Back in the Saddle and the God Question. Again

I’m chugging along, doing the bare minimum to stay alive and I’m not liking this new me that can’t sleep at night but who falls asleep during the day, whenever the drone of voices are around me. But I may have turned a corner. Tuesday I had to go to the doctor’s office, then since it was near-by I went to the grocery store. When I got back home again I sat in my La-Z-Boy at five and slept until 10:30 when I got up and went to bed and slept until almost nine. No sleeping pill, no Tylenol 500s, no Lidocaine patch and best of all no rib or shoulder pain to wake me back up. I don’t think I even heard five minutes of my sleep meditation app that was playing on my Kindle.

The next day I managed to stay awake long enough at lunch to eat my beef and barley soup and chocolate pudding. I was so encouraged by that and my marathon sleep episode that I accepted a dinner invitation for that night, even though I had some precooked barbecued spare ribs in the refrigerator. You’d think ribs would be the last thing I’d wanted to eat considering what all I’ve been through after breaking a couple of mine. When I do get around to eating them, I’ll give an extra thanks to the Spirit of the Pig who gave them up. Poor pigs, cows and chickens. I wish I could be a vegetarian but I just can’t bring myself to give up my childhood training--that dinner plates should be divided up into three sections for meat, starches and veggies. Whenever I have a choice, though, I buy the free-range and the certified organic and humanely treated farm stock and produce plus I feel sufficiently guilty while licking my fingers. 

At the creative writing group I started and the others seems to enjoy they got into a discussion about how their churches are each handling the “gay issue” and that alphabet of other rainbow communities I can never get right. Their church’s mucky mucks are rewriting their stand on the issues and breaking up and making up as they come to a decision on how much acceptance they can show or not show and still believe in the Bible. Some noted scholar is going back to review all the Biblical translations to see if they were accurate and unduly influenced by the men who did them over the centuries. Duh. That was one discussion I would have liked to have slept through but it was too small of a group to get away with doing so. 

But in general I’m always been fascinated with how deeply involved in church doctrine some people get. It’s almost as if they don’t have a moral compass of their own to guide them without the scriptures to tell them not to screw their neighbor's wife or to steal a wheelbarrow from a guy down the street who accidentally left his outside overnight. To me, all you need to know is the Ten Commandments. Yet even those have been deluded and nuanced by the church: It was okay to murder others during the Crusades and wars since then if you are on the ‘right’ side and the sin of adultery can be forgiven if you ask nicely and mean it. Even the sin of sexual misconduct with children within the ranks of the Catholic Church leaders wasn’t/isn’t enough to persuade many true believers that the Men of the Cloth are first of all, just men capable of all the same sins and evils as any other. 

Near the end of our creative writing session, someone stated that we’ve all been called to serve God and I blurred out, “Not me.” Just then someone wandered into our room, changing the energy and discussion so thankfully I didn’t have to explain myself. I’m not sure but I might have told them about an uncle I had who I like to say could have been the prototype for the door-to-door Bible salesman in the movie Paper Moon. He swindled hundreds of dollars from most of his brother-in-laws including my dad and he got away with it because he was “a Man of God” and God would see that they got repaid someday which, of course, never came. 

My uncle lived in a travel trailer and would spend a week living in our driveway a couple of times a year while he restocked his supply of Bibles and other stuff he sold to churches on his southern route or his northern route. Never paid a penny towards the electricity and water he used or the food he and his wife ate. She did, however, help my mom deep clean the house during those weeks. My mom and her sister were close and maybe this was part of a barter they worked out, I can’t say.  But my dad just tolerated my uncle and his nightly, long winded prayers at the dinner table while my brother and did our share of snickering during those prayers only to feel my mom’s kicks under the table. 

Oh, yes, I’ve known plenty of people who’ve “been called to God” many of them served themselves but at least one aunt on my Dad's side actually did serve her God her entire adult life, scrubbing floors on her hands and knees for the Catholic Church.  ©

Garden Gnomes and Grandparents

I am so Freaking cold I want to stand under the heat register (in the ceiling) and stay there until spring. And can you believe it, I lost heat for a half day, on the weekend and inside my apartment the temperature dropped to 65. I put in a maintenance request on our complex’s app thinking I’d have to live the weekend in bed under a pile of blankets, then two hours later it dawned on me to call the security guard to see if he had an emergency number to call. He did. I had heat again within twenty minutes. Then I felt guilty for my First World Privilege of having quick access to the basics of life when others go without them…like those living in the Ukraine or in the earthquake zones in Turkey or Syria. Never take our privilege for granted, that’s my motto. 

Slowly I’m getting back into my routine though it’s a little difficult when I had to add six appointments into my week for OT, PT and the nurse since getting back home from The Fall. Occupational Therapy ended today---yeah for that!---and I want the others to end soon if I have any control over it but starting next week the PT and nurse will only come once a week until March so I can't complain. My rib pain is under control with just five Tylenol 500 instead of the eight I’m allowed to take but my shoulders still hurt so much I’m wondering if they should get x-rayed. The Lidocaine patch met for my ribs I’m using on my shoulder. I have an appointment with my primary doctor in a couple of hours but I’m not sure I’m going to tell him about my shoulders because he’d send me over to the hospital to wait around to get an x-ray. Then wait some more for someone to read it, then someone else to treat it. Yada, yada, yada when if I call my bone doctor, he’d x-ray them in his office and treat it within the same visit or at least explain the source of the pain and suggest a course of treatment…the privilege of being in his Frequent Flyer Club. He has no life, he fits us frequent flyers in come hell or high waters.

I went to my book club today although I didn’t read the book. The House by the Cerulean Sea, a fantasy book I was happy I had a good excuse not to read. I was invited over to The Art Professor’s apartment (along with several others) a few days before the club met to hear an hour of it read on tape. I fell asleep. Then during the book discussion in which almost everyone seemed to love the book’s characters---the garden gnome that talked and kids with magical powers---I fell asleep again. I’m not sleeping well at night but to twice not be able to stay awake in the company of others was embarrassing! I only spoke up once during the meeting to ask who the target audience the book was written for because it was compared to Harry Potter and someone quoted in the front of the book that is was “a fantasy for children and adults alike.” Supposedly, the underlying theme was acceptance of others who are not like you. Some of the children were ambiguous in their sexuality and you know what that means----The state of Florida probably has that book on the banded book list. 

Growing up we had a neighbor who had a yard full of garden gnomes and they crept me out. Too many eyes following my where-abouts when I entered the neighbor's kingdom. But I did often and especially at the end of every day because the old man who lived there had pink peppermint candy for all the kids in the neighborhood and spoonfuls of Rival dog food for all the pets who came with us. But first we had to help him take down his American Flag and carefully fold it to its regulation triangle. If we were up early enough we could also help him raise the flag. He had a boat rental business and if it had rained the night before we’d get a quarter a piece to help him bail his boats. My brother’s first real job was digging up earthworms to sell to our garden gnome loving neighbor. His wife and he weren’t much taller than the preteens on the lake and they had a Mexican chihuahua and they drove a Volkswagen Beetle. Every so often they’d pile five or six of us kids in their tiny car and off we’d go to the country store/gas station where they’d buy us all ice cream cones. The chihuahua freely was allowed to lick his “mom’s” cone. 

She died before him and his funeral was the only one I’ve ever attended where 7-8 people walked out in a silent protest as the preacher went on and on about how the deceased was going to burn up in hell because he didn’t accept Jesus as his Savior. This man who always had a hand ready to help his neighbors, whose wife keep us cottage kids in fresh backed cookies and lemonade hadn’t been allowed to know their own grandchildren because they wouldn’t get baptized in their daughter’s church. That funeral upset the neighbors at the cottage so much they petitioned the county and won the right to name the road after them. It was a fitting tribute to a couple who was nothing but pure kindness and love. They were the only grandparent figures I had in my life. But I'm glad it was their passion for collecting seashells I took into adulthood and not their love of garden gnomes. They still creep me out. ©

The Homecoming!

The first time I walked into the cafe for lunch after my time away I got a standing ovation. I don’t know if I was truly missed or if they were just anxious to hear some tales from the future care level here at the continuum care complex. I’m the first of our ‘inaugural class’ so to speak whose had a health issue and was able to come back after Respite Care. One lady had gone there but ended up having to move permanently in the assisted living level, a few have died and three or four were able to just have the nursing services---a nurse plus an OP and PT come to their apartments as I will have through out February. There is still a danger of getting pneumonia if I don’t keep moving. Even if I wanted to laying around that isn’t an option because it still hurts too much, like I’m wearing a bra that is four sizes too small. They tell me that you can’t inflate your lungs all the way when you lay down with broken ribs.

I know one thing. The next time someone here gets ill or is recovering from something I’m going to be more responsive---beyond just dropping a card in a basket that always appears in our mail room when someone gets sick. I’ve offered to walk my neighbor’s dog when she was sick but that little stinker won’t walk with just anyone. He sits on his butt and won’t leave her apartment with anyone who’s tried. Her daughter had to come over ever day and walk him. I guess that makes him steal proof unless the would-be dog napper was into body building. Robbie is not a dainty little Scottish terrier weighting in at 35 pounds. When he’s out walking and he doesn’t want to go back home he does the sit-and-stay thing too, so his mom has to wait until he’s good and ready to go.

Things people have done since getting home (and before) include delivering boxes from the mail-room to my door, checking in with text messages, emails and phone calls, bringing me desserts from the main dining room, offering to deliver me take-out dinners and help with anything I might need around the apartment like making my bed. I refused all help but I did tell them next week I want someone to go down to cage storage with me just so I’m not down there all alone. It’s a series of hallways with sound proofed walls because of the boiler room near the storage. I accumulated stuff since breaking my ribs that I’ll no longer need and I want that stuff out of sight. I’m realistic, though, and know the odds are good I might need those medical aids again so I’m not donating much now. But I am a little ticked off at the OT who had me order so many things that I really didn’t need more than a week including a toilet seat riser that never even made it out of the box. I probably spent over $250 I didn’t need to spend. I guess everyone has to be mad about something after a health scare. So it might as well be her. The nurse did the same thing ordering me wound care products that I had here at home. Civil war could break out and I could now supply enough to turn me into the Clara Barton of the 21th century.

Speaking of the Red Cross (by way of Clara Baron who, as you probably know, founded the organization). While I was away a total of eighteen days you would not believe how many times the Red Cross and other charities and political groups have sent pitches for donations. Normally I’d use one of those ink rollers to block out my name and address on junk mail like that before tossing them in the recycling bin but the pile was overwhelming so I just torn all the envelopes in half and filled up two entire, plastic grocery store bags. Why I felt compelled to tear them in half I don’t know, it’s not as if someone is going to grab one of those pleas for money and send in a donation in my name. Political surveys, yes, I can understand the need to destroy those. Wouldn’t want a Ultra Trump fan weighing in on the coming agenda for the Democrats via way of those surveys which are just a pretend reason to ask for another donation.

Speaking of politics, one of the first things the kitchen manager asked me when I got back is if I wanted to sign up for the Valentine’s Day dinner, she was holding a place for me. She’s seating the Tuesday group formally known as the Liberal Ladies together at one big table because she needs the smaller individual tables for couples and families. I couldn’t be happier about that. The kitchen manager also visited me while I was in Respite Care and brought a Blue Bell ice cream bar. And did I mention that the very first person to call me after getting into Respite was the woman who caused us to drop the Liberal Ladies Secret Society name and split up into smaller, less obvious tables? I might not be entirely ready to kiss and make up but she acts like she didn’t have a hissy-fit that shook us up and caused us to essentially hide in plain sight. People are a fascinating collection of contradictions and foibles, aren’t we. ©