Friday, April 30, 2010
Flying Pizza
Matt usually pops out to pick up lunch for everyone, but today I had a bank deposit to make, so I offered to do the honors. We took everyone's order and called it in: 2 salads, a 17" pizza, an 11" pizza, a 2-liter of Sprite and a 2-liter of Coke. I gathered up the money and headed out the door, parking behind the bank so I could get that out of the way. As I exited the bank, I saw that traffic was Friday-lunch-in-a-university-district bad, so I left the car where it was and walked the block or so to Dewey's. It was only as the Dewey's staff were bringing my order from the kitchen--in three separate trips--that I realized my logistical error. But they bagged up the soda and the salads, I slung my backpack-purse over my shoulders and I was easily able to balance the pizzas. At least, till I (finally) made it back to the car, where it became clear I was going to have to put something down to get to my keys. So I set the pizzas on my hood, eased the door open and gently set the soda and salads on the floor. So far so good. It was as I turned to retrieve the pizzas that a freak wind sprang up out of, I tell you, NOWHERE, lifted the small pizza, held it mid-air for one heart-breaking moment, and then dumped it on the curb. I'm not a bad person, but for one split second I considered simply rearranging the slices back in a circle and handing off the pizza without saying anything. I mean, gravel is a form of fiber, right? But my conscience won out, and I reported the mishap and ordered a replacement pizza. (Which Dewey's gave me for free, because I made them listen to this whole sad tale. Still another example of the power of story.)
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Stuff That Life Is Made Of
Last week I got into a conversation with the volunteer who handles inventory control of the donated samples we receive in our Charitable Pharmacy.
She and her husband sold off their home in Michigan a few years ago, giving (almost) all of their stuff to their kids. Now they lease a small apartment in Oakwood, a suburb just outside Dayton. In the winter they spend a chunk of their time overseas, doing missions work, and in the summer they live in a camper out in the woods.
Although I try not to let myself get too entwined with possessions, I have to admit that the thought of giving away everything was unsettling. I've moved around a lot in my adult life--lots of jobs, a dozen houses or apartments, and we won't even talk about relationships--and having my stuff around me has eased those transitions.
All I have to do at a new place is set out the rocking chair my dad gave me when my daughter was born and hang my mom's plates on the wall, and, voila, I'm home.
But Old Dog and I will celebrate our 13th anniversary in June and we've been in this house for eight years now. We're not planning to change either of those facts, and it occurs to me it may be time to let some things go.
So, on Thursday, I plan to donate some business suits to Clothes That Work, a local organization that outfits women transitioning into the workforce.
Even more daring, on Saturday night when my grand-daughters were over, I culled some things I no longer wear from my closets and let them play dress-ups.
And it didn't hurt a bit.
Maybe next week I'll go after the books....
She and her husband sold off their home in Michigan a few years ago, giving (almost) all of their stuff to their kids. Now they lease a small apartment in Oakwood, a suburb just outside Dayton. In the winter they spend a chunk of their time overseas, doing missions work, and in the summer they live in a camper out in the woods.
Although I try not to let myself get too entwined with possessions, I have to admit that the thought of giving away everything was unsettling. I've moved around a lot in my adult life--lots of jobs, a dozen houses or apartments, and we won't even talk about relationships--and having my stuff around me has eased those transitions.
All I have to do at a new place is set out the rocking chair my dad gave me when my daughter was born and hang my mom's plates on the wall, and, voila, I'm home.
But Old Dog and I will celebrate our 13th anniversary in June and we've been in this house for eight years now. We're not planning to change either of those facts, and it occurs to me it may be time to let some things go.
So, on Thursday, I plan to donate some business suits to Clothes That Work, a local organization that outfits women transitioning into the workforce.
Even more daring, on Saturday night when my grand-daughters were over, I culled some things I no longer wear from my closets and let them play dress-ups.
And it didn't hurt a bit.
Maybe next week I'll go after the books....
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Old Joke #40
At the Saturday night tent revival the preacher announces,
"Anyone with 'needs' to be prayed over, come forward, to the front at the altar."
Leroy gets in line, and when it's his turn, the preacher asks:
"Leroy, what do you want me to pray about for you?"
Leroy replies: "Preacher, I need you to pray for help with my hearing."
The preacher puts one finger in Leroy's ear, and he places the other hand on top of Leroy's head and prays and prays and prays, he prays a blue streak for Leroy.
After a few minutes, the Preacher removes his hands, stands back and asks,
"Leroy, how is your hearing now?"
Leroy says, "I don't know, Reverend, it ain't 'til next Wednesday."
Monday, April 19, 2010
On the Ephemeral Nature of Spring Beauty
I love hiking, and I especially love hiking in the early spring, when the ephemerals, those transient woodland blooms that last such a brief time, are flowering.
But every year it seems like there's some reason why I miss hiking during this season.
Some years it's the weather, others it's the press of other duties taking up all my time.
This year it was my ankle, which I sprained while in New York. Thanks to my hiking buddy Pauline, though, I did manage to get out once.
Robert Herriott (1591-1674) wrote:
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
He may have lived 400 years ago, but Herriott's words still ring true today.
Because wildflowers' are not the only lives that are fleeting.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Old Joke #39
A gynecologist had become fed up with malpractice insurance and HMO paperwork, and was burned out.
Hoping to try another career where skillful hands would be beneficial, he decided to become a mechanic.
He went to the local technical college, signed up for evening classes, attended diligently, and learned all he could.
When the time of the practical exam approached, the gynecologist prepared carefully for weeks, and completed the exam with tremendous skill.
When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained a score of 150%.
Fearing an error, he called the Instructor, saying, "I don't want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wonder if there is an error in the grade?"
The instructor said, "During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly, which was worth 50% of the total mark. You put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50% of the mark."
After a pause, the instructor added, "I gave you an extra 50% because you did it all through the muffler, which I've never seen done in my entire career".
Hoping to try another career where skillful hands would be beneficial, he decided to become a mechanic.
He went to the local technical college, signed up for evening classes, attended diligently, and learned all he could.
When the time of the practical exam approached, the gynecologist prepared carefully for weeks, and completed the exam with tremendous skill.
When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained a score of 150%.
Fearing an error, he called the Instructor, saying, "I don't want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wonder if there is an error in the grade?"
The instructor said, "During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly, which was worth 50% of the total mark. You put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50% of the mark."
After a pause, the instructor added, "I gave you an extra 50% because you did it all through the muffler, which I've never seen done in my entire career".
Monday, April 12, 2010
What Not to Wear
When I was a teenager, I once came downstairs dressed in a body-hugging t-shirt, bellbottom jeans that revealed pelvic bones in the front and butt cleavage in the back, a woven Mexican vest to hide that décolletage (at least until I was out of the house) and a pair of fringed leather moccasins that were invisible when I stood still, due to the diameter of the aforementioned bellbottoms.
Those clothes, along with my past-my-waist hair, duplicated the appearance of the kids I'd seen on the evening news, the ones who hung out at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in San Francisco.
My dad took one look at me and hit the ceiling.
There was a short but emotional discussion, resulting in my returning to my bedroom to remove the vest and replace the t-shirt with something looser that hung well past my hips.
As I headed out the front door, I muttered that wearing hippie clothes didn't mean I used drugs.
Dad said, "What you wear tells people who you are."
~~~
This may be why, years later, when my 16-year-old stepson started sporting a black raincoat he'd purchased at a local thrift store, I flipped out.
We fought like badgers over that coat.
He thought it made him look cool.
I thought it made him look like the guys you see coming out of XXX movie houses in the middle of the afternoon with furtive expressions and sticky-soled shoes.
He thought he should be allowed to decide for himself how to dress.
I thought people would peg him for a druggie.
In the end, he wore the coat, even through the heat of summer, until he finally moved out, to live with Jason W (who had a similar coat), just weeks before he would have graduated from high school.
~~~
That summer, my pastor, preached a sermon on dealing with teenagers.
"Concentrate on serious issues," he said. "Drugs, sex, staying in school.
"Don't waste your energy on the petty stuff, like what they wear and how they keep their rooms."
~~~
From time to time, I still wonder who was right--Dad or my pastor?
And I still don't know.
Which makes me thank God on my knees that I will never again have to raise a teenager.
Those clothes, along with my past-my-waist hair, duplicated the appearance of the kids I'd seen on the evening news, the ones who hung out at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in San Francisco.
My dad took one look at me and hit the ceiling.
There was a short but emotional discussion, resulting in my returning to my bedroom to remove the vest and replace the t-shirt with something looser that hung well past my hips.
As I headed out the front door, I muttered that wearing hippie clothes didn't mean I used drugs.
Dad said, "What you wear tells people who you are."
~~~
This may be why, years later, when my 16-year-old stepson started sporting a black raincoat he'd purchased at a local thrift store, I flipped out.
We fought like badgers over that coat.
He thought it made him look cool.
I thought it made him look like the guys you see coming out of XXX movie houses in the middle of the afternoon with furtive expressions and sticky-soled shoes.
He thought he should be allowed to decide for himself how to dress.
I thought people would peg him for a druggie.
In the end, he wore the coat, even through the heat of summer, until he finally moved out, to live with Jason W (who had a similar coat), just weeks before he would have graduated from high school.
~~~
That summer, my pastor, preached a sermon on dealing with teenagers.
"Concentrate on serious issues," he said. "Drugs, sex, staying in school.
"Don't waste your energy on the petty stuff, like what they wear and how they keep their rooms."
~~~
From time to time, I still wonder who was right--Dad or my pastor?
And I still don't know.
Which makes me thank God on my knees that I will never again have to raise a teenager.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Old Joke #38
Thank Chef E for this one!
A Texan is drinking in a Colorado bar when he gets a call on his cell phone.
When he hangs up, he orders drinks for everybody in the bar because his wife has just given birth to a baby boy weighing 25 pounds.
Nobody can believe that any new baby can weigh in at 25 pounds, but the Texan just shrugs, "That's about average in Texas, folks. My boy's a typical Texas baby boy."
Two weeks later the Texan returns to the bar.
The bartender says, "Say, you're the father of that baby that weighed 25 pounds at birth, aren't you? Everybody's been making' bets about how big he'd be in two weeks. How much does he weigh now?"
The Texan beams. "Seventeen pounds."
The bartender is puzzled, and concerned. "What happened? He was 25 pounds the day he was born."
The Texas father takes a slow swig from his beer, wipes his lips on his shirt sleeve and shrugs.
"Had him circumcised".
Monday, April 5, 2010
Healthcare LTD: An Alternative Proposal
Thursday night I attended a rally in Columbus to celebrate the passage of the healthcare overhaul bill. Spirits were running high, but beneath all the exaltation there was an undercurrent of worry that the Orangemen* will succeed at either repealing or overturning the bill.
I spoke with Senator Sherrod Brown, who openly admitted that the bill is flawed. "We had to make a lot of compromises to get it passed."
Back at home, I read all the letters to the editor in the newspaper vilifying Congress for enacting this legislation.
Then I saw where the national debt is projected to hit 101% of GDP by this fall.
Maybe we should start over.
If we do, I think we should create legislation that's more in keeping with what we can afford, more in line with the wishes of the American people, and more supportive of Amercian business.
Here is my proposal:
1) No one gets their healthcare insurance through their job anymore. The government can't afford to pay for healthcare and employers would certainly be more profitable without that burden.
2) Everyone buys health insurance directly from an insurance company, just like we do car insurance. That way, the free market truly will operate to force competition and efficiencies.
3) No one has to buy insurance. If they choose to spend their money on a new car or a nicer house, that's their choice. One of the most cherished American freedoms is choice, and the government should stop scheming to erode that freedom.
4) Just as with car insurance, when people become a bad risk, their company will raise their rates or drop them altogether.
So now that we've got the ground-rules laid out, let's take a look at what happens when people get sick.
1) If someone shows up at a hospital, either because they're sick or due to an accident, and can't prove that they will be able to pay their bill, we Let Them Die.
2) If someone is born with or acquires a condition that puts healthcare beyond their means, we Let Them Die.
3) When people get old and taking care of them becomes prohibitively expensive, we Let Them Die. (This one actually provides a secondary advantage of trimming the Social Security budget.)
4) Children whose parents can't afford to provide insurance are out of luck. Because, let's face it, kids who grow up like that are probably going to wind up being a life-long burden on the system. Let Them Die.
Healthcare LTD: With the current contents of our wallets, and our hearts, it's what we can afford.
*Followers of John Boehner.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Old Joke #37
A man gets sent to prison, and he's put into a cell with a bunch of lifers
who've all been there for quite some time. As they're sitting around in the
evening, one of the guys says "Eight," and the others all burst out laughing.
Then another guy says "Fourteen," and again they're all laughing.
The newcomer is really confused, and he asks what's so funny about these
numbers.
"It's a shorthand we've come up with," one of the others explains. "We like to
tell jokes to pass the time, but we've been doing this for so long, we've just
given each joke a number so we don't have to tell the whole thing."
The newcomer thinks he understands.
"Sixty-two," he says.
And indeed, the others all start to laugh - much harder than they've laughed all
evening.
"Is that a really good one?" he asks.
"Well," says one of the others, through snorts of laughter, "I've never heard
that one before!"
(If you liked this, thank Rachel. If you didn't, the address is still the same....)
who've all been there for quite some time. As they're sitting around in the
evening, one of the guys says "Eight," and the others all burst out laughing.
Then another guy says "Fourteen," and again they're all laughing.
The newcomer is really confused, and he asks what's so funny about these
numbers.
"It's a shorthand we've come up with," one of the others explains. "We like to
tell jokes to pass the time, but we've been doing this for so long, we've just
given each joke a number so we don't have to tell the whole thing."
The newcomer thinks he understands.
"Sixty-two," he says.
And indeed, the others all start to laugh - much harder than they've laughed all
evening.
"Is that a really good one?" he asks.
"Well," says one of the others, through snorts of laughter, "I've never heard
that one before!"
(If you liked this, thank Rachel. If you didn't, the address is still the same....)
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