"There's no place like home!" Thanks, Dorothy.

I am currently in the hospital with my youngest child, Robin. She has been very ill with gallstones. Rather than having a simple, straightforward case of gallstones, she had "escapees". Several of her gallstones, which were rather larger than normal, escaped from the gallbladder and were milling about in her bile duct area causing tremendous pain and a fair amount of havoc to Robin's digestive tract.


If the stones had been small enough, they might have passed through the duct and out of the body through the intestines like regular waste does. However, because of their large size and irregular shape these were unable to pass and had to be removed during a surgical procedure. This procedure was a fairly simple one with a very long complicated name: Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP, for short).


The procedure itself involved sedating Robin with general anesthesia and then inserting a tube with a camera attached to its end into her mouth, down her esophagus, into her stomach, then into the duodenum, the gateway to the small intestine. A catheter was then inserted into the duct leading to the pancreas and gallbladder. Once the stones were located, the surgeon scooped them out with an instrument called a basket and removed them from her body. The stones were large enough that Robin is now somewhat of a celebrity among the gastrointestinal surgeons. (I guess everyone really does get their 15 minutes of fame at some point.) Photos were taken during the procedure, too, and we were given a sampling of those in full color. Not really anything you would want to add to the baby book, I don't think, but interesting to look at and quite remarkable to some of the medical personnel.


Now that the escapee stones have been removed, Robin is scheduled for a second surgery on Monday to remove her gallbladder. That surgery is expected to be routine and will be done laparoscopically, meaning very small cuts will be made in her abdomen and a laparoscopic scope and surgical instruments will be inserted to clip the gallbladder out and remove it from her body.


I gave all that background to set the tone for the comments I feel it necessary to make about our hospital experience. I have never had to spend an extended period of time in the hospital with one of my children. I was in the hospital for about a week some time ago with my own health issues, but that was different. All the procedures, all the communication, all the interaction with the staff and other patients was because of me and my medical issues during that previous stay. It definitely makes a diference in how you experience the events related to the hospital stay if it's your kid who is the cause for the procedures, communications and interactions.


I can deal with my own pain. It's scary to be in pain and to not know if the doctor is going to be able to figure out what's wrong with you or if he can answer the question of whether you're ever going to feel better again. However, it's a thousand times worse if it's your child who's in pain and those same questions are roiling around in your brain. You try to push them away, you try to ignore them, but when you hear your baby cry in fear or see her grimace in pain or hear her moan in agony, those questions will not be answered quite to your satisfaction, and you will not be comforted with simply a pat on the back and a kind word. Those questions seep into the very fiber of your being and haunt you...no matter how strong your faith is. You become a slave to the morphine that the nurses give to ease your child's pain every bit as much as the child does.


And, hospitals are not for the faint of heart in other respects, too. When Robin and her daddy and Grandma arrived at the hospital, after a harrowing ride downtown with Grandma driving and Daddy in charge of the vomit bucket, they were greeted in the emergency room waiting area with a veritable sea of other folks who were living their own versions of the sick child drama. The awareness of fear and worry are palpable in this area and have a cloying, disagreeable scent all their own, one that's sharper than any disinfectant and more challenging to dispel than any bacteria.


I had the opportunity to experience it, too, when I rushed in to meet Robin et al in the emergency room later, arriving there immediately after my 16 hour shift at work. I was aghast at the sheer number of people who were sitting, reclining, standing and otherwise occupying just the waiting room area of the emergency room. I was even more appalled to find that although many of these individuals did indeed have sick children, not all the children were really ill enough to require emergency care. It seems that the healthcare system in the United States is so broken that those who cannot afford regular preventative healthcare either use the emergency room personnel as their means of treating commonplace illnesses like colds or tummyaches or they wait until their child is so ill that the emergency room is their only option for treatment.


Surely, I cannot be the only one who thinks this way! It just seems to make sense that there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a way to treat those who are not critically ill but cannot afford insurance or regular healthcare, without their having to resort to crowding into the emergency room of their local hospital and slowing down the service necessary to those who are experiencing truly emergent conditions. I shudder to think what would have happened if Robin's illness had been life threatening. As it was, she was in more pain than any person big or little should have to endure. I just cannot imagine what would have happened if she had been having trouble breathing or staying conscious. I would like to think that we would have been moved to the top of the list and would not have had to wait almost five hours to be seen and given morphine induced pain relief, but I just don't know.


Another unpleasant aspect of hospital care is unsympathetic staff who seem determined to make a very stressful time in a family's life even more stressful and horrible than it already is. Although the majority of the doctors and nurses with whom we interacted were perfectly pleasant, compassionate, friendly and warm individuals, there was that one nurse who made Nurse Ratchett seem like the Easter Bunny. It was she who had the unmitigated gall to tell Robin that "Hospitals were not made to just lie around in. They are for people to get better in."


Wow, Toots. Thanks ever so much for those earth shattering pearls of wisdom. A day after surgery and you're all ready for my kid to jump out of bed, yank the morphine IV out of her arm on her own and run around the hospital like she's entered into the Boston Marathon, are you? You do realize, do you not, that each person is different from every other person? We each have our own physiology, our own morphology that makes us unique. A byproduct of this uniqueness is that we each require our own amount of time to recover enough to function normally. Or, did you miss that lecture in your drunken nursing school days? Out for a little toot that day, were you?


Perhaps you also missed the lecture that consisted of someone older and and much wiser than you explaining to the class that YOU ARE NOT A DOCTOR. You simply do not have the medical knowledge or experience to tell me or my child that you're just going to order up some simethicone for what you believe to be gas pains instead of administering the morphine that the DOCTOR ordered be given in 3 mg increments EVERY THREE HOURS and not whenever you jolly well felt like it. So, you can stand there in all of your 12-year-old arrogance and make your happy pronouncements, but don't expect me to give a tinker's damn about anything you say. Actions speak louder than words, Toots. Bring the child more morphine now and while you're out there, check your abominable attitude at the door.

Ahem. I digress into a temper tantrum by blog because to do so in front of my child and in front of the hospital staff would probably not have had the desired effect. Robin is rather sensitive to my moods and often misinterprets when my words of frustration and anger come bubbling forth. She sometimes thinks that I'm angry with her when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. She is my heart and the very best of me, as is her brother. Suffice it to say, that this experience has been one of the most nerve wracking, thought provoking, frustrationally challenging experiences of my life, made doubly so by a mean nurse, a broken healthcare system and truly gross hospital cafeteria food.

And, oh, they don't have coffee in this hospital that doesn't require a fifteen minute trek through the bowels of hell or the seas of humanity to retrieve.

"All Standbys for Raleigh Approach the Gate"

I am extremely fortunate to work for an airline. I love my job. I love my friends at my job. I love the office building in which I spend the majority of my life. And, toiling in the airline industry does have its definite advantages. As in many specialized industries, there are all sorts of discounts and special deals that airline employees are privy to. The thing is, though, most of the traveling public is under the somewhat mistaken impression that we airline folks get free, unlimited air travel, wherever, whenever. While it is true that we are lucky to get very reduced cost or in some cases, technically free, travel (depending on length of employment), it is by no means any less true that there is a price to pay...there is always a price.

You see, the price that airline folks pay for air travel is called traveling by stand-by or non-rev(enue) travel. In general, this means that we show up at the airport, bags and kids and husbands, or wives as the case may be, in tow, and in many cases armed with vodka and/or mild barbituates, at the absolute butt crack of dawn for the very first flight of the day when we want to visit Grandma in Tulsa or Aunt Sally and Uncle Buford in Poughkeepsie.

We then wait, which could be a little while or could be all damned day, until a sometimes pleasant, but very oftentimes rude, surly, snide, power crazy, gate agent deigns to call our names and hand us the magic boarding passes to paradise...or, more accurately, to the coach section of the aircraft, which is probably going to be hotter than the ninth level of Tartarus and is where we invariably will be seated next to either a screaming, ill behaved heathen brat who is torn between repeatedly and rhytmically kicking the seat in front of him or yelling full voice for mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, or next to an extremely large, mouth breathing, florid faced man, who is radiant in his fried chicken/mashed potatoes and gravy aroma and resplendent in the sweat stains down the sides of his shirt and chicken grease on his face and fingers and whose massive quantity of flesh insists on encroaching into our space.

Recently, I had the dubious pleasure of exercising my privilege to non rev ecstasy on my company's last flight to Raleigh. Wow. Even as I'm reading that it seems somehow movie-like. "Last Flight to Raleigh"...starring Liv Tyler and Johnny Depp. Anyhoo, I digress.

I like to watch people. Airports are perfect places in which to observe the human condition. Since I have the opportunity to travel by air more often than the average person, I have lots of time in which to people watch. On this particular excursion to Raleigh, I was seated at the gate in one of the marginally comfortable chairs, next to my beautiful, almost 16-year-old daughter while we awaited the announcement that our flight was actually going to depart, and that our happy butts would be planted in the empty, leftover seats in coach next to the rude child or the fat man. If you have never spent two hours of wait time with a bored 16-year-old whose iPod's battery is failing, it is what you could call a character building exercise.

While we were waiting, my mind began to wander and I noticed the older lady seated directly across the aisle from us. I noticed her because she was speaking, quite loudly, to someone on her cell phone. I noticed her because she kept saying she was at the Dallas airport and I felt compelled to continue eavesdropping to ensure that I was hearing her correctly. As a subject for a people watching aficianado, she was a true treasure.

She was 60-ish and dressed in a dashiki type top, colorful baggy bottoms, adorned with lime green, vinyl crocs on her feet, and graced with a lovely, shiny nose ring, which glittered in the florescent lighting like the proverbial jewel of the Nile. I continued to eavesdrop on this poor unfortunate's cell phone conversation because I felt that she was confused about her exact location on my home planet. You see, I know that when my butt touched down in the seat across the aisle from her that it was convinced that we were currently occupying space at the big Houston airport, and I was kept busy musing in an attempt to decide whether my daughter and I may have somehow inadvertently disrupted the space time continuum and had landed, big hair and large bottoms first, in Dallas. Thankfully, Ms. Aging Hipster finally realized her error and told her cell phone that she was, in fact, at the Houston airport, which finally put my mind at ease. I am quite certain that Hipster's cell phone was relieved at this news, too.

At that, it was time to board the aircraft, two hours late to Raleigh. I took my seat next to the fat man, took a 10 dollar bill out of my purse and at the first opportunity flagged down the harried flight attendant to request two of those delightful little bottles of wine. The cost of the two tiny bottles of wine would exactly equal the amount of money changing hands, thus elimating the need for the flight attendant to make change. And, I figured, two bottles of wine would just about smoothe out the rough edges enough for me to endure the the ninth level of Tarturus for the two and a half hour duration of the flight.

I then gave the fat man a wink, smiled my best East Texas, big haired, cheerleader smile, and said knowingly, "Hold on to your drumsticks, honey. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Just Leave Me Alone!

OK...my son, Jonathan, says I'm just mean. I say I'm just discerning about whom I converse with. I like to talk, a lot...really, I do. Sometimes they can't get me to shut up at work, but this is a situation in which I feel comfortable. Similarly, my husband and children are rarely able to get a word in edgewise when we're talking at home. I swear there are many times when I can see each one of them do the mental eyeroll when Mommy starts off on one of her rants.

However, in public, it's another story entirely. I often wonder when I'm riding on a bus or traveling on an airplane why other folks feel so overwhelmingly compelled to speak to me. I'm not talking about a simple, "Hey, can I sit here?" or "Hey, can you please get off my foot?" I'm talking about folks who insist on attempting to converse with me, especially when I'm trying to make it quite clear that I don't want to talk to them...not now nor at any time during their lifetime. You know the drill. You sit down on an airplane or a bus with a great book that you've just been dying to read, and some dweeb with an accent that sounds like he just got off the last goatwagon from East Hillbillyville sits down next to you and starts asking you inane stuff like what your favorite brand of pickle is or how to get foot stink out of sweatsocks. I mean, really, dude, they're called sweatsocks for a reason. Damn!

I've asked my son on a number of occasions just what makes these people think that they can talk to me. On those occasions, he doesn't even bother to do a mental eyeroll, he just rolls his eyes right in front of me. Hmmmph.

The funny thing is I'm not really a shy person. No one I know would call me a shy person...and I most definitely did not marry a shy person. I'm not really a "mean" person either...at least not down deep...where it counts. I'm sometimes loud and rude for effect and my boss once characterized me as a big dog who barks a lot but has no bite whatsoever. There are just many times when I don't want to be bothered.

Even funnier is that I do admire those folks who have the gift of indiscriminate gab with anyone. They will never lack for friends or they will at least always have company. My father was one of those special people. Now I don't mean he was a person who rode the short bus, I mean that along with all of his other wonderful qualities, he had that special ability to chat with anyone about anything at any time. I don't think that there was anyone on this planet that my dad wouldn't have been able to find some small common ground with. He appeared to me and...true, maybe it was appearances only...but he appeared to me to be as comfortable with princes as he was with paupers.

What's really hilarious is that whereas I really only want to talk to extremely good looking, interesting, intelligent men from exotic locations when I'm traveling, I married one of those special guys like my dad...one of those people who has the "gift" and make it their mission in life to share that "gift" with EVERYONE. Jeff, the man I married, the love of my life, teaches high school chemistry and physics. I know...I know...YAWN, right? The thing is, though, he has a huge range of topics that he is equally comfortable in discussing. You are as likely to interrupt him during a conversation about the melting temperture of NaCl as you are to find him discussing theatrical makeup techniques or the mating habits of the Galapagos tortoise.

Likewise, this man, the man whom I adore, has never in his life met a stranger. You know that passenger on the last goatwagon out of East Hicksville? Jeff could spend hours talking to him. He could spend just as much time talking to that hick about pickle brands as he would talking to Steve Jobs about new computer applications for the Mac or to Rupert Murdoch about his latest media acquisition. If I happen to lose him in the grocery store or at the mall, I'm pretty sure that I'm likely to find him chatting up the most unfortunately unattractive salesperson in the building about how swell the soup can display looks. It's not just that he approaches people to start a conversation, it's that he has that approachable quality that makes other people seek him out, requiring him to validate their opinons and insights with his conversational input.

Maybe my annoyance in these talkers lies in the fact that when those same folks approach me to try to converse, they say incredibly STUPID things like, "When is your baby due?" Even though, my youngest "baby" was born almost 18 years ago.

Yeah, maybe that's why I'm so pissed off all of the time.

Animal Farm

My husband is the goofiest man I know and I love him for it. His naturally sunny disposition and his positive outlook on life make my life so much more pleasant. Whenever I get aggravated with him, I try to remember that it is his ability to make me laugh even when I don't feel like it that keeps my life amusing and interesting. His sense of fun and humor is what made me fall in love with him, and I realize that it's his humorous approach to life that is one of the driving forces in our marriage. Of course, often that humorous outlook becomes downright ridiculous in retrospect.


For example, when we were first starting out in our marriage and money was tight, Jeff used to work at a pet store. He has always loved animals of all kinds and went as far as to major in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences in college. We met because of Chemistry....not that kind of chemistry. I was pre-med when we met, he was pre-vet, and we had Chemistry together...again, not that kind of chemistry...but I digress.


Jeff suggested to his boss at the pet store that it would be a good community public relations effort if management would allow him to take some of the animals to nearby elementary schools and preschools to give groups of children the opportunity to see and learn about animals they may not get to experience otherwise. He could also show more familiar domesticated animals and talk about pet care and grooming with the kids. These little forays into the community were a source of great joy for Jeff and for the children with whom he interacted, and he soon became affectionately known to the preschool and kindergarten set as Mr. Jeff.


Usually, things progressed smoothly, the kiddies sat in rapt attention while Mr. Jeff passed each animal around and talked about the animal's life cycle and food and other items of interest. The teachers always stood in the background and marveled at Mr. Jeff's ability to keep the kids entertained and his ability to explain things to the children in a way that they could understand without Jeff talking down to them. There was always a time at the end of the presentation for the kids to ask questions and Mr. Jeff would patiently listen to them tell about their goldfish dying and having to be flushed down the toilet or the mean kitty that scratched them because the kitty was mad that they tried to take it into the bathtub with them (cats, evidently, don't make good floaty toys) or the time their cousin, Bobby, fell out of the tree because a bird pooped on him and he broke his arm and Aunt Sue had to take him to the hospital where he got a cast and then they came home and we had ice cream and we all signed his cast and...well, you get the picture.


One particular day, however, the angel that is supposed to watch over things like animal presentations to groups of school children was apparently asleep or at lunch and Mr. Jeff's day was about to get a lot more challenging. That day, he chose to take a yellow lab puppy, a very large box turtle named Caldo (I know...sick, eh? Caldo being a Spanish word for "soup" and all), and a medium sized ball python...nameless because snakes don't need names, they're gross...and they're...well...snakes. These three animals had been through the school drill with Mr. Jeff before and were seasoned performers. None of them was a biter or scratcher. All tolerated being handled and fussed over by thirty children quite well...usually.


But, it can get fairly warm in the spring in Texas. A warm day might mean a warm car ride to wherever the children are who wish to learn about animals. Puppies don't always travel in warm vehicles very well. Some have a tendency towards car sickness. By the time Mr. Jeff arrived at the school at which he was supposed to show the animals that day, little Mr. Yellow Lab had created a pool of puppy vomit in his kennel that Mr. Jeff had to attend to before he could begin his little...well, "dog and pony" show...or, maybe we should say "dog and snake" show. This made him a little late for his appointment with the children, so he naturally became a bit flustered, but being the consummate professional that he was, Jeff rallied and figured the show must go on.


Mr. Jeff carefully toted the animals in their kennels or carriers into the classroom and began his talk. He brought little Mr. Sick Puppy out and passed the dog around. The pup had regained control of himself and all of the children enjoyed petting his soft fur and examining his whiskers and eyes and ears and tail. They ooohed and awwwed about how cute the pup was, and how sweet, and look he licked me he must like me, and what do dogs eat anyway, do they eat cats, and my cousin's dog ate a frog once and then you know what Mr. Jeff he got sick and his mouth started foaming up and my Aunt Sue had to take him to the vetri...veterin...veteriNA-Tarian! And, Jeff just smiled and nodded and chuckled indulgently.


Then it was Caldo's turn to greet the children. Now, Caldo was a nice turtle. He was a good turtle. But, you know, turtles' facial expressions don't change much. They aren't known for showing an overt display of emotion. And, of course, they don't talk really, so it's not like they can tell you when...oh, I don't know...say, nature calls. So, Mr. Caldo proceeded to make the rounds of the circle where the children are seated on the floor. He's a large turtle, so he's a bit heavy. Each child took his turn patting Caldo's shell and admiring his little turtle tail and his beady turtle eyes. The child would then pick Caldo up and pass him to the next child, and...


It was about this point that Mr. Jeff decided that Mr. Ball Python needed to come out of his carrier so that he would be ready to be passed around when it was his turn. But, lacking a way to keep curious old Mr. Snake from slithering around and possibly ending up somewhere he shouldn't be, Mr. Jeff decided to put the snake into the button up shirt he was wearing...you know...just for safe keeping. You see, Mr. Jeff was very wise about animal handling, he knew that his body heat would keep the snake calm and sleepy so that he would be easier to handle when his show time came around. Mr. Snake really wasn't in a cooperative mood that day, however, and as with Mr. Caldo, snakes are reptiles and reptiles just aren't really good about making their needs known. Well, I suppose rattlesnakes are. I mean if a rattlesnake told you to get the hell out of his space by coiling up into an evil looking coil and rattling that Satanic sounding tail, you'd probably get the message real quick. But, Mr. Ball Python was a python and pythons don't have rattles or really any other way to communicate and this Mr. Python needed to communicate something to Mr. Jeff pretty urgently that afternoon.


And, the next child who was lucky enough to be handed Mr. Caldo was in for a rude awakening. At about this point when Mr. Jeff heard, "Ewwwwww...he's wee weeing! He's wee weeing!" he looked up and sure enough a steady stream of urine was pouring forth from the turtle's heinie. Pandemonium ensued. Children were shrieking and squealing and pushing chairs out of the way in their haste to retreat from the impending flood of turtle pee, teachers were laughing, Mr. Jeff was trying to put the puppy back into his kennel, keep the snake in his shirt and keep track of Caldo to make sure that Caldo's antics didn't cause him to be dropped on the floor and injured...when it suddenly became apparent what Mr. Snake really needed to communicate to Mr. Jeff that afternoon.


Suddenly, Mr. Jeff could feel a wet, sticky, slimy and could otherwise detect an EXTREMELY foul smelling wad of something in his shirt. He gingerly pulled the neckline of his shirt away from his skin and looked down to find snake poop smeared like butter on an ear of corn all over the inside of his shirt and, of course, all over his torso. Meanwhile, the puppy was still not secured in the kennel and the turtle was still creating mayhem in the group of now giggling and hyperactive children.

The angel who is supposed to watch over these types of proceedings finally returned from lunch at about this time and things were soon righted and put back to order. Mr. Jeff wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or amused and looked to the teachers to gauge their reaction to the events that had transpired that afternoon. Without fail, each teacher smiled widely, suppressed a giggle or two, and thanked him for a most enlightening...and, um...amusing visit...and concluded their afternoon with a single question:

When do you suppose you could come visit us again?

And, Jeff, wearing a shirt full of snake poop, carrying a kennel full of sick puppy in one hand and a turtle who no longer needed to go potty in the other, smiled that sheepish smile that I love so well, turned slowly and walked out into the bright sunlight of a warm spring day.

Who left only one ice cube in the ice tray??

Note: I originally wrote this piece when we owned a refrigerator whose water dispenser was broken. I am happy to say that we now have a new refrigerator with a perfectly working water/ice dispenser so that this particular scenario NEVER HAS TO HAPPEN AGAIN! But, the piece is amusing, nonetheless. :-)



Ever had one of those days when your family seemed to be bound and determined to irritate the ever loving fool out of you?

According to my family, I have these days all the time...or, maybe it's I'm irritated all the time. I'm not sure because I pretty much tune out much of what is said in regards to my moods...mainly because most of it's gross exaggeration. Either way, if you know that I'm irritable or that I'm easily irritated, why, oh why, do you insist on doing things that you know will irritate me?

As an illustration, I got a water pitcher with a filter in it so that, being the health conscious, incredibly wise and caring wife and mommy that I am, my family members could have fresh, filtered, refrigerated drinking water anytime their little hearts desired. The pitcher consists of an large plastic pitcher with a reservoir on the bottom for the filtered water, a reservoir on the top into which you run straight tap water, and a lid on top. It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out how to operate this pitcher. It's quite straightforward, any retarded monkey could make it work...evidently so long as that monkey isn't a 46 year old, degreed professional educator, that is.

The scenario proceeded thusly. I walked into the kitchen, observing the unswept floors and the dirty dishes in the sink with a growing sense of impending doom and despair, realizing that, yet again, I would be on dish duty and floor patrol. I watched, with love in my heart and a song in my soul, my sweet husband, Jeff, pull the filter pitcher out of the refrigerator and pour himself a glass of the nice, pristine, cold water. I observed that there is now about a half inch of clean water remaining in the bottom of the filtered part of the pitcher. I waited to see if Jeff would refill it, but to my horror, he went to replace the pitcher in the refrigerator...without refilling! Now, as sins go, this is probably quite minor, ranking right up there with not flushing the toilet or something, but as I have had to be the one to refill the pitcher the last 28 times it has needed refilling, I took offense to this oversight on his part and proceeded to question his motives.

Me: "What are you doing?"

Jeff: "Getting a drink of water," said with just the slightest hint of sarcastic challenge...like duh? are you stupid, or what?

"Uh, I can see that. Are you planning on refilling the pitcher?" I asked oh so sweetly.

"No, I don't know how," Jeff replied with a barely defensive tone.

"Well, here. Let me show you how!" I now challenged authoritatively.

"No...I really don't want to learn, thanks," he shot back defiantly.

"Look, you twit, it isn't brain surgery. Take the lid off, place the pitcher under the running tap water, fill the reservoir to the desired level, turn the water off, place the pitcher back into the refrigerator, close the refrigerator door," I instructed...with an ever so slight edge to my voice.

"Why are you always so irritated?"

"You want to know why I'm always so irritated?" my voice climbing higher, "maybe it's because the last 328 times that the damn thing needed to be filled, I had to fill it. Maybe it's because," and here I dramatically threw the freezer door open, a Lean Cuisine and eight or nine batteries spilled out onto the floor, "there are two ice trays in here that someone left with only a single ice cube in each of them. Why do I ALWAYS have to do EVERYTHING around here?"

"Yeah, but I still don't understand why you're always so irritated. Besides, you don't always have to do everything around here. I put the dishes in the dishwasher." (Did I mention that, yes, that was two weeks ago?)

Or...something like that. I had to go pour myself a glass of wine and lie down to stave off an impending apoplexy.

Why can't we all be on the same team?

A friend of mine characterized me as a "liberal white cracker" the other day. I know he was just teasing me, but the epithet kind of stung. I don't really think of myself as a liberal. I AM more liberal than many of the people with whom I attended grade school and college, but I'm certainly not a LIBERAL in the purest sense of the word.

If by liberal you mean that I try my best (and admittedly am not always successful) not to judge people by the color of their skin or the religion that they follow or any of the myriad of differences they might have from me, then yes, I'm probably a liberal. If by liberal you mean that I believe that equal rights for all should mean EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL, regardless of race, religion or sexual preference, then yes, I'm probably a liberal. If by liberal you mean that I believe that assault weapons should be banned and there should be more control on the purchase and distribution of handguns because there are those in our society that just can't handle that particular freedom without creating mayhem, destruction and despair, then yes, I'm a liberal.

However, I believe in the death penalty. I think that there are those in our society who need to pay the ultimate price for their flaunting of the 6th commandment. I also believe in the sanctity of life and that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control, that it should be an option only as a last resort when the life of a woman is at stake. And, I believe that government is probably too large and that a closer look needs to be taken at some of the laws we pass that have ridiculous money wasting line items attached.

My point is that there are many folks who find themselves in my position. They can't be a hardline Republican or Democrat really because they see flaws in that blinders-on-don't-look-to-the-left-or-right, line of thinking. There are millions of Americans who are disheartened, even disgusted, by the hatred and hypocrisy that we see in BOTH parties. Many conservatives have a holier-than-thou attitude that is quite off putting...if you don't believe exactly what I believe, you're going straight to hell. Many liberals, on the other hand, are so dead set against the religious right, the hatred in their hearts deafens them to all of the good, reasonable points that the conservatives have to make.

I sit here, in my slightly to the left of center position, and wonder at how my seemingly intelligent, well educated friends from BOTH sides of the aisle put that party hat on and suddenly become rabid, hate mongering radicals of either the left or right. I have had friends from both sides of the aisle express to me that they think America is a great place to live because here we have the FREEDOM to choose our political affiliation, to believe what we choose to believe, to express our beliefs openly without fear of reprisal. But, I believe that what is missing is the true understanding of the fact that your beliefs might not mirror your neighbor's beliefs or your friend's beliefs, but that doesn't make their beliefs any less valid than your own.

Know what you believe, defend what you believe if you must, but when we're here together, in our own country, in the comfort of our own every day lives, do it with a calm and open heart. You might be surprised at the simple truths and common ground that you uncover.

And, don't call me a "liberal white cracker". After all, I have never called you a "stuffy, arrogant, conservative nose picker", have I?

Mammograms Suck!

Originally written: April, 2008 (Note: THE INTENT OF THIS PIECE IS HUMOR. If you don't take it that way, please don't e-mail me and lecture me on why it's not funny or what the big deal is with getting a mammogram. It's funny. It celebrates our camaraderie as women. Get a sense of humor and leave me the hell alone.)

Recently, I had to have what all women my age should have done on a yearly basis, a mammogram. Now, the title of this entry states that mammograms suck, but that's actually inaccurate. Mammograms are wonderful, life saving things. As stated previously, they are an absolutely essential part of all women's healthcare. Having had friends and family members who have had experience dealing with breast cancer, I feel that I cannot emphasize enough how important these routine exams are.

However, I also feel like I cannot emphasize enough how much the experience of enduring a mammogram sucks...particularly one administered by a surly technician who's obviously in a hurry to go to lunch. My recent experience proceeded routinely. I was led into a large waiting room, was handed a nearly transparent hospital gown, and was told to disrobe from the waist up in the coat closet sized dressing room. I was then to put the nearly transparent gown on and parade my happy butt through the subarctic temperature of the waiting room and seat it in one of the chairs to await my turn on the stretch-o-matic joyride. I've noticed that there's a certain body posture that women adopt while awaiting this particular fun filled activity. We were all sitting with our arms crossed in front of us, a posture which is the direct result of a combination of a lack of foundation garments and the aforementioned subarctic temperature of the waiting room.

Thankfully, my name was called after a brief wait so that I didn't have a chance to get bored with the dogeared, mostly mutiliated copy of Ladies Home Journal from May, 1983, in which George Michael talked about his half of the duo Wham! I entered the room of doom behind my personal surly mammographer and approached a piece of equipment that the Marquis de Sade would have been pleased to call his own. My mammographer, let's just call her Toots, without so much as a by your leave, demanded that I drop the semitransparent robe and began to womanhandle my delicates into the mammography instrument. She gripped my tissue tightly with both hands, dragged me by the boob over to the instrument, and with her foot, pressed the mechanized pedal which was apparently set to the "flat as a crepe" setting. There was no hand operated fine adjustment of the smushing device, we went directly from nice and comfy to DAMN!

So, I'm standing there, half naked, with an impressively large piece of technological wizardry painfully attached to my chest and Toots then says to me, "Don't move." Okay, I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but exactly where would I move to? You have me by the mammary, Toots. I am certainly not planning on going anywhere in the immediate future. I mean, as with my American Express card, I don't leave home without my tits.

Maybe it was the grimace on my face that irritated her, maybe it was the tears in my eyes, but she then proceeded to pull the machine AWAY from me. "Ummmm...hello? I'm still attached by the aforementioned chi chi, Toots. Can we please refrain from dragging me around the room by it?" I remember wondering about exactly what sort of education one would need to become a mammographer. How many hours of torture, mayhem and despair would constitute a well rounded academic experience? And, do you have required laboratory time or just the lectures? Where do you find volunteers for the lab torture? Please do not tell me that you practice on each other because that would indicate to me that there's no lower limit of intelligence required to pursue this specific line of study.

And, this was the first visit. Fast forward to two weeks later when I had the pleasure of meeting Toots II.

Toots II greeted me with a smile and a kind word...before she proceeded to reduce me to a quivering, sniffling, lightheaded mass of protoplasm. She started our visit by slapping the films shot by our friendly photographer, Toots I, onto the light board and pointing out the ominously circled spots, one on each breast, which the radiologist wanted to examine more closely.

After sufficiently scaring the snot out of me, Toots II determined that she must apply some pasties to my unmentionables, I guess to indicate to the radiologist exactly which portion of the tissue was the pointy part. I was just about to ask her if she thought she had brought enough one dollar bills to encourage me to dance, when she grabbed me by the hoochies and proceeded to pull the same stunts with a greater intensity and more sense of purpose than Toots I.

This time, I truly did feel at one point that I was going to faint. I got that lightheaded feeling, where little spots of black began encroaching from the outer fields of my vision in. I got the flop sweaty feeling and the nausea, upchucking feeling. The only thing that saved me from completely passing out was the mental image of myself, lying there, half naked in my little gray gymshorts and tennis shoes, with my bright white, cellulite ridden thighs creating enough glare to blind the nurses rushing in to revive me. If you've never had that particularly sobering mental image of yourself, trust me, it's enough to disturb your slumber for a decade.

The upshot of these two lovely experiences is that further tests need to be done. I'm not particularly worried because fibrocystic breast disease is very common in the female members of my family. I am, however, quite concerned as to how I'm going to convince my family doctor to give me a prescription for valium for my next photo session. I guess I'll tell her to either give me the pills or I'm showing up drunk.

After all, it's quite impolite to ask a woman to strip and bare her bosoms and make her do it sober.

Beginnings...

A handsome man with a very weird sense of humor from the great state of New York married a sassy, sharp tongued woman who liked to complain from the great state of Texas. They had two children, a gifted, intelligent, smart assed, musically inclined son and a beautiful, rather shy, smart assed, autistic daughter. This eccentric family resides in a pleasant suburb in the Houston area with two delightfully goofy doggies who provide the family with many hours of amusement.

This is the chronicle of their mixed marriage or what happens when Texas Whine is paired with New York Cheese.