Friday, November 23, 2007
Gratitude 2007
Sing, Sing a Song
Sing out Loud
Sing out Strong
I can talk again, pretty much all the time. It's great. I can talk in the morning, in the evening, and ain't I got fun? I can talk if I've had 8 beers the night before. I can talk after three mugs of coffee. How did this happen, one might ask?
I had had enough of clearing my throat all day and praying that the schedule didn't change, removing my prep period or study hall. When that happened, I didn't have a break where my voice could rest. I heard people scream, call out, or laugh indiscriminately, and I hated them for this ability. I found myself not calling friends so I could rest my voice as my doctor advised. I stopped singing in the car.
I finally went back to my doctor, who scoped me again and found no nodules. "We have to find out why you can't talk, kid," he said, and ordered an upper G. I. and a pulmonary function test. When I got the PFT, the tech suggested I stop taking Advair and see if that helped. I did, and it did. Yay! I'm still taking an inhaled steroid for asthma, and I want to try something else, but I haven't been able to convince my doctor of this yet.
Even though I had gotten another medicine to try for the asthma, I still finished up the last discus of Advair. (I hate to waste things.) This meant that I was still hoarse when Deborah (my mother-in-law) and I went to see Springsteen for the second time, so I didn't scream or sing. How pathetic is that?
Springsteen was phenomenal. I knew by the second song that it was going to be the best show I've ever seen. Unfortunately, our seats sucked. Tickets had gone on sale at 10 am on a Tuesday, and I'm teaching at that time, so I couldn't order tickets. Believe me, I thought about it, but I like to avoid getting fired. To top off the bad seats, the speaker in our section started to short out, crackling every time Bruce spoke. I was pissed, but Deborah was undaunted.
"I'm going to speak to the usher," she announced. I rolled my eyes as she left. It was sad, really. She had no idea how things worked. You just didn't march up to staff at events like this. These people were here to make sure no one died, not to make us happy.
"Come on, he's taking us behind the stage," she announced.
I had almost gotten behind-the-stage tickets, but was afraid. Both our seats and the ones behind the stage were billed as "limited view," and I couldn't understand why the ones behind the stage were more expensive. I should have gotten those. We were probably 100 feet away from Bruce, Little Stevie and the gang. It was a very good view indeed.
When Bruce turns around, away from the audience, he looks very attentively, intensely, lovingly if you will, at his band. Every few minutes he dashes behind the drumset and reaches into a $3 Rubber-Maid bowl, lifting a big yellow sponge to his face, squeezing water into his mouth. With my binoculars, I was able to enjoy Bruce's posterior, and the famous Born in the USA butt is not what I mean. From head to toe, Bruce's dorsal view is a treat. Beginning at the bottom with the boots, moving a few inches up to his too-long jeans that pile up a bit at his ankles, to the backs of his thighs, to the shirt-tail covering the butt, to the guitar strap transversing his muscled back, the whole journey is a treat.
Sing of Good Things, Not Bad
Friends of ours, once our last DINK friends, stayed with us over the holiday for a couple days. Things do not seem good. Since the birth of their daughter, it's been really rough, and Jim looking unsuccessfully for work for two years doesn't help. I wonder if the three of them, Jim, Nell, and Baby Kelsey, will ever visit us as a family again. Kelsey is either at a shy age or is just a somewhat peevish child who cries out, "Bye bye, see you later!" any time she's in a group than larger than four people. I walked into my house the other day, and Kelsey said, "Bye bye!" Her daddy said, "No, Kelsey, she lives here. She's not going bye-bye."
The Senora and her ex-husband, who had been seeing each other for a year, are no more, it seems. I was supportive of her when no one else really was, hoping that Joe was beating the odds by realizing he had made a mistake. I was hoping that someone wouldn't end up going the way of my dad. I was wrong.
I called my dad yesterday to wish him a happy Thanksgiving and to tell him about Tripper's new job. He was thrilled for Tripper and seemed to be a fairly good mood until I asked him if Belinda was cooking. She wasn't. She's gone. He was pretty philosophical about it for awhile, saying that she had some financial problems he couldn't handle, but the philosophy soon took a dark turn, and he bemoaned the fact that he left my mother.
"Things you say can come back to haunt you," he said. I first thought that he meant the generic, collective "you." Now I'm not so sure.
A few days after I found out that my parents were splitting up, my dad called. I was less than supportive of his desire for a new life. I was 19. It was 1990. "You're going to end up alone and miserable," I told him.
Yesterday he cried, "And I think I'll be alone for the rest of my life." I wonder if he remembers me saying that, if he blames me for it. I consider feeling guilty. My sister tells me that she stopped by to see him yesterday, and he wasn't too bad, just "thinking and verbalizing bitter thinks every once in awhile." How sad that we think that's not too bad.
Sing of Happy, not Sad
Tripper has a new job starting December 3. A 401K. An office. A laptop. His high-school swim coach retired very early from teaching and invested his life savings into starting a company that buys used medical equipment, refurbishes it, and sells it to rural doctors and other countries. Tripper will be part of the service department, and it will be perfect for him, I think. He enjoys seeing how things work and has a real knack for taking things apart and putting them to rights. I have no curiosity about such things myself.
Sing out Loud
Sing out Strong
I can talk again, pretty much all the time. It's great. I can talk in the morning, in the evening, and ain't I got fun? I can talk if I've had 8 beers the night before. I can talk after three mugs of coffee. How did this happen, one might ask?
I had had enough of clearing my throat all day and praying that the schedule didn't change, removing my prep period or study hall. When that happened, I didn't have a break where my voice could rest. I heard people scream, call out, or laugh indiscriminately, and I hated them for this ability. I found myself not calling friends so I could rest my voice as my doctor advised. I stopped singing in the car.
I finally went back to my doctor, who scoped me again and found no nodules. "We have to find out why you can't talk, kid," he said, and ordered an upper G. I. and a pulmonary function test. When I got the PFT, the tech suggested I stop taking Advair and see if that helped. I did, and it did. Yay! I'm still taking an inhaled steroid for asthma, and I want to try something else, but I haven't been able to convince my doctor of this yet.
Even though I had gotten another medicine to try for the asthma, I still finished up the last discus of Advair. (I hate to waste things.) This meant that I was still hoarse when Deborah (my mother-in-law) and I went to see Springsteen for the second time, so I didn't scream or sing. How pathetic is that?
Springsteen was phenomenal. I knew by the second song that it was going to be the best show I've ever seen. Unfortunately, our seats sucked. Tickets had gone on sale at 10 am on a Tuesday, and I'm teaching at that time, so I couldn't order tickets. Believe me, I thought about it, but I like to avoid getting fired. To top off the bad seats, the speaker in our section started to short out, crackling every time Bruce spoke. I was pissed, but Deborah was undaunted.
"I'm going to speak to the usher," she announced. I rolled my eyes as she left. It was sad, really. She had no idea how things worked. You just didn't march up to staff at events like this. These people were here to make sure no one died, not to make us happy.
"Come on, he's taking us behind the stage," she announced.
I had almost gotten behind-the-stage tickets, but was afraid. Both our seats and the ones behind the stage were billed as "limited view," and I couldn't understand why the ones behind the stage were more expensive. I should have gotten those. We were probably 100 feet away from Bruce, Little Stevie and the gang. It was a very good view indeed.
When Bruce turns around, away from the audience, he looks very attentively, intensely, lovingly if you will, at his band. Every few minutes he dashes behind the drumset and reaches into a $3 Rubber-Maid bowl, lifting a big yellow sponge to his face, squeezing water into his mouth. With my binoculars, I was able to enjoy Bruce's posterior, and the famous Born in the USA butt is not what I mean. From head to toe, Bruce's dorsal view is a treat. Beginning at the bottom with the boots, moving a few inches up to his too-long jeans that pile up a bit at his ankles, to the backs of his thighs, to the shirt-tail covering the butt, to the guitar strap transversing his muscled back, the whole journey is a treat.
Sing of Good Things, Not Bad
Friends of ours, once our last DINK friends, stayed with us over the holiday for a couple days. Things do not seem good. Since the birth of their daughter, it's been really rough, and Jim looking unsuccessfully for work for two years doesn't help. I wonder if the three of them, Jim, Nell, and Baby Kelsey, will ever visit us as a family again. Kelsey is either at a shy age or is just a somewhat peevish child who cries out, "Bye bye, see you later!" any time she's in a group than larger than four people. I walked into my house the other day, and Kelsey said, "Bye bye!" Her daddy said, "No, Kelsey, she lives here. She's not going bye-bye."
The Senora and her ex-husband, who had been seeing each other for a year, are no more, it seems. I was supportive of her when no one else really was, hoping that Joe was beating the odds by realizing he had made a mistake. I was hoping that someone wouldn't end up going the way of my dad. I was wrong.
I called my dad yesterday to wish him a happy Thanksgiving and to tell him about Tripper's new job. He was thrilled for Tripper and seemed to be a fairly good mood until I asked him if Belinda was cooking. She wasn't. She's gone. He was pretty philosophical about it for awhile, saying that she had some financial problems he couldn't handle, but the philosophy soon took a dark turn, and he bemoaned the fact that he left my mother.
"Things you say can come back to haunt you," he said. I first thought that he meant the generic, collective "you." Now I'm not so sure.
A few days after I found out that my parents were splitting up, my dad called. I was less than supportive of his desire for a new life. I was 19. It was 1990. "You're going to end up alone and miserable," I told him.
Yesterday he cried, "And I think I'll be alone for the rest of my life." I wonder if he remembers me saying that, if he blames me for it. I consider feeling guilty. My sister tells me that she stopped by to see him yesterday, and he wasn't too bad, just "thinking and verbalizing bitter thinks every once in awhile." How sad that we think that's not too bad.
Sing of Happy, not Sad
Tripper has a new job starting December 3. A 401K. An office. A laptop. His high-school swim coach retired very early from teaching and invested his life savings into starting a company that buys used medical equipment, refurbishes it, and sells it to rural doctors and other countries. Tripper will be part of the service department, and it will be perfect for him, I think. He enjoys seeing how things work and has a real knack for taking things apart and putting them to rights. I have no curiosity about such things myself.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The Last One
I am the last one awake. I've already poured out a beer, thinking I didn't need it, and maybe I was right, but I could have been wrong.
I'm getting another.
No, I'm not. I'm having enough trouble typing with the drinks I've had, let alone more. I'm also pissed at the supposedly wireless keyboard that cannot keep up with me. I turn up the Sirius Grateful Dead Channel. I feel mellow and water-logged.
I've said goodnight to a good friend who once lived here in Dogpatch, who once taught with me, who once had no children. She and her husband were our DINK friends. No more. She was sleep-deprived, overworked, guilt-ridden.
Ahhh, more later.
I'm going to dance to the Grateful Dead.
Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart.
Don't tell me this town ain't got not heart....
Shakedown Street
I'm getting another.
No, I'm not. I'm having enough trouble typing with the drinks I've had, let alone more. I'm also pissed at the supposedly wireless keyboard that cannot keep up with me. I turn up the Sirius Grateful Dead Channel. I feel mellow and water-logged.
I've said goodnight to a good friend who once lived here in Dogpatch, who once taught with me, who once had no children. She and her husband were our DINK friends. No more. She was sleep-deprived, overworked, guilt-ridden.
Ahhh, more later.
I'm going to dance to the Grateful Dead.
Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart.
Don't tell me this town ain't got not heart....
Shakedown Street
