Category: Personal

Sunday Stealing: Pink

Doing some Sunday Stealing today.

1. Do you tend to have a guilty conscious?

Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t give Inigo enough of a chance to heal from his leg injury before I took him to say goodbye. But he was in pain, his quality of life took a deep turn for the worse because he couldn’t walk or climb, and I sensed he wouldn’t come back from it. As one friend said, freeing him from pain was a final act of love that I could offer him.

2. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?

No, and that’s actually a Christmas story, as I had them taken out over a winter recess while I was in college. That was also the year my father cut a gash in his hand sawing the trunk of the Christmas tree. We made quite a pair sitting on the couch. My mother said she was running an infirmary.

3. Peanut Butter – creamy or crunchy?

I like both but usually get creamy.

4. Get up off your butt. Take 5 steps. Which leg did you start out on?

Right.

5. What color is your favorite kitchen utensil?

Wood.

6. Did you watch the Michael Jackson memorial/funeral?

No.

7. Do you know anyone who graduated from high school this year? Were you invited to their graduation party? Did you go?

Nope.

8. White with black stripes or black with white stripes?

Zebras are black with white stripes.

9. If we were to call your 6th grade teacher, what would they say about you?

“She’s very bright and a joy to have in the classroom. She enjoys science and English.”

10. Can you draw a perfect circle?

Nope, but I can listen to them. LOVE this song. A friend once cracked a joke that this song might be the first time Maynard James Keenan wrote something in a major key. The sound is ridiculously happy considering the subject matter, which is the stupid ways humans spend their time and money when we could all die tomorrow. I love the hat-tip to Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (TW: There is one scene of suicide, and the whole thing is about nuclear annihilation. If you’re easily triggered, watch the second one, which is just dolphins swimming.) Bravissimo hip hip hooray!

11. What was your favorite scratch & sniff sticker scent?

As a child, root beer. As an adult, gardenia. I found these Filter Fresh sheets that you can attach to your air filters and the “Scratch for Scent” sticker on the gardenia one smells just like the perfume my mother wore in the ’70s.

12. How many light switches and electrical outlets are in the room that you are in right now?

One light switch, three electrical outlets, and one defunct cable/landline phone outlet.

13. Do you know sign language?

Just how to spell my name and how to tell someone to eat shit and die. No joke. Back in college two of the girls at the end of the hall were legally deaf and they taught me that.

14. Do you step on cracks in the sidewalk?

Not intentionally.

15. And the sheets on your bed look like….?

White with white stripes.

My Favorite Christmas Commercials

Today was a hard day after a hard week, and once again, I’m wiped out. Therefore I will reach into my bag of emergency entries, er, classic holiday cheer, and attest that these are my favorite Christmas commercials of all time.

This one came out the year I was born. I love it because of its simple animation and of course, the birds. The story gets me every time. Birds bring us their music. How lovely to offer them some of ours in return, instead of taking their homes. Birds LOVE music, too, so this story isn’t too far off the mark. If I go out on the balcony and my little friends are not around, I need only to whistle a tune and the Sparrows emerge from the holly bushes, fly up into the tree, and look down at me with their heads cocked in curiosity as they wait for their snacks.

Then there is this classic, the Hershey’s Kisses commercial. I feel like it’s not the holiday season until I see it. The original came out in the late 1980s. I loved it then, and I love it now.

And finally, this commercial for Coke from 1970. It was right on time, coming out of the 1960s with their call for peace, love, happiness, and civil rights. But given how far this country still has to go, in some ways, it seems ahead of its time. It’s also the only song I can play on the piano.

The One Who Lives

Today at the cardiology practice, the nurse and I discussed the thing that burns itself into every heart attack survivor’s mind: What are the chances of it happening again?

“Very low.”

Oh, “And you WILL get back to those big walks with your friends. Just be patient. You’ll do everything you did before.”

See, there is an ugly statistic that has had me on edge since it happened: 47% of women who have a heart attack die within 5 years (page e493 of the PDF)—nearly one in two. However, I suspected, and she confirmed, that the 47% are largely those who smoke and don’t quit, who don’t exercise, who need to lose weight but don’t (argh, stuck at 10 pounds, come on, just 12 more…), who don’t take their medications, who don’t eat right, etc., and also those who are considerably older than I am or have comorbidities like uncontrolled diabetes.

So I am relieved. I’ll always be mindful and careful, and it will always be something to consider in many things I do (i.e., choosing which foods, if any, I can have while out with friends), but I am ready to look at my heart attack as one step removed from a freak occurrence.

Here’s the tree in the lobby of the cardiology practice: