Category Archives: Fear

July 1

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July 1.  Day of doom.  Why, you ask?

Because, all over the country, newly-minted graduates from medical schools are in hospitals and each is called “doctor”.  Enough said.

SOB (sister of blogger) is an attending physician at a hospital and the head of the medical intensive care unit.  Each year I offer to have a talk with anyone she deems a “007” (licensed to kill) about other potential career paths.  It is my annual charitable event; I think of it as saving lives.  Every year, she demurs.  No one is quite the Austin Powers version of James Bond.

But the offer still stands.

When TLP (our son, the little prince) was born, it was July 11.  The interns were 10 days old.  POB (partner of blogger) had to have an emergency Caesarian.  In order to get to the baby in a Caesarian procedure, a lot of organs need to be taken out of the way.  So when TLP was born and I heard the OB-GYN say to the intern, “where would you put the uterus?”  I offered, “back where it belongs!!!!”

If it is July, don’t ask for just any doctor.  Ask for a REAL doctor.

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Remembrances of things past

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TLP (the little prince, my son) checked out a library book on fishing.  We had to read about each fish, length, weight, best bait and whether the species would put up a fight.  Also we had to go through the various baits (it WAS a how-to book, after all) and the only thing I could add was when we got to fly fishing.  I told him we could go on the Orville’s Fly Fishing School website (I silently prayed it had not gone into Chapter 11 or dissolved).

When it came time for me to read about a fish that was a pesky fighter, I recounted my family’s trip to San Francisco, circa 1968.  Mom and Dad took us to eat at the Fisherman’s Wharf, which — at that time — was an exotic dining destination.  My parents were dressed in evening wear, so I presume that after dinner we were being dropped off at the hotel with a sitter, but I can’t remember.  I do remember fishing for our dinner and Dad’s having caught a pesky, fighting fish that flailed in and out of his tuxedo jacket.  Mom and Dad must have eaten that fish (I think we kids stayed with hamburgers).

That was the first and last time we went fishing with Dad or anyone.  Too traumatic.  If TLP wants to go fishing, Uncle HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger) or Cousin Gentle will have to take him.  Thinking back 43 years ago, I am still traumatized.

 

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In the Game

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So, SOB (sister of blogger) and HOSOB (husband of SOB) jetted off to Rome today.  They were there two years ago (and Florence and Venice in the two years before that), but got excited about our trip and decided that one can never go to Italy enough. (I believe our family has only grown higher in the esteem of IFOB (Italian friend of blogger).)

So, they are going to a country that, Thank G-d, is just providing bases for the sorties over Libya and not missiles or planes.  So, there is a lesser likelihood that Italy, in general, and Rome, in particular, might be bombed in retaliation.

YES, I have gone through the disaster scenarios and I am comfortable that they are traveling to Italy.

It is a sad, sad, truth that war is only real, if — to quote a business axiom — you have “skin in the game”.   Otherwise, it is a statistical variance on the number of humans in the world.

Our family doesn’t have “skin in this game”.  But some of us now are closer to the “game”.  And it is no longer a GAME.  It is war.

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The Test: End of Day 2.

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Ah, ’tis the Spring of my Content.  (Apologies to Willy Shakespeare.) Because the Test continues.

COB (colleague of blogger) felt bad that I thought he was stacking the deck against my being upbeat for one month (the Test), so he was in and out of my office all day saying cheery and pithy things.   He also wants to be known as THE COB, because there can be no other colleague who merits mention in the blog.  Well, he is right about that.

I am trying, really.

But there is so much static interference.

Yet, I didn’t curse the man who crushed my arm by swinging open a door and catching my arm. The EXCRUCIATING pain only lasted a few minutes and the bruise is not so bad.  So, I remain cheery and hopeful and am spreading that karma like a boomerang, I tell you.

I am waiting for POB (partner of blogger) for our Wednesday night date.  I arrive early and sit at the bar. The drunk man at the other end (who is talking too loud to be ignored) is pontificating to his poor date about 1888 Germany being an example of an evolved society. Funny, how it devolved into chaos and demagoguery in just a few, short decades. But I digress.

Ok, so I am being grateful for all that I have and now I hear the drunk man claiming that, although he is Caucasian, he is Indo-European because we all descended from that part of the world.  So, now he gets to go off on Indians and Europeans.  Whoa.  He needs to stop, because even I am offended and our family fled Germany and Central Europe.

But using his theory, he can rail on whomever because we all came from Adam and Eve.  He, on the other hand, definitely came from apes or, possibly, the ever-adaptive rodent family.

Ok, a history book is committing suicide every minute this guy speaks.

I am good with his being pedantic, insufferable, and patronizing because I am focusing on the good in the world notwithstanding the current chaos. So, THE COB, you haven’t won this bet yet.  I am in a good place.

But I am drawn again into his conversation because his date is countering his ramblings with a little fact checking. Mobile Google is awesome. She is in solid fighting form now that she decided there is no future in him.   So, if I could paraphrase, “Dumb@ss, you got your facts from reenactments on the History Channel”.

He realizes, too, that this date is going nowhere.  So, he says he is rich. Dude, you need the wealth of a Saudi prince to save this date and she sounds like she has too much pride for that anyway.  Good for her.  Tragic for you.

Now this is adding to my month of contentment and karmatic equanimity.  Boy meets girl, gets drunk and offends everyone within earshot.  Girl ditches boy with facts, fabulous diction and perfect grammar.  Boy tries to get girl back with money.  Girl gets the check.

In full disclosure, I negotiated a clause in the Test that I could think about the people, not only in Japan, but all over, whose lives have ended, or been upended, by natural and man-made disasters.  So, in the midst of my ramblings, I don’t forget about them and their suffering.  I hope that relief comes in time.

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The Test

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COB (colleague of blogger) is tired of my doom and gloom. (Really?  I thought it part of my magnetic personality. . . .)

And that, in and of itself, is shocking, since COB was discussing that the end of the world could occur on December 21, 2012.  Something about the Mayan calendar, Nostradamus and planetary alignments. Not that COB BELIEVES it, or anything.  But he was just putting it out there.

Probably to stack the odds before he dared me to be hopeful and cheerful for one month.  ONE MONTH.

In case you didn’t read carefully enough, I was challenged to be hopeful and cheerful for one month.  (COB is a poker player and probably has side bets on whether I will sink into despair in 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 2 weeks.)

I think it is funny that people are talking about the end of the world being in 21 months away, since Japan lies devastated (and its nuclear rods laid bare) by an earthquake and then tsunami, Libya is in civil war, Bahrain and Yemen are in chaos, the Ivory Coast is a bloodbath, we are in two wars, our deficit is out of control, the recession hasn’t ended for most Americans and we have a dysfunctional Congress, and on and on and on.  Sounds like the end of days now.

BUT, I digress, comme d’habitude.

Back to sweetness and light and kumbaya.   A dare is a dare and I have my pride.  So, forget the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Forget images of breadlines during the Depression.  Forget the daily carnage for an acre or two of oil fields.  I am going to be happy, hopeful and cheery, Gosh darn it.

So, here is what I did today to make good on the dare:

  • When I was at the gym, I didn’t tell the stinky man that he was curling my nose hairs, as we took turns on the same machine.
  • I made sure that all elderly, infirm or pregnant people on the bus had seats.  (Yes, I know I am too pampered to hang with humanity, but the recession hasn’t ended.)
  • I swore to POB (partner of blogger) that I would take a time-out from the 24-hours news REcycle, where the object is to scare us more than to provide information.  (Note to self:  If Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper is at the nuclear power plant in Japan, it can’t be releasing THAT much radiation.)
  • I kissed and hugged my son, as I asked G-d (and whomever else with power over these things) to protect him from the chaos.

Not bad for my first few hours of Blogger-High-On-Happiness.

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Elvis in the House

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A portly guy wearing an Elvis wig, over-sized sunglasses and that tragic white jumpsuit that was “signature Elvis” in his final years, walked through the lobby of my office building. Apparently responding to jeers from the security guards, he yelled, “it’s still a free country and I am doing my part!”

Now that struck me. Today, with the news from Japan getting worse, Saudi troops landing in Yemen and Bahrain and pleas for a no-fly zone over Libya, we need all the Super Heroes we can get. Real, imagined or dead. Maybe the Elvis impersonator was doing what he could do to feel in control and perhaps offer comfort as a super human personality (just ask other Elvis fans).

He wasn’t so crazy after all (maybe). I might buy a Star Trek: The Next Generation outfit. They always had the answers. Maybe Counselor Troi, although I would need more gym time as well as implants. But you get the point.

Elvis was in the house. And that was what we needed today.

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