#77 Medicals

I've been getting ominous letters from The Company (the more I use that term, the more it sounds like the CIA, or the Mafia).  November is the time to choose the medical plan for the next year.  The first letter complained that the costs were going up again, and that they were dropping some HMOs from the available list. (Last year, my "contribution" to the cost of the plan tripled.)  The second letter said that they weren't able to find any cost-effective HMOs in my area, so I would have to consider another format. 

I think they think they are softening the blow before they send out the November packets.  Yeah.  Like I will be pleased to find that it's not as bad as I feared, huh?  And they wonder why there's a movement to unionize.  

So I guess I should hurry up and take care of any medical business within the next two months.   I've got some moles I'd like checked, I'm overdue for all the standard stuff, and I need to follow up on the opthamologist visit from last winter.   Sigh.

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I'm very smart when I actually think about something, but when something just drifts past in the stream of my mind, I can be really stupid.  I mean really "duh...."   I guess that's my main stupidity - an inability to pick the right pieces of flotsam to think about before they hang up on a snag somewhere and change the course of the stream for the worse.  

Several years ago, the medical community was saying that the worst thing you can do when you have back pain is to lie in bed.  They said you should stay up and moving as much as possible, and that would shorten the duration of the pain.  Drift.... Snag....  

So when my back would go out, I'd feel guilty about lying on the heating pad for days at a time.  But I had to, because my legs simply flat-out didn't work - the nerve signals weren't getting through - or the slightest movement caused excruciating screaming spears and firestorms of pain.   Then, as soon as possible, I'd try to get up and hobble around.  

I was in the drugstore yesterday, shopping for a better back support. (My old one is too small since I've gained weight, so I've been using the adjustable one the hospital had given Jay after his back surgery, and it has so many straps it's a pain to put on.)  Right next to the supports was all the medications and "Heet"-type creams for back pain.  I was browsing through them when I suddenly realized that they were all for strained muscles!   

Strained back muscles!!!  That's what they were talking about when they said the best thing was to keep moving!  It hadn't even occurred to me that simple strained muscles could cause pain!  Sheesh!  That's minor!  That kind of thing wouldn't even slow me down.  

What I've got is vertebrae that shift or twist out of place, disks that bulge, calcium deposits that grow too large, or break and move.  I've got pressure on nerves caused by HARD stuff!  That was the click I heard and felt when I bent down to feed the cat 15 days ago - something shifted.       

If I take this to a doctor, they will do a lot of very painful tests, then they'll recommend surgery.  Back in the '70s they wanted to fuse the bones in my neck, between the shoulder blades, and just above the tailbone.  I would not have been able to bend or rotate my spine at all. 

I have found that the best preventative is to keep the muscles in my back strong - strong enough to hold everything together, and strong enough to pull it all back in place when something does get out of position.    

 I think things are pretty much back to normal now - I can stand, walk, and sit, although doing any one of them for too long will cause problems.  Most of the stabs I feel now are due to residual inflammation, I think.  Yesterday I was feeling pretty good, and then after I went to bed, I was lying on my side with my knees drawn up, and I raised on one elbow and reached down past my knees to pet the cat goodnight, and screamed.  So whatever is going on, it's not finished yet.   

But I will never again feel guilt about lying on a heating pad for as long as I durn well want!

#76 Nails

I never have to decide to cut my nails.  They just grow, and eventually one breaks, and then I trim them all to match.  For some reason, for the past three months or so, none broke, so they just kept growing, and growing. They stay fairly straight, they don't hook, so they're not inconvenient.

And then they got weirdly long.  I had a difficult decision.  To trim, or not to trim?  I was curious as to just how long they'd get.  Cold weather is coming, and when they get cold, they snap easily, so they wouldn't get too much longer.

The decision was made for me this morning.  I was popping some bubble wrap, and the left middle finger was inside the wrap, and I snapped the nail along with a bubble.   It had been just a hair shorter than the ring finger nail. 

I thought I'd memorialize the remainder before I cut them down.

#75 Eclipse Confessions

I was talking with Jay's eldest sister on the phone earlier this evening, and she pointed out that Jay was giving me a red moon, a lunar eclipse, for my birthday.  A few minutes ago, I found this note from her in my email:

"... I saw that the next lunar eclipse will occur on Mar 3, 2007.  From your birthday to Jay's.  How do you think he arranged that?"

I whooped with laughter (scared the cat).  That's Jay, all right!  It's soooooo cool.  Elegant, even.  I guess he just needed to make doubly sure we got the connection (although he is off by two days.  On the other hand, I always had to fill out the medical forms for him, because he could never remember his birthdate.  He always thought it was the third.) 

Actually, I was a bit disturbed when she said "a red moon".  My ancestors come from mining villages in the valleys of Wales, and blood on the moon was ominous - a sign of impending death, with very good reason.  From working in the mines, a lot of people had lung problems.  Homes were heated with wood or coal fires, and if there was a fog or atmospheric inversion, the air got very bad in the valleys, causing the moon to appear red.  People died because they couldn't breathe when there was blood on the moon.  So I was happy to see that the eclipsed moon tonight was not red, but a dusky tangerine, with a bright yellow edge on top. 

[Later insert. Flash - late news is on TV - they are saying it was red.  Maybe it was red everywhere else, but in MY front yard, it was dusky tangerine at full eclipse.] 

During the eclipse, Orion, my constellation, was just rising above the trees below the moon, and the Pleiades, Jay's constellation, was between the two.  The Pleiades are in mythology the daughters of Atlas, whom Zeus hid among the stars to save them from the pursuit of Orion.  Later, when Orion was courting Diana, the sister of Apollo, Apollo tricked Diana into killing Orion with an arrow.  In sadness, Diana placed Orion in the heavens.  Tonight, Apollo (the sun), Diana (the moon), the Pleiades (Jay's stars) and Orion (mine) were all in accord. 

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I made reservations today for that Hawaiian cruise in August of 2005.  They had cabins with private balconies, or with ocean views, or interior cabins.  I opted for a balcony cabin.  Costs a bit more, but this way I can have a cigarette when I want without smoking in the room, which I prefer not to do.  Also, the prices were based on double occupancy, but single occupancy wasn't double the price - so if they don't find me a roommate, it's not too terrible.  I'm almost hoping now that they don't.

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I keep hearing and reading about all these, uh, controversial? political ads - but we never get to see any of them here, except little bits as part of newscasts, when they are especially nasty.   It seems that the political campaigns don't bother to pay to show them in states that are considered foregone conclusions.  I haven't seen a single complete presidential campaign ad.  Not one.   How dare they consider ME a lost cause?  I'm insulted.

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At the tail end of a Mensa party a month or so ago, there were four of us left sitting in the dark on NJKC's porch - we three Musketeers, and a man (a lost hippie) that we have all known for 20 or more years.  Someone mentioned a young woman who was a new transfer, who was a bit hard to take.  I said that I was annoyed with her because she had a sweet husband whom she treated like dirt.  Well, that opened a can of worms.  I had not attended the regional gathering, so they told me about how she spent the RG weekend chasing after everything in pants. (Gossip!  And I confess I listened!) 

I don't remember exactly how the conversation went after that, but I was saying something about how it is possible to be at least discreet, and I gave an example.  Now, you need to know that I have a spotless reputation in this group.  Or had.  I may have blown it that evening. 

I told them about the time I was sitting at the lunch table in the main Company cafeteria one day, and I suddenly realized with horror that of the six men chatting happily at the table, I had slept with five of them!  One of them was my ex-husband, so of course everyone assumed I had slept with him, but none of the five knew anything about any of the others.  I sat there a little bit stunned, because not only did they not know each other well, worked in three different buildings (with their own cafeterias), and had never lunched together before, they represented the sum total of my local Company-connected sexual experience.  All at one table, all at once, entirely by chance, and all completely unaware.  It was a very strange (and I must confess, powerful) feeling. 

I didn't realize what I had said until the silence after I stopped speaking stretched out much tooooooo loooooong.  I could almost hear the gears in the other three minds clanking to reevaluate my reputation, and in one of the minds, casting for missed signals and opportunities.   Oops. 

To explain:   #1 had been in 1968, before I married the ex-husband.  #2 was the ex-husband, whom I married in 1970.  #3 was in about 1982, when #3 and I were friends, we each had no one else, so for a short while we had each other, until he decided he wanted more, and I decided I wanted less.  #4 was a single incident in 1990, when I  realized I was madly in love with Jay, so bad it was messing up my mind, but we hadn't been together yet and it didn't look like we ever would be, and after so many "dry" years I didn't know whether it was "A MAN" I wanted or Jay himself, so I had to check, and ...  #5 was Jay, whom I married in January 1994, a few months after that lunch.   Now it doesn't sound so bad, eh? 

But so much for discretion.  I think I blew it.  (Is this an "exception that proves the rule"?)

#74 A Crystal Jar

In a few days, it will be three years since Jay left. At his memorial service, the pastor said something about putting "memories in a crystal jar". I liked the thought, and decided to do exactly that. I have a crystal jar on the bookcase in the livingroom, and I have filled it with tiny slips of paper, like from a fortune cookie, each a memory of something special about Jay.

• The way he played video games with his tongue and whole body

• When something (a hammer, a pen) wasn’t where he expected to find it, he said "It escaped!", and seemed truly surprised

• He always tried to think honestly about his feelings, never hid anything from himself or me

• He never tried to talk me into skiing, never indicated in the least that he missed it

• Twinkling eyes

• He supported me against his father’s strong disapproval when I found the McDonald’s outside Versailles

• He couldn’t spell worth a damn

• He gave me the clouds and the moon

• "Carrot cake is a vegetable, right?"

• He loved Pleiades, volcanoes, and meteor showers

• In many ways, he was like my beloved mice - quiet, made nice warm nests, worked hard, personally very clean, and, like a mouse, he left the remnants of his tasks scattered behind him

• How huge he looked behind the windshields of his tiny cars - one wondered how he would ever unfold to get out

• The way he pronounced "oops"

• The mountain of his shoulders in bed, the angle of his hip

• When he stood at the bar of the Marlboro Inn in his three-piece dark suit, among the hunters and farmers - how tall he seemed, how impressively broad his shoulders

• After his diagnosis, he joked that he didn’t understand all the fuss - after all, his illness was just "all in his head"

• The way he could snatch flies right out of the air - and always released them outside

• He explained that there are things that are very clear and understandable, until you try to explain them - there are some things that just shouldn’t be looked at too carefully

• He was unaware of how big and powerful he was - he was timid about walking the streets of Binghamton after dark

• He never complained. Not once. No matter what

• His delicate tapering hands

• The way he gave off heat when he slept

• How playful he was

• The dangerous toiletries

• When he worked on something, he made a terrible mess of his environs, but the work itself was done neatly, delicately, and perfectly

• He acknowledged male hormonal urges and prohibitions - even better, he was able to describe male attitudes and thought patterns so that a female could actually understand and sympathize with them

• The way he couldn’t resist "improving" everything he bought

• How confident he was of his ability to understand/handle/fix anything

• Everybody says you have to work hard and constantly at a good marriage - it wasn’t work for him, he did what came naturally, and it was good

• The way his uni-eyebrow and beard were all one piece, and his nose hairs blended into his mustache

• The way his tongue helped him concentrate

• How sensitive he was to my moods, and always said and did exactly the right thing

• Joy in little things, like Ninja and Baby plowing a figure 8 in deep snow - "Just what I  always wanted - a doggy choo-choo!"

• That silky spot behind and below his left ear

• How soft and liquid his eyes could get

• Lying on the ground looking at stars

• Pizza! Pizza, pizza, pizza!

• He was so clean about his body that it took me ten years to discover that he had a severe problem with seborrhea on his scalp, face, and ears.

• He remembered perfectly everything he heard or read

• Music confused him - too much information all at once

• Elfin hairs on the outer curve and lobes of his ears

• His absolute joy in yummies

• LOUD!!! sneezes

• He never got petulant when I consistently beat him at word games like Super Boggle, and he played happily because he knew I enjoyed them

• His delicate artist’s touch

• The wonderful lopsided smile when he saw me coming down the hall at the rehab center

• In the last months, when he was having hallucinations and delusions, he listened to me and believed me, even though everything he "saw" and felt told him differently

• Near the end, he said that one of the things he appreciated most about me was the way I so thoroughly understood him. He didn’t realize that was only because he opened himself so completely to me.

• Incredible force of will - he hung on until I told him it was time to go.

• The cloud formation a few days after he died - his face, with a winking moon eye

• The meteor shower a few days after he died - I got up at 5 am and went out to the deck only because I knew he would want me to, and I counted >50 in the first 2 minutes, then I stopped counting. Later, the newspaper and the astronomy club reported a peak of 30 per hour! I got a private show. I truly believe he arranged it for me.

Is it any wonder I'm still in love with him?

~~Silk

#73 The patent

The Company had applied for a patent on an inventory management system that Jay was the major designer and programmer on in the late '90s.  He was not an employee of the Company at the time, having been "laid off" in 1994 (3 months after we married), but was working as a contractor.   It's funny - he got more respect as a contractor than he'd ever got as an employee.

Anyway, the patent application process started about the time he got sick.  In early 2001, when he was getting treatment at Staten Island, after he lost his sight, I would read the documents to him on the rehab center patio (the only place we could get enough privacy).  Then I'd drive the 2.5 hours home, type up his comments and send them to his ex-manager, drive back to SI the next day, and we'd go through the next 30 pages or so.  His insights were important because he was the only person who fully understood the system and what was unique about it, and I was amazed that he could still perform so well, given that he had lost so much.

Since then, his manager has been keeping me updated on the progress of the patent.  I suspect it's against the Company confidentiality rules, but this patent is a kind of memorial to Jay, and I think she understands that it's important to me. 

Her last note made me cry.  She wrote: "We still remember Jay fondly, and we still use a lot of his code.  His code is complicated, elegant, yet durable.  What a combination!" 

That is a perfect description of Jay's mind - complicated and elegant.  Unfortunately, his brain was not as durable as his code.

In the response to the "Examiner's rejections on the grounds of prior art", she wrote, "We have not seen any prior art that addresses the above problems and provides a total solution in the manner shown by [... name of application deleted].  The solutions to these problems are neither simple nor obvious to anyone with ordinary skill in the art."                  

 Ah.  Jay.  You were amazing. 

#72 More Little Bits

I've had cats who liked some strange food.  Smokey loved cantaloupe.  She'd climb your leg if there was one in the grocery bag.  My father used to tease her by putting a whole cantaloupe on the floor.  She'd wrap herself around it and roll it all over the place, trying to get her teeth into it.  She also loved spaghetti sauce. 

Siddy Kitty loved cheese, ice cream (a lot of cats don't like the cold), and PEAS!

Thunder seems a lot more particular.  I even have to coax her to taste cooked chicken.  So I was very surprised to discover that she likes sour-cream-and-onion-flavored Pringles potato chips!  I was eating some in bed the other night, and she came up and asked "What's that?"  If you break pieces off and hold them out for her, she'll chomp them right down and ask for more.  Very neatly, too - no crumbs.

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It is now 12 days since I got the henna hand, and it's faint but still there (except for the heel of my hand, where it remains pretty impressive).  But because of my back I haven't washed dishes or soaked in a bubblebath since last Friday (6 days), so this wasn't a very good test.

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It seems that we now have to keep our houses germ-free.  You are a bad housekeeper and a bad mother if there are any germs lurking anywhere in your house.  It's just an advertising campaign to sell us more stuff, but I'm afraid people are actually buying into it (like having to wash your hair every day! - what a major triumph of advertising that was!)  Companies that market stuff are not required to be socially responsible.  I'm afraid "Eeek-a-germ" will spread, and we'll raise a whole generation of kids with no immunity to anything.  Promise me, Daughter, that when you are raising my grandchildren you will allow them to eat dirt, wade in the ditch after a storm, catch frogs, kiss strange dogs, and play in the cat's litter box.

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When I did that "things I like about us" bit, I left out a few good things: 

We are honest.  When given too much change, we give the excess back. 

We respect other people's property and feelings, even that of strangers.  Graffiti artists get no praise from us.  

We do random actsof kindness as a matter of course.  We automatically assist a struggling stranger.

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I almost got into trouble last week with that "random acts of kindness" bit.  There was a young Jamaican male in the grocery store obviously overwhelmed by the myriad choices of skin creams and balms.  His English wasn't very clear, and what was on the shelves apparently didn't look at all familiar to him.  I asked if I could help, and at first he said he was looking for something for a rash (Calamine lotion?  Antiseptic?) but then after some trial and error, I figured out that his problem was razor burn.  

So once I got him fixed up with the right stuff, ........... I couldn't get rid of him!  I think he either fell instantly in love with me, or figured it was worth a try, anyway.  Maybe I could be nice in other ways, too.  I was really getting schmoozed.  Major pressure.  I took off and zoomed up and down the aisles, taking corners on two wheels of the cart.  He'd have had to run to keep up with me.  I hid out in frozen foods until I saw him leave.

Sigh.  Random acts are so much easier with a husband at your elbow.  

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I have never understood the phrase "the exception that proves the rule".  How does an exception prove a rule?  Doesn't an exception DISprove a rule?    ?????    More stuff I don't understand.  Maybe the name of this journal should be "I Don't Understand".

#71 Lots of Little Bits

A woman wrote recently that she was in a class when someone mentioned that there are now Pringles with facts printed right on the chips.  Someone else wondered what happens when you eat text.  She was proud that she came up with an answer,  "Alphabet poop!", and was rather confused when no one laughed.  They gave her strange looks.  She wondered if PHD candidates don't appreciate potty humor.

Having seen that same reaction to some of Jay's humor (and only occasionally to mine - I'm just not that fast), I think I can explain it.  If the question had been phrased as "What do you get when you eat text?", then she would have got a laugh.  But phrased as "I wonder what happens when...", that leads to philosophical musing.  And when peoples' heads are off pondering the metaphysical, jerking them back to the potty results in a thud.  It's just not appreciated.

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I usually have soaps in the background in the afternoon.  Some things I've noticed-

There has been a spate of imminent (as opposed to immanent or eminent, gratuitous vocabulary lesson) birth, at the pushing stage, where the mother-to-be is in some precarious position, like on a cliff ledge, or a snake pit, or a crashed car, with one or two people in attendance, and in every case she is wearing skintight jeans or slacks, and nobody, but nobody, ever suggests that maybe she should take her pants off!  The writers and directors must all be males, or at least not mothers.  Every woman in the audience who has ever given birth has to be squirming!  You get that pushing feeling, everything down there has to be clear!  Outta the way!  There ain't gonna be nothing to impede the action!  Don't matter what kind of audience you've got!  Those pants are gonna be off!

All the soaps seem to be centered on super-rich people who live in mansions.  What cracks me up is that they never call it a house, or refer to it as home.  It's always "I'm going back to the mansion".  Marlena, on "Days" for example, never goes to her apartment - it's always referred to as "the penthouse".  Sheesh.  Worse, I've noticed a tendency to give the houses fancy names, so instead of lines like "Are you saying someone broke into your home?" or "...someone broke into your house?", we get "...someone broke into Bel BlingBling?" - like it's a store or something.   If I'm going to keep up with the Joneses, I'll have to come up with a fancy name for my house.  I'm considering "La Mouserie". 

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I got a flyer for a Hawaiian cruise - fly from here to Hawaii, a few days in a hotel, then onto a cruise ship to visit several of the islands, total of 11 days, almost everything included, for a hair over $2,000.  August of next year.  Through Bloomsburg University alumni association.  I am very very tempted.  The only problem is that it's based on double occupancy, and of course, there's only me.  Anyone else interested?  I'll have to call sometime within the next week or so to reserve.  I assume they could put two singles together - maybe I would luck out and not get assigned a roomie.

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I get very annoyed when people use "decimate" to mean almost everybody killed (or whatever).  "Decimate" means "one in ten", or only 10%, which is a heck of a lot less than what they want to imply.  I wonder if they confuse it with "devastate".

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I've been reading a lot of other journals ("blogs").  There are some terrific amateur writers out there, people who can turn a phrase, evoke a scene, transmit the idea without all the words I need, and some have really subtle or wacky humor.  What's sad, though, is that they don't seem to have learned anything about punctuation (not that I am a good example), and they all seem to have trouble with homonyms.  Sight/site.  Peek/peak (they don't seem to have ever heard of pique, although a lot of things do peek or peak their interest).  When we (we oldsters) were kids, we read a lot of great writers, who took care with the language, and we absorbed vocabulary and punctuation along the way.  I think today's young people are reading perhaps asmuch - but they are reading what each other writes, unedited, and they are just propagating and reinforcing illiterate errors.   

Because of my dyslexia (or whatever it is being called this week) I tend to read every word, and read literally, so grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation errors in an essay make reading it very difficult and even painful for me.

It's not limited to the internet.  I am now reading Simon Lazarus, a professionally published, mainstream novel by M. A. Kirkwood (touted as "the modern Catcher in the Rye").  It's entirely in first person, so I at first tried to take all the errors as a character delineation device.  But when I came to the line "I leave the library this afternoon with shreds of my dignity in tact", I shrieked, sobbed, grabbed a pencil, and started to correct the text.  It's also full of dangling participles that leave me wondering who did what.  Where the heck was the Bookman Publishing company editor who let this monstrosity get by?  Do they really think that SpellChecker eliminates the need for an editor?  It's actually a very good story, but it's so darned painful to read! 

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The "Get-out-and-vote" TV spots keep saying that "this is the most important election in a generation".  Hmmmm.  Short memories.  Must have been written by a 25-year-old adman.  But even so, I should think that the 2000 election was more important than this one!  Otherwise, this one wouldn't be so important.

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I was thinking the other day that all the fireworks I've seen have been in relatively clear skies - high clouds, maybe, but clear where the fireworks were going off.  I wonder what fireworks in a light to medium fog would look like?

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Reese, to Malcolm, on "Malcolm in the Middle", when Malcolm is distressed because a neighbor kid has been telling lies about Malcolm:  "You can't clear your own name.  You can only ruin someone else's."   So true.