How are you?

A question, Confession, George, , , ,

cat how are youWhen the nurse is taking me back to the cubicle where I will be imprisoned until the doctor drops by, he or she always asks. “How are you today?”  That question always stumps me.  My first thought is to scream, “I’m at the doctor’s office.  How do you think I feel?”  However, I do possess a thin veneer of courtesy and say, “Fine, thank you.  How are you?”

Then I sit in the little room and ponder that question.    Finally I decide the nurse is not really  asking for a health report. “How are you?” is a  polite social convention which really doesn’t demand an honest answer, only recognition that the rules have been applied and accepted.   Yes, I may be throwing up on the nurse’s feet, but I answer, “Fine.”  I may be doubled over in pain or spouting blood from every orifice, but that’s not what the nurse is asking.   The nurse is simply recognizing that I’m there and my answer merely says, “Thank you.”

But the question came up again six months ago  and again I had to work out what others were saying,  Only minutes after George died, one of our ministers asked, “How are you doing?”  My mouth dropped open.  I wanted to shout, “How do you think I feel?  They joy of my life is gone.”  I didn’t of course but had no good answer.  People asked that over and over in the months after George’s death and, every time, I thought, “You have to know how I feel.”  But I didn’t say that.  “As well as can be expected,” I’d say and that was the truth.  But why did they ask?  comforting friendsDidn’t they know?

Again I realized that, yes they all knew I hurt.  That question meant, “I care about you but I don’t know what to say.”  It meant, “He was my friend and I hurt.  How are you doing?”  It meant so many things my friends and George’s didn’t know how to ask, what words to use.  And thanks to all those friends and ministers and family members, I’m doing fine, sort of.  Thank you for asking.

 

 

 

 

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What’s in your drawers?

A question, Confession, Musings, ,

 I can never find batteries.  I buy them, I bring them home and I never see them again.  I have a number of batteriestheories on that.  First, the Energizer  bunny sweeps through the apartment at night and gathers them up, for what reason I don’t know.    Second, I’ve used them all and just don’t realize it.  But my main theory is this:  I put them away in many different places, each time thinking, “I’ll remember where they are when I need them,” but I never do.   I also believe  one day I’ll open a drawer and find thousands of them huddled together..

What do you keep buying  because you can’t find where you put them the last time you made that purchase?  I’d love to know.  It always makes me feel better when you confess and I know I’m not alone.

Who cares how the game ends?

Family, Musings, , , , ,

escape

As I watched the end of the NFL game last night–Houston won on a field goal as time ran out–I saw something that made me laugh.  As soon as the ball went through the goal posts, a San Diego fan   grabbed the hand of a child and ran up the stairs toward the exit.  I know exactly what the man was thinking.  “We have to get out ahead of the crowd.”   I know that because that’s what my father would have said.  Actually, my father and I wouldn’t have been there that late in the game.  We would have left sometime in the middle of the fourth quarter,  to beat the traffic.

Dad was a very busy doctor.  He practiced in the fifties and actually made housecalls.   He was not a patient man.  I’ve inherited that trait from him but he had a better reason to be impatient.   He had gazillions of patients and the idea of sitting in a traffic jam when he should be at the hospital or on the phone (no cells back then) bothered him greatly.

So, we never saw the end of any athletic event.  I remember once sitting in Roys and Rays, a Kansas City hamburger place, listening to the A’s coming from behind and winning in the bottom of the ninth. 

We did see the end of plays or musicals but as soon as the plot was all tied up and with only a few notes of the final song being reprised, we were on our feet, long gone by the time the curtain fell and the curtain calls began.   imagesCAI0E38T

But the important part is that he was there.  The family went together to football in Lawrence, KS.  He took me to Kansas City Blues baseball games before Kansas City had a major league team and to basketball at KU.   So what if we left early?  We were there, together.  Thanks, Dad! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cover reveal: Dance Away, Danger (What a great title!)

Coming up, , ,

Alexa Bourne, my friend and also member of Austin RWA, is revealing the cover of her first FULL-LENGTH suspense novel!    Dance Away, Danger  is the first book in Alexa’s Hanover Haven Series.

DanceAwayDanger_v2

Here’s a little about the story:  Danger!  Conflict!   Sensible heroine and careful carpenter!  Courage and LOVE!  

  Dance Away, Danger is coming soon from Fated Desires Publishing (www.fateddesires.com)

Leave a comment on either the story or the cover and you’ll be in the running for winning a prize from Alexa! The contest will run throughout the weekend and winner(s) will be chosen from all commenters during the “cover reveal” party.

Cats do NOT understand NPO

Pets, , , , , , ,

check up 2Yesterday, I took the cats to the vet in the middle of the night.  Actually, it was seven-fifteen but when one is retired, one forgets  anything happens that early.   They went in to get their teeth cleaned and have  a locating  chip implanted.  Because this is done under anesthesia–who’d want to clean the tiny but sharp teeth of an awake cat?–the kitties couldn’t eat after midnight.  And their not eating wasn’t really NPO–they had a bowl of water–but really fasting.  They did not like this whatever I called it because THE FOOD BOWL WAS GONE!

When the veterinarian said a year ago that  Scooter was getting fat and I should take his food away at night and not allow him to graze, I thought, “Has she ever had a cat?”  Oh, she’s a wonderful doctor but if Mr. Scootter, who considers himself the king of the word, doesn’t have food at night, he makes sure no one (meaning ME)  has a minute of sleep.  So, normally, I feed the cats in the evening and take the bowl away in the afternoon.  But last night after I took away the food bowl, the entire night was motion and noise–nudge, nudge, nudge–purr, cuddle, cuddle,  and ME-OW!  Finally in what I could tell was deep frustration,  he placed his soft little paw on my cheek, stared mounrfully into my puffy, blood-shot eyes and said, “Why are you starving the Scooter?”empty food bowl

Because I foresaw this problem, yesterday after dinner I explained to Maggie and Scooter that they wouldn’t have food after midnight.  They didn’t listen and they don’t have watches.  I know they didn’t listen because they never do and because Scooter ignored all the  explanations I reminded him about after every one of the fifty times he woke me up.   Now Maggie may be hungry but she allows Scooter to approach me about that prolblem.  She saves all her nagging for telling where I should sit so I can scratch her tummy.

No, cat do not understand NPO but they are so worth a little lack of sleep.   They’d just better leave me alone tonight.

Do your research!

A question, Writing, , , , ,

schizoHave you watched the program Perception?  It’s about a schizophrenic who teaches in college and solves crimes on the side.  I really like it.  The actors are good and the production very well done.   However, a few weeks ago, the hero–Dr. Daniel Pierce played by Eric McCormack–decided to go undercover in a mental hospital to solve a murder.   Here’s the problem:  I worked in a state hospital and the errors  made me nuts.     Pierce pretended to be going through an episode, was picked up by cops who took him to a mental hospital.  Shortly after he entered, he was given his meds.     Mental hospitals are the same as medical hospitals:  no one gets treated before a doctor sees the patient and prescribes medications and care.   Then, he’s placed in group therapy with patients who are  catatonic and others who are violent.  Again, no orders for this from a doctor and someone as high function as Pierce would never be in a mixed group and how in the world would a catatonic patient be helped in group therapy? 

med doctor babyWhen I was a child, Friday night was family movie  night.   My brother Mike and I had to be careful about what movie we allowed our father to see.  Dad was a medical doctor.  We learned young not to allow him near a movie about a doctor or a hospital because he would–loudly–point out every error made on the screen.   However, some movies sneak medical stuff in unexpectedly.  In many Westerns, a woman goes into labor.  As soon as that happens, one of the actors shouts, “Boil some water.”  My father would break out into laughter and shout, “What are they going to do?  Boil the baby?”

Mortifying in so many ways.  As a writer, I’m embarrassed because the person who wrote the screen play didn’t do basic research who after  watching many Westerns, believed that boiling water when a woman went into labor was a scientific fact.

As a teacher, I hated it when the teacher heroine would slip out to met her fiance for an hour-long lunch or when class size was seven students or that they work only four hours a day.

What bugs you when a writer makers a mistake?  I once threw a book at the wall because the story couldn’t overcome the errors for me.  Have you ever done that?

 

What do you think?

A question, Musings,

This is a story I read someplace years ago.   Because I remember it twenty or thirty years later, it obviously made a great impression on me.

“I was in a grocery store” a woman wrote.  “Pushing the cart around when a lady approached me and said, ‘Cheer up!  You look so sad.  Nothing can be that bad.’   I watched her bustle away as tears rolled down my cheeks.   My son had died four days earlier.  This was the first time I’d gone shopping and not bought  his favorite foods.”

Another story.  The writer had been diagnosed with a serious but not immediately fatal disease.  The first time she attended a support group for people with this diagnosis, she listened for a few minutes, then stood and said, “You’re all so depressed and depressing.  I’m not going to allow this to ruin my life.   You have to learn to  get over this.”  I didn’t read any more of the book.

What do you think about these stories?  I’m going to give you a few minutes to think.  Then, as usual, I’m going to give my opinion.

GO!

Okay, here are my thoughts.   There are people who believe we should be smiling all the time.  These people may have a mental condition or they may just be thoughtless and insensitive.   Normal people grieve.  Normal people don’t smile all the time.  Normal people are often in a blanced mood, neither up or down.  Normal people don’t tell others how they should feel without knowing their histories–or, even if they do know their backgrounds.  It’s not a bit hlepful.

With the second story, I truly believe the writer thought she’d sent a good and optimistic message to that group.  She hadn’t.   Any time we’re diagnosed with an illness, it’s unsettling.  Joining a support group is a healthy  step.  I have the same disease this writer had and learned a great deal in the support group I attended.   I wonder if the seriousness of this problem ever hit this woman or if she’s lived in constant denial.

My ultimate thought is that we love and support others.  We don’t judge others because we do not know what others are experiencing.  One of my favorite quotes is about:  Be kind because everyone you meet is facing a hard battle.

Paperclips and Panic

Confession, Musings, , ,

I  think of myself as open, flexible, quick to accept change.   The realization that I’m not always shocks me.  I’ve blogged on this before but it keeps happening.

The most recent example:   I had to fill out an insurance claim which consisted of several pages of information, a few documents to prove the claim,  and a dozen forms.      The instrucitons stated:  Do not use highlighter, staples or paperclips.”  Until that moment, I didn’t realize I was addicted to paperclips.   Oh, when I was teaching, I used clips to hold papers together and, as a writer, I clip chapters together but I hadn’t realized I couldn’t NOT clip  documents together, that not doing so left me anxious.   I couldn’t breathe.  My hands shook.  I’m also compulsive about following directions so it made me even more anxious to ignore the instructions and clip the papers together.  What to do?

After great agony and long consideration, I came up with a plan.  I organized the pages in the order listed on the instructions, wrote on the top exactly what the form was because  most of the forms were identified only as CLAIM FORM.  Then I numbered them all.  On the documents with more than one page, I labeled them with  A, B, C.   All this means that I had one section entitled, “Cancellation  5A.”

And I feel so much better.  I didn’t use staples or paperclips (okay, I DID highlight one thing), and followed directions.  Victory!

 

What makes you anxious that you know is silly?

 

 

Mispeling

Confession, Musings, , ,

Please excuse and understand any misspellings.  Like Jay Leno, I’m dyslexic.   He often states he’s a terrible speller.  I am, too.  Plus, I don’t recognize my mistakes.  I can proofread something ten times and either don’t see errors or, when I correct them, I make them worse.   I’ve had friends proofread which doesn’t help because, again I’m likely to add more errors.

And now the speller on the blog site doesn’t work.  Every time I run it, the messages comes back No misspellings.  I know that’s not right because I never write a paragraph without problems.

I try.  I really try to write cleanly.    I even wrote a section in the book The Overcomers about my struggles.

So now I’m going to run the spell check and reread this and hope you can decipher it and forgive me.

Howard’s Socks: the definition of creativity

Musings, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

 When I was a child, my best friend Howard Crampton Smith lived across the street in a house with a sunroom and a porch.  We spent long, warm days riding our tricycles on “Bumpity Road” and playing “Simon Says” and “Mother May I” on the steps in front of his house.   When we started Kindergarten at Border Star Elementary School, Howard and I walked together those few blocks and played together at recess. 

But the best thing I remember about Howard was the day he colored his socks. 

Our teacher had each student lie on a piece of craft paper on the floor while she drew around us.  Then we stated to color in that outline. 

It was when we arrived at the feet that Howard’s genius emerged.  Instead of being true to the plain black socks he wore, he decided to make designs on his socks, wonderful, outlandish, colorful patterns and shapes so fanciful no company would or could ever manufacture such  whimsy.  Thrilled by the concept, I followed Howards’s lead on the right sock but then realize that both socks should look alike.  Matching my fantasy sock was very difficult and quite boring.  Howard did not entertain the necessity of his socks being identical.  He blithely put himself in  fanciful socks which didn’t look the least bit the same.  They were magnificent.

When I contemplate creativity, I think of Howard and his fantastic socks.  I write books I love—but I will never reach the heights he did in Kindergarten.