Being Sick, Part I

I must say that I have been blessed with extraordinary good health. As a kid, I remember having the flu, a few earaches, the chicken pox, and a broken cheekbone. I banged up me knee in junior high p.e. and sprained my back wearing stilettos in college. That’s me, no medical history to speak of.

Truthfully, I’ve always been afraid of being sick. My mom was a lovely woman, but she was always sick and it was scary for me as a child. Not that it was her fault by any means. Mom had a bad heart and that created all kinds of complications. But one day, she was really sick. Her gums wouldn’t quit bleeding when she brushed her teeth, so she went to the dentist. He sent her directly to the hospital and Mom’s fight with acute leukemia was underway. Back in those dark days of chemotherapy, patients checked in for weeks. Families weren’t encouraged to visit. It was awful. I was a junior in high school when this started, and it fully cemented my fear of illness.

Mom was a fighter and she fought her way back from the brink to bless our lives for a few more years. I watched her struggle with fear, pain, fatigue, and depression. Cancer is much more than just a physical ailment. She, without saying a word, taught me about grace, courage, love, determination, and faith.

So I got sick the week before Christmas – nothing as devastating as Mom’s, but still scary for someone who fears sickness. According to the doctor, I probably had H1N1 that blossomed into full-blown aggressive double-pneumonia. By the time I was sick enough to go to the doctor, I was almost in respiratory arrest and I won a ride in the ambulance to the emergency room. My winning streak continued with a 5-day stay in the hospital, complete with 24/7 IV antibiotics, chicken broth, and the nicest medical staff in the world.

I’ve been home for two weeks now, and am finally feeling recovered. The pneumonia is finally resolved. The secondary virus-with-fever thing is gone, the new medicine has worked, and my sweetest friends have been serving our family the most delicious dinners. Hopefully soon I will be released to resume my full normal schedule.

The last few weeks in the recliner have given me plenty of time to think about lots of things. I thought about my husband and our life together, my daughters and their lives, my choices, my mistakes, my dreams, and my mom. So, the next few blog entries may be more cathartic than anything else – please accept my apologies. I’ll also share with you my adventures with day-time television, some of my favorite late-night movies, and maybe even a few book ideas. After all, I’m gonna need a book deal and one giant garage sale to pay off those medical bills…

Moccasins

Having descended from a long and noble line of literary nerds, it shouldn’t be surprising that I’m fascinated with books. I love the stories they impart, the images they inspire and the feelings they invoke. I love ruffled pages, stiff covers, and don't even get me started on that new book smell. When it comes to books, what I love the most are the characters. And I do believe this love affair all began innocently enough…

When I was really young, before I loved books, I loved moccasins. They were my shoe of choice, regardless of occasion or weather, and my parents were indulgent. Black or brown, smooth or suede, embellished or plain -- I never met a moccasin I didn't like. I was certainly the only third grader in my school with high-top footwear that was both beaded and fringed. Speaking of third grade, one day my teacher gave us a wonderful assignment. “Write a story,” she said, “and make your main character like you in some way.” My imagination went wild and my first heroine ever arrived on the page. Princess Sego Lily was her name, nursing was her game -- and of course she wore moccasins.

In the years since then, my imagination has continued going wild and both my character roster and my shoe collection have expanded. Moccasins now share closet space with lots of different shoes and, likewise, my Indian princess nurse heroine has been joined by a host of other characters. After all, there’s nothing like variety when it comes to footwear or fictional friends and family.

New shoes come from shopping and new characters come from everywhere else. They are often inspired by people I encounter every day. Just recently I saw an elderly lady in a snazzy leopard-print ensemble jauntily walking through town. She was toting a big red purse on her shoulder and in her hands she carried an even bigger piece of cake on a paper plate. If that doesn’t have character stamped all over it, I just don’t know what does.

Now if only she had been wearing moccasins…

Name Game

This week I had the chance to attend a reading by one of my favorite authors. Of course it was great and so was the Q & A afterwards. But I had a question and didn’t ask it – I was overcome by celebrity cowardice. My question is, I think, something any writer of fiction has grappled with and must, at some point, find an answer. So here’s the burning question – how are characters’ names chosen?

Names are fascinating and so is the process of choosing a name. Volumes of baby names have been published and every year the media shares the Top Ten most popular boy and girl names. Where I work, I run across new names on a daily basis. Some are great, some are not so great, and some…well…I just hope those poor kids will change them when they grow up. I’ve met babies named after seasons, colors, movie stars, foods, constellations, plants, cars, historical figures, and geographical locations. I’ve met babies whose names are in the II, III, and even IV recycling. After more than 20 years of meeting babies, I have come to learn that names don’t reflect their ‘owners’ so much as they reflect the parents. What were some of those parents thinking at that oh-so-crucial naming moment? It’s practically cruel and unusual punishment to tag a sweet innocent baby with an awful moniker in the hopes of being unique or distinctive.

That’s what I worry about when I name my characters. I want them to be memorable, but not because of a ridiculous name. I’ve had a female villain in mind for a while now and I just can’t find the right name for her. I must have been subconsciously stewing about it the other night because I dreamed about her and she was named Saffron. No kidding. So where exactly did that name come from? Too much Food Network before bed? Too many yellow paint swatches taped to the kitchen wall? It’s truly a name dilemma – but I just can’t have my evil villain sounding like a Spice Aisle Girl.

And so the burning question continues to burn.

Dinner

“What’s for dinner?” If only I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that. Between the picky-eater kids and the suspicious-eater husband, I’d be rich! Now don’t get me wrong, I like cooking dinner. It’s just the decision-making before I get behind the stove that drives me crazy.

My mom took dinnertime seriously. Experts have long said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, those experts didn’t consult my mom who believed dinner was the overlord of all meals. Mom planned menus, kept track of recipes, and rotated leftovers. Almost every night our family gathered around the table for something hot and homemade. We never asked what was for dinner. Mom fixed it and we ate it. Pot roast, spaghetti, sweet ‘n sour meatballs and tacos were her signature dishes. Mom really was an outstandingly good cook.

I don’t know that I could claim to be an outstanding cook or even a good cook, but I can say that I’m a bored cook. Same pans, same process, night after night can be a real drag. How can such dinner drudgery be livened up? I like to use a dinner theme. There’s nothing like a theme to change mundane dinner into something special. So it could be Ethnic Dinner night, or Breakfast Dinner night, or Fend for Yourself Dinner night, or even Drive-Thru Dinner night. Dinner themes are limited only by my imagination and my paycheck. When my family asks the dreaded dinner question, I respond with my theme du jour. Here are my two all-time very most favorites…

Adventure Dinner! This is the most feared theme in my arsenal. Oh yeah. When it’s Adventure Dinner, every food is a new food – or at least new recipes. If your family’s like mine they will be afraid. Very afraid. This dinner can be time consuming to prepare what with intensive recipe researching and more-specific-than-usual grocery shopping. Crock-pot Adventure Dinners usually turn out pretty good. Curried Adventure Dinners, not so much. Please let me assure you that Adventure Dinner isn’t too bizarre or far-fetched, but it is always an adventure.

Monochromatic Dinner! Just picture this – poached chicken, mashed potatoes, and canned pears. Or how about this – fish sticks, mac ‘n cheese, and canned peaches. Yep, Monochromatic Dinner means all of the food is the same (or very nearly the same) color. The first time this dinner happened it was just culinary dumb luck. But now, it has evolved into a genuine theme. To do it justice, this dinner requires some serious planning and a fairly sophisticated color wheel. Using plates the same color as the food adds to the ambience and introduces an unexpected camouflage factor.

Hey, hold on there just a second… Camouflage? Another whole new dinner theme!

Bedroom Door

I'm having a hard time with the girls' bedroom door. Oh sure, it opens up fine and it closes like it's supposed to. The knob turns and the latch fits. So what's the problem? The problem is that there's no one living on the other side of that bedroom door anymore.

We moved into the house when our oldest child was 10 months old and ever since there's been a kid in that bedroom. I'll bet I've opened that door a million times over the last 20-odd years. Whether it was the dinner summons or the last night-night of the night, someone was always there. So just last night, once again, I caught myself turning the doorknob. It's been a hard habit for me to break.

I always knew the kids would grow up and move on. My head understood it, but my heart is having a hard time accepting it. I know the kids will be back and forth between college and home, but it won't be the same. That closed bedroom door just feels so final and so lonely.

Maybe a transformation is in order. Should the bedroom become the TV room? Or the pet dormitory? I'm sure that either the TV or the critters would like their own room. Drastic change -- that seems heartless, and yet it's a practical solution to my closed-door dilemma. If the room is something else, my head and my heart can cope with being a side-lined mother.

And then I’ll leave the door open.

Diet Books

Since my last posting, I’ve come to the conclusion it's time to go on a diet. Again. This time, I pulled out all the diet books that have accumulated on my shelves over the years. Some were best-sellers while others were barely-sellers. There are how-to books and what-not-to-do books. There are low-cal, low-carb, and/or low-fat options. Menus, recipes, shopping lists, food diaries, and snack lists – all present and accounted for. Exercises? Oh yeah, them, too. By the time I rounded up and piled up all those books, I really had quite the workout and was ready for a snack and a nap.

So which of all these diet books is the magic one? It’s hard to say for sure. After all, humans have thrived on all kinds of diets for centuries. If anyone needs proof of that just open up the yellow pages to the restaurant listings and take a look – Mexican, Chinese, and Italian are the top three cultural cuisine offerings. Does that mean those cultures are healthier? Are enchiladas better for you than manicotti? What about sweet ‘n sour? Sigh. Face it, the phone book is a menu menagerie not a diet book. Ding-Dong darn it all. (I know I could have looked at the gym listings – oh well.)

It didn’t help to check the authors’ credentials, either. The super-qualified Dr. So-and-So says this is the way to go for health, happiness, and slimmer, trimmer thighs. But the uber-qualified Dr. Such-and Such says that is the way to go for health, happiness and tight, defined abs. Everyone knows that a picture is worth a thousand words, but looking at their bio pictures certainly didn’t help matters any. They all look too tan, too dried out and too stringy – just a bunch of over-cooked turkeys.

Maybe the recipes would point me in the right direction. After all, nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the oven! So throw together a bunch of nutritionists, spa chefs, mile-long ingredient lists and voila – what do you have? A tasteless meal that no one will eat which cost way more than the take-n-bake pizza deal that comes with a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough.

So what’s a fluffy-around-the-middle girl supposed to do? Buy another book! What I don’t need is another diet book. What I do need is a first-grade math book – addition and subtraction is where it’s at. Calories in, calories out. Big salads in, fat pants out. Circuit-training in, vegging-out out. I’ve never been very good at math, but maybe I can figure this problem out and get back in shape. Well, at least a different shape than round.

Cankles & Duckles

The photo to the left is the weather forecast for the next week. Really, I’m not kidding. You know what this means? Cankles and duckles.

Cankles and duckles, what are these hot-weather afflictions exactly? For a lovely visual, just imagine water balloons full to bursting. Now imagine the same thing except it’s your ankles and hands. Cankles are when your ankles retain water and swell to the same diameter as your calves. Duckles happen the same way except it’s your hands swelling enough to make your knuckles become dimples. Both are miserable and both make me move around like a really old lady. And if you put me up to your ear, you can hear the ocean!

So is there any kind of benefit from these summer maladies? Not so much from the duckles because of the ‘fumble-fingers’ side-effect. Cankles, however, are so much easier to shave. No bony ankle angles. Smooth and round – kinda like shaving a watermelon. Just beware of springing a leak thanks to the aforementioned fumble-fingers…