Chuckles

Just a few little chuckles on topics neither here nor there ...

The week before Christmas I caught an intestinal flu bug ~ from my doctor.

We're considering trying a new cuisine, so I looked it up online: chiaroscuro. Turns out chiaroscuro is not a cuisine; it's a painting technique that creates dramatic contrasts of darks and lights, made famous by Caravaggio, a painter I just learned about the other day at The Art Institute. It's churrasco that refers to the Brazilian gauchos' barbecued meats, so the place we need to find is a local churrascaria. Hope the food is as much fun to eat as the words are to say.

My husband lasted one week on Facebook. He wanted to know what social networking was all about and to view his brother's vacation photos, so he registered. Immediately, a dozen potential friends popped onto the screen. He wasn't sure which was scarier, that Facebook proposed people he's friends with in real life or that Facebook proposed their friends to him. Then people he hadn't talked with in years sent him messages on Facebook. Every day, Facebook proposed more friends. He "friended" a few folks. My husband then poked around Facebook's links in order to grasp the realities of social networking. He looked at his brother's photos but decided the rest was just way too time-consuming. So yesterday he "unfriended" everyone and set the tightest privacy setting. He whirled around from his computer screen and triumphantly announced, "There! I've set it so that no one can talk to me and I can only talk to myself." LOL

Just Tell Me How Many Times to Hit "Popcorn"

Thanks to comedian John Caparulo for my new word for simplifying life. He was talking about his frustration when a frozen dinner instruction adds steps to what should be a one-step process. He said, "Just tell me how many times to hit 'POPCORN.'" Can't you identify? I sure can.

When I'm trimming the Christmas tree, I'm thinking, In two weeks, it will take me four hours to get all this stuff packed up again, and I sure won't be in the mood. Wait, I'll just hit POPCORN. No strands of lights and only a third of all the ornaments later, I'm on my way to other things. And the tree still looks gorgeous.

When I'm wrapping packages, I'm thinking, When will I find time to buy the rest of the gifts and groceries I need to have in a week? I hit POPCORN once, pretty-up the packages with colorful paper, but don't even consider using ribbon, and hop in the Honda to get those errands run.

This time of year, my e-mail inbox clogs with five to seven advertising e-mails every half-day or so. Following my new POPCORN approach to simplifying life, I decide not to be even a little curious about 10% off or free shipping, and I press DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, then UNSUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE.

Sometimes the popcorn approach doesn't work, like the other day when I thought hey, why dirty a dish and a whisk? I'll just prepare the egg for my omelet by vigorously shaking the egg in the shell. But other times, extra steps just aren't necessary.

Life, As Seen From the Examining Table

So I'm sitting up on the examining table in my doctor's office. I'm waiting ... and waiting. Antsy, I try exercising by twisting my torso for a few reps, then raising my legs one at a time. The stiff white paper the nurse rolled out for me (medical version of a red carpet welcome?) crinkles and pops loudly, so I abandon my pursuit of vigor in favor of quieter looking-around-the-room exercise.

The mechanical roars and back-up beeps just outside the window prompt an obligatory peek through the blinds behind me. That noise is just too hard to ignore; when the doctor comes in, she and I will be shouting at each other, I worry. Sure enough, the rumbling, gouging, and scraping machine-creatures are moving enough earth to make a new hospital wing.

Turning back from the big brown mess outside, I study two framed watercolors hanging across from my perch. In contrast to the cacophony of progress, the watercolors hum an old-fashioned lullaby to quiet productivity. Natural birch wood frames meadows of greens and golds gently rolling past sleepy farm houses tinted rose by the setting sun. The clouds are roiling and riotous, tinged with lavender and rose. In one scene, I imagine the curling clouds to be two French poodles having a tete-a-tete. Nose to nose, they appear to be smiling and chatting, perhaps about the French food.

On the third wall, above the sink, are closed cabinets flanked by three open cubicles. The top shelf is empty, and the bottom shelf is cluttered with small boxes covered no doubt with usage instructions for the contents, indications, contraindications, and disclaimers stating no one is legally responsible for mishaps. From atop the examining table, I can't say for sure what the boxes are; I'd have to go over and look, but who wants to read that stuff anyway unless you have to?

The middle shelf is more interesting, in a bland way. This cubbyhole contains someone's decorating attempt, or holding area for items destined for their next garage sale: four clear glass bottles. One is a short, squat empty one; one is an empty Pepsi bottle whose glass ridges spiral up the bottle like a barber pole. Corks stop the other two, one of which is filled with black beans with beige spots on them, the other with beige beans with black spots on them.

Beneath the blank box, the boring boxes, and the bland bottles ~ in the shadow of the shadowboxes, so to speak ~ is a tissue dispenser mounted on the wall. It reminds me of a stone Easter Island head, except a white tissue unfolds from the nostrils like sneeze spray. I smile imagining the noses of the actual Easter Island heads sneezing out huge white sheets to billow in the breeze.

Lastly, the fourth wall. From a molded plastic brochure rack, twelve apparently deliriously happy people beam at me. Do they know they have DIABETES, REFLUX DISEASE, HIGH CHOLESTEROL, OSTEOPOROSIS, and eight other serious problems printed right above their heads? Apparently not. Just behind my head are the blood pressure apparatus and another rack for practical things like cotton balls and gagging sticks that make saying "aaahhh" sound like "agckgck."

It occurs to me my surroundings here are a lot like life ~ some chaos, some placid beauty, some sameness, some change, some emptiness, some fullness, some truth, some lying, some health, some sickness, some aaahhhs, some agckgcks, some just doing what needs to be done, some trying to figure out what to do with the beans.

Well, so far, I've been doing all the examining in this room. The doctor still hasn't shown up to examine me. I glance at my watch. It has stopped. So I make the rounds again. Wall number one ... I lean back to peek through the blinds ...

Humbug

Fiberoptic tinsel twinkles rainbows in our Christmas tree, bedecked with ornaments, each a special memory from Christmases past. I'm already making lists for this Christmas ~ the menu, gifts for each guest, centerpieces, the short devotional to honor Jesus, the reason for the season, and the carol we'll sing together.

Webster's defines a carol as a song of joy or mirth, a popular song or ballad of religious joy. "Oh come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Emmanuel." "He rules the world with truth and grace." These are just a few carol lyrics that make true peace dance in my soul.

Since I'm into Christmas, I went to see A Christmas Carol yesterday thinking I would not have much in common with grouchy old Ebenezer Scrooge. But an unexpected moment brought my handkerchief out to dry my cheeks. During the spectre of Christmas present, old Ebenezer lost himself for a moment and joined the children dancing in a circle. His white nightgown flapped and his long nightcap flopped as he skipped and pranced. Then he eagerly lined up with the other wildly chattering children to receive a small gift. He held the tiny, shiny red box close to his heart as though it were a treasure. Then when he returned to his viewing spot at the edge of the festive scene, he noticed a small girl sitting alone. She had not gotten up to get a present. Slowly, tentatively, Ebenezer gave her his shiny red box. His face registered sadness for his loss until he saw how happy it made the girl. As he returned to invisibility on the outskirts of subsequent scenes, he remembered this joy of giving, which contributed to his grand generosity of spirit at the end of the play.

Since I've had joy in giving for as long as I remember, I didn't expect to identify with Scrooge. But I have to admit, my heart is not all that childlike any more. I seem to be dragging a sack of sadness and responsibility as big and bulgy as Santa's bag of toys. Would I lose myself in undignified dance? Would I squeal in unintelligible delight? Would I line up eagerly to get a gift, or would I hang back pretending it didn't matter? Would a simple gift thrill me? Would I give away my only treasure?

My tears during this scene surprised me enough to ponder these questions of cynicism, hope, sophistication, simplicity, keeping, and giving. If I were musically inclined, I'd write a carol about a little girl shyly giving the humbuggy parts of her heart to Jesus and then closing her eyes and holding out her hands to receive whatever He might put there. Lo and behold, He puts His own hands in hers. The best gift of all.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

I first encountered the "community stylus" at a Walgreens pharmacy counter. I prefer swiping my credit card through the brown magic box, then signing a paper receipt with my own pen. But that day when the pharmacist pointed to the little Etch-A-Sketch screen on which only their stylus would write, I thought eeuuww. Every hand that has signed with this stylus belonged to a sick person. What is Walgreens thinking???

Now the community stylus is everywhere. Okay, I'm used to it now, and it's no big deal. Except these days every newspaper contains at least one article about flu AND H1N1 flu. Newscasters yammer on about flu pandemic. Most grocery stores provide antibacterial wipes for the handle of your cart, though I've yet to use one. We commonly see people wearing surgical masks in stores. I have no idea if it's because they don't want to infect others or don't want to become infected themselves. But seeing a mask on the person who precedes me through the checkout line makes me wonder if after using the same stylus, I will be moaning like the Ghostbusters, "I've been slimed." Then, who ya gonna call?

Things I Learned When I Was Supposed To Be Learning Something Else

Tonight our book group met to discuss The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer and Barrows. Five of the six of us found the book delightful; one thought it was "feevty-feevty," a reference to a past read, The Geography of Bliss. Our book tonight was a series of 1946 letters that wove a story into accounts of the German occupation of the island of Guernsey during World War II. We met for almost three hours, but our book discussion occupied probably only half an hour.

Our first tangent was actually related to the book. One of our members had researched and written a paper on the German POWs who picked fruit at farms in Michigan after the war. The farmer she interviewed spoke German to the POWs who worked for him and corresponded with them after they were sent back to Europe. She told stories of how devastated and poor and hungry Europeans were for years after the war ended. She said rationing in England didn't end until the sixties.

One thread in the book was love of literature, so I suppose our meanderings into The Iliad, The Odyssey, Charles Lamb, The Gift, Nicholson Baker, Richard the Third, Barbara Pym, Beowulf, Seamus Heaney, James Joyce, (and authors and books and reviews I can't begin to remember) were just more threads woven around that theme. Seamus Heaney and James Joyce came up because one of our members is spending five months in Ireland, where we all thought we should also visit on our group trip to Guernsey, which now seems like a pretty attractive destination. Someone quoted someone as saying Ireland is narrow and deep, and the U.S. is broad and shallow. The shallowness is our relative lack of history, but also the naivete of not having experienced the devastation and poverty and hunger following world war on our soil.

Oh, and tonight I also learned that there are mythology geeks; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named after Renaissance artists because their creators were artists; e-mail is for old people, which four of us apparently are, because we don't send text messages; none of us would read a book on a Kindle; you can make your dog lie down by pointing at him and saying "pow"; one recipe for food-allergic children resembles potato-peel pie; and salt-and-pepper potato chips are the new "in" snack. Okay, maybe our meeting wasn't as hilarious as the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society meetings were, but it was certainly as engaging and eclectic.

Who Pays?

When my husband has to undergo three root canals on the same tooth because the endodontist missed getting all the root during the first TWO root canals, who pays? Knowing we don't have dental insurance, he did not charge us for the second two procedures, but my poor husband still had to go through two extra ordeals. This doctor showed integrity toward us, but I wonder: How often across America, when patients have insurance, does a triple play due to doctor error generate triple insurance claims?

Last Friday my dad got prepped for surgery, then waited at the hospital for three hours before the cardiac surgeon came in to announce postponement of the surgery due to a urinary infection. Funny, his nurse had told my mom on the phone two days earlier that Dad might not have to go to the hospital Friday since the presurgery urinalysis showed infection. Too bad no one told us not to show up. My sister took off work to be there. I took off work to be there. Mom got Dad up and ready and to the hospital at the crack of dawn Friday. A dear, patient O.R. nurse got Dad all duded out in front and back hospital gowns, inserted an IV, shuttled him to the washroom any number of times, and made smalltalk with the four of us as we waited ... and waited ... and waited. After the doctor made his two-minute appearance to tell us what he had known two DAYS before, the nurse took out the IV, shuttled Dad to the washroom some more, got him back into his street clothes, and sent us off.

So who pays for this fiasco? The American taxpayer through Medicare? With all the current talk of health care reform, and the complex roles of insurance carriers, I don't even know who might bill whom for what in this scenario. But I do know who I could bill for our time and my sister's and my lost income ~ but only AFTER he eventually successfully performs my precious dad's surgery. (Perhaps this surgeon will act with integrity too; but since he didn't apologize to us, I doubt he understands the problem was a communication gap in his own office.)

But then I wonder if it's fair to expect doctors to be perfect. For decades, we bristled under the societal expectation to bow down to doctors as gods. Now they are human, and many take time to explain things to us, including the thinking behind their care strategies. We do seem to still operate in a culture that says a doctor's time is more important than a patient's time; hopefully, that can change too. But I love this "new humanity" and don't want to suggest we expect doctors to be superhuman again. Yet ~ who pays when a doctor does make a mistake?

In my personal scenarios above, the consequences to the patients were not grave. For that, we are all grateful. My husband's endodontist did the right thing; he ate the costs of the second and third root canals. We'll see what bills come for my dad's fiasco. Situations like this make me wish for a time when insurance companies do not stand between providers and customers. This would give doctors and patients opportunities to act honestly and rightly with each other ~ a free market. Sure would be simpler to figure out who pays.