes me worry that I might close down just a little, choose my words more carefully, shine my light less brightly, because I never know when someone will come for me the way they have for those women.
I want to promise that I won’t. I don’t know what I’d do if someone threatened me or the people I love, and I don’t want to find out. I just want that kind of ugliness to be over. Will it ever stop?
Household Hints. No, really.
I’m a regular Martha Stewart over here with my household hints. Don’t pay attention to the dog hair is piled up in drifts under the coffee table. I’m here to help. Seriously. If you’ve seen the inside of my house, quit laughing.
Hint 1: Cleaning nasty coffee smell out of thermal carafes and travel mugs
Toss a couple denture tabs in there, add some warm water and it will be clean in no time. Do not mistake the foam for cappuccino and take a swallow, though. It’s minty fresh, but probably not good for your digestion. I buy generic brand foaming denture tablets in boxes of 100 for this very purpose. No, I don’t have dentures. Yet.
Hint 2: Keeping from giving yourself food poisoning
Take a piece of twine and tie a loop in it. Slip the loop under the clip on the cap of a Sharpie. Hang it on your fridge from a magnet. Now you have a Sharpie handy and you can write the date you opened a carton of food on the lid.
Was that Tuesday or last Friday that you opened the soup? Now you know. Death averted. Whew.
Hint 3: Have a fully charged phone
A friend clued me into this because I wasn’t smart enough to think of it on my own. Now I’m passing it on to you. When I go to bed, my phone goes to bed. I put my two Blackberries (one for home, one for work, sigh) on their chargers every single time I go to bed for the night. Don’t you hate when people are always saying “My phone is dying”? Ok, maybe it is just me and they’re just trying to get me off the phone. But if you give your phone good sleep all night, you’ll practically never have the “phone dying” problem again.
That’s three hints – about all I can handle. Talk to you later. I have to get back to laying on the couch and ignoring the dog fur.
Goldie’s Top 20 Concerns
In order, from most preoccupying to the least.
1. Where’s Suebob?
2. Will I be left behind?
3. Are we going for a walk?
4. Is there something to hunt?
5. What’s to eat?
6. Is it time to go to Grandma’s house yet?
7. Those dogs next door must be put in their places.
8. Flea?
9. Who farted? Oh, right, me.
10. Cookie?
11. Suebob is sitting where I want to sleep.
12. Can I go out?
13. Can I come back in?
14. MUST KILL POSTMAN
15. Butt maintenance
16. Mmmm tasty cat poop!
17. Why is that person walking by?
18. I need to show off my stuffed toy
19. Birds must be chased away
20. CAT!!!!!
Full of Fabulous
I shall not speak about work, other than to say I had a meeting first thing Monday morning that immediately sent my neck muscles into spasm.
One minute I’m making an ass of myself in front of People Way More Important Than Me and the next I can’t turn my head to the left at all. Turning to the right wasn’t a heckuva lot better. Ah, what interesting (and painful) surprises the mind-body connection brings!
I decided that I simply had to have some sort of relief, so I went to the Mall at lunch to the quick massage place and got 15 heavenly minutes of neck and shoulder action.
The guy was good. He found all of my worst spots right away and attacked them with hands that were both tender and strong, rubbing, kneading, stretching and coercing my ready-to-snap rubber bands into limp noodles.
I got up and put on my glasses and got ready to pay. Then I began to panic as I scrabbled through my purse pockets over and over, looking helplessly for my wallet, praying for it to somehow magically appear. But no. I had put it in the dog-walking bag the night before and had forgotten to take it out.
I stood there, my face getting redder and redder, imagining what happened to People Who Could Not Pay – would I be put to work? Would a Mall Cop be engaged to escort me away in handcuffs?
I was saved by finding my magic pouch of laundry money in the bottom of my purse. Luckily, I had cashed a $20 bill at the last minute at the laundromat, only needing 75 cents to finish a load of drying.
So I did. Yes, I did. I paid the man $16, all in quarters, plus a whopping $2 tip. Also in quarters.
I don’t know what he thought of this payment method, because I was too busy staring at my shoes and getting the hell out of there.
The good news is that, once again, I avoided arrest. The bad news is that, by the time got out the door, my neck had begun to get all tight again from the stress of not knowing where my wallet was, and I couldn’t afford another 15 minute massage because I was out of quarters.
Photo by Jackson Carson. Used under a Creative Commons non-commercial license.
The art of receiving
I love this video of Ray Charles because it captures his beautiful smile.
I ushered for five years at a Performing Arts Center as a volunteer. It was a good gig. It was a rental hall, so one night Lucinda Williams might play and the next the Israel Camerata chamber orchestra or Bill Cosby. It just depended on who was coming through town.
They gave us 300 ushers the chance to choose the shows we wanted to work and we took our jobs fairly seriously. Well, some of the ushers took their jobs a little too seriously. I mean, I wanted to maintain order, but certain overzealous (usually old) ushers would try to keep people at rock shows sitting down in their seats. Put away the flashlight, Harriet. Nevertheless, I loved being part of the black-clad army who helped people find Row F.
Ray Charles was my all-time favorite performer. Not for how he played – though that was great. I mean, holy cats, Ray Charles. But the remarkable thing to me was how he accepted the applause at the end of each song.
He stood on stage, arms spread, flashing that big white grin, and just soaking it all in. He just…received. It was as if he was saying “Yes, I’m great. This music is great. We’re all having a good time, and I love that you’re loving it.”
His gracious and joyful receiving fueled the crowd’s ardor, and the energy of the show grew and grew as the evening went on. He had every switch open and the power was on.
Most people can’t do that. Most of the performers I saw, no matter how fabulous they were, couldn’t open up and let the audience in all the way. No matter how much they smiled or bowed, you could still see some kind of tension or holding back in they way they moved, their posture or their eyes.
Ray was as open as the sky. That was his real gift to us – to show us that it is possible to just stand there and be glorious.
Have you seen this fabulous TED video of Brene Brown? Well. She has some things to say about openness and vulnerability, too.
Denial is a river in Egypt
This post really isn’t about Egypt. I heard last night that most Americans don’t show any interest in the Egypt story. (I’m just weird, apparently, in yet another way). So if you hate international politics, please indulge me and keep reading.
I have been thrilled and obsessed by the revolution taking place in Egypt. I put the Al Jazeera English live feed on my computer and left it on, watching people gather, chant, mass, get tear gassed and beaten. In my heart, I cheered them on toward democracy, proud of them for grabbing this moment to end their suffering under the present government.
Then word came that the dictator Hosni Mubarak was going to make a statement, and I rejoiced – he was going to step down!
Mubarak’s face was difficult to read as he spoke, partly because he didn’t have a TelePrompter, so he had to look down a lot, but it soon became clear what was hidden behind his politician mask – the man was beyond angry. His words made it clear.
He didn’t seem to understand what the protesters’ demands were. Instead, he blamed them and complained that the only reason they had the freedom to protest was because of reforms he had made – he had been doing them a favor and they just didn’t appreciate it.
He didn’t step down. He said he had dismissed the cabinet and that he would appoint a new cabinet. That would fix everything. Done. Goodbye.
I sat stunned by the man’s cluelessness. I tweeted that he didn’t know he was a Dead Man Walking. It was almost comical, his level of detachment as his world crumbled around him.
It took me a few days to see how the drama that Mubarak is playing out on a grand scale also takes place in my life on a regular basis. I’m a mini-Mubarak. Let me explain:
I see that something his wrong in my life.
I know I need to do something.
I put it off for a while.
The situation becomes more urgent.
Finally, I can’t ignore it any longer.
So then, I look for someone to blame.
I blame everyone I can think of.
I convince myself there is nothing that can be done.
The situation persists.
I decide to take a small action instead of addressing the whole, overwhelming problem.
I tell everyone my problem is solved.
I wake up. I still have the problem.
Ha ha! In so many areas of my life, I am as wrongly controlling and blaming as any foreign dictator. It is only when something rises up – back pain, my pants don’t fit, my bank account is empty – that I have to take notice.
I have to start governing more democratically, or face the mob of my problems.
I’m about to make you feel better about yourself
Prima ballerina was not to be my fate.
As my sister says “There’s a reason my mom didn’t name me Grace.” We come from an almost absurdly clumsy family.
That cranky physical therapist asked me, after testing my balance “Do you tend to fall over a lot?”
Yes. Yes, I do. Trip and tip and crash and fall. My glasses are often askew from where I bump my head into things.
To wit (all recent happenings):
The last two incidents were on the same day, people. I am going to start wearing a helmet and a Michelin Man suit everywhere, just in case. I think it will be a good look on me.
Suebob's Red Stapler 