Hmmm

Is it lying?

Jan came again today. This zucchini was slightly smaller than the first one, only 22 inches long and not quite as big around as my thigh. She asked again if it was too big.
I thought, "Yes."
I thought, "Obviously it's too big for you."
I thought, "I hate being in this predicament."
I thought, "You look very tired. I cannot refuse this squash."
So I said, "Oh no, I know what to do with it."

"What?" she asked.

I told her about freezing the pulp for zucchini bread. She had never heard of this process.

Here's the thing. It's true. I do know to do that with gigantic zucchinis, and I didn't really say I was going to do it. So is that lying?

Two other things I know to do:

One is what I just did. Put them both in an Albertsons bag, tie it up, and drop it in the garbage can. Tomorrow is trash day.

Two is say no to the next one. I just have to.

Summer Squash

My neighbor, Jan, came over the other day with a big zucchini. No need to say how big. We've all seen one. Heck, most of us have grown at least one in our own gardens. It's the squash that somehow stays hidden until that moment when, stunned and frightened, we see it. Yikes! We pick it in a hurry before it takes over the world and dash over to our neighbor's house in a gesture of generosity and good will. Sort of.

Well, she did ask if I could use it. I lied and said yes. So now its permanent home is on my kitchen counter. Apparently. Until I do something with it or throw it out. And I hate to throw it out. Thus Jan's burden has become mine.

I used to de-seed the big ones, then grate them up and freeze the pulp (unattractive word) to use in zucchini bread or zucchini chocolate cake, which were always very good, and my children liked them . . . unless they saw the green things and were grossed out.

Anyway, I don't make that stuff anymore. Anybody need a big zucchini?

Mama Mia . . . not

Meryl Streep, a genuine movie star and a fine actress. Not perfect, of course, or she wouldn’t have knuckled under to pressure and starred in “The Bridges of Madison County.” It must have been pressure. Certainly she could tell the book was poor (crap is the word that comes to mind), and that very bad movie came to mind when I heard her say she never watches her own movies. But she was talking about the most recent one, “Mama Mia,” and she said that she has seen that one three times and can’t wait to see it the fourth. “Wow!” I thought. “You wouldn’t see Sophie’s Choice or The French Lieutenant’s Woman, but you would go four times to this one? It must be good, must be fun. Maybe I should go see it.”

I don’t go to many movies. Not many recommend themselves to me. This one, I thought about before hearing Meryl Streep’s comments. The trailers—shown at least a hundred times on TV—looked fun. It’s a musical. That sounded fun, too, and it features a lot of the music of Abba, not my favorite music but, again, “fun.” And usually I’m less likely to go to a movie that is hyped as much as this one has been, but Meryl Streep. She sings; she dances. She’s seen it three/four times.

Pierce Brosnan is the male lead. I mean, he wins the girl (the older woman, Streep) in the end, so that must make him the male lead. But his part, as I found out, is minimal and nothing remarkable. Remarkable it is, though, that he and Meryl Streep have absolutely no chemistry between them and never will as long as the this world lasts, and their kiss scenes are unconvincing and borderline repulsive. But I’ve never seen Pierce Brosnan have any chemistry with any one.

He is probably a nice man and is without doubt a proper Britisher who cannot say Mama the way 95% of human beings say it, as in Mama, but pronounced it in an interview as if he had never heard the word and was reading it for the first time, as if he didn’t just star in the movie with that word in its title and repeated many times in the title song. He actually said Mama, with the first “a” pronounced as in pablum, which made me think he certainly hasn’t seen the film three times and must have spent any down time he had—which was no doubt plenty—in his dressing room trailer. Mama—think pablum—Mia. It has no ring to it. But, again, he’s British.

So silly me, I went anyway. Mistake.

No doubt Meryl Streep keeps going back to watch it so she can see herself jump and run and climb on things and hear herself sing, which she does well enough, the singing, I mean. Clearly she can’t be going to hear herself be called Donna, a name that doesn’t look or sound like her.

Take a guess, now, is the movie very short on story and very long on exaggerated gestures and overacting, if that’s what they were doing? Oh yes.

And is the pace frenetic and tiresome? Oh yes. Besides, the movie is crude. Christine Baranski—she can actually dance, and she can sing—is, as usual, the highlighted crude person. Is that typecasting? But most of the stars get to be crude, too. Lucky for them.

And because this is a Hollywood production, even if it's set in Greece, one of the men who might be Meryl Streep’s daughter’s father (you with me?), played by Colin Firth, turns out to be gay. A bit too predictable for me. And the young actress, Amanda something, who plays Streep’s daughter, whose wedding all are about to celebrate but don't, and who is supposed to be a rising star that everyone has eyes upon, is nothing to write home about either.

I guess the bottom line is money. They’ll all make some. They got mine, after all.

Oh Yes and Hallelujah

Okay, I know stuff. I know that a few years ago every car company had to come out with its own SUV. Even Volvo, for crying out loud. It was like a race, a competition. Duh. Car companies compete with each other. Now they’re all trying to give SUVs away. Oh well.

And I know that if one TV show is a hit, the other networks will do a copycat show, or try. Like Survivor, for instance. Look what it has spawned (do I have to name them all?), the latest being a reality dog competition where people go to a house and live there together—with their dogs—and the dogs have to do hard things, and a panel of judges makes nice or harsh with the owners, and the owners who have been criticized cry or talk back or both. And there’s a golden bone for whoever does well—not for the dog—and a bottom three, an elimination, and hugging when someone is sent home. Yes, I watched once, but that won't happen again.

But today I saw something I never expected to see, and I call it strange. Yes, tattooing is big these days. People have flowers and snakes on their necks and gnomes and monsters on their backs or they have arms covered with serpentine whatevers. Personally, I don’t like tattoos, and I always wonder if when the person grows up, if that happens, he or she might want to be uninked.

I don’t much care for piercings, either. I had a student with ten studs in one ear. No biggie, I guess. And I had students with pierced tongues, eyebrows, nostrils, and other body parts, I’m sure, which were unseen by me, thank goodness. One guy would sit in my class and play with his piercing constantly . . . using his tongue. The stud was in his lower lip, and he would manipulate the thing, or lengulate it (a word I just made up). Anyway, he got so he could take the stud out and put it back into his lip using only his tongue. Look, Mom, no hands.

But I digress.

What I saw today was evidence of some quarter of society trying to—what?—compete? join? and I just didn't expect it, although I guess I should have. The sign on the place said, Devotional Tattooing and Piercing. I don't think it's that they sing hymns during the process, but I could be wrong.

Sweetiepie. Warning: Dog Blog

She was Bill’s dog, a fine looking Fox Terrier. He got her from someone—there was a story, but I don’t know it. She could do tricks, we were told. She would even get cigarettes from a pack for her former owner. This I never confirmed. It was supposed to be a big deal because, so someone said, dogs hate the smell and taste of tobacco, though how anyone would know that I can't imagine.

Anyway, she came knowing how to lie down, roll over, sit up, shake hands, fetch the newspaper, fetch the mail. Daddy taught her to run upstairs and fetch his slippers, too. I laugh now to think of it, my dad and that dog, how he'd talk to her with no doubt of her understanding. “Bring me my slippers, Sweetiepie,” he’d say. Or anyone could tell her to go get Daddy's slippers and she would do it and drag along his robe, too, if you asked her to.

Daddy also taught her to dance, but her most complicated trick was catching a raisin off the end of her nose. Daddy would place a raisin right on the tip of Sweetiepie’s nose. “Hold it, hold it, now. Don’t move,” he’d tell her. She would hold herself still as a stone. “All right,” he would say at last. “Catch it!” She’d toss the raisin up, catch it, and then chew it up, which always looked like the hardest part of the trick. By the way, dogs don't like raisins either.

Sweetiepie would crawl up on your lap, put her front paws around your neck and give you a love, if you asked her. She would play dead or just play with you. She would run to meet you when you came home from school and jump up to your arms before you turned the last corner for home. She could feel you coming, I guess. Bill’s dog? Yes, but I knew she was mine, and we all felt the same way.

Mama never wanted a dog in the house. With Sweetiepie it was different. She stayed in the house with the rest of us, like one of the family. And Grandma hated dogs. Couldn’t believe Lola would have one in the house. But when Grandma came to visit, who do you think followed her everywhere? Who sat at her feet or on her very lap? Who loved her like none of us kids ever did? The dog, of course.

Sweetiepie loved to ride in the car. A curious passenger, she never sat down, left nose marks on the inside of the windshield because she had to see where we were going. Or, if the window was down, she would stick her head out the window, ears blown back by the wind.

I have not forgotten the look of the man driving the car that hit Sweetiepie in the street by our house. I was in the back yard when it happened. The man didn’t stop, just drove on. It took Sweetiepie a while to die. Sterling and I watched, helpless and heartbroken. When she was dead, I went in the house crying and drew a picture of the man’s face.

Sterling buried our dog out under the apricot tree in the back yard. The tree and yard and even the house are gone long ago, replaced by some unsightly apartment building. One that none of us, including our dog, would ever live in. Are you under there, Sweetiepie? I hope you remember me. I’m counting on seeing you again.

While We're On the Subject of Things Medical

5/8/96 Wednesday, the day I didn't die.
I went for my allergy shots, one in each arm, as usual. I used to go every week, and for the last four or five weeks I had been on the same level dose: .4 cm of 1/100 serum. When I asked why, the nurse told me it was the dr's decision, get me through the spring and summer before moving up. Hmph, I thought, at this rate it will years before I get to maintenance level.

My reactions to the shots had been minimal, a hive, some swelling around the injection site. So I thought I might not stay the required 15 minutes in the office, for my safety, awaiting a reaction or no reaction. But I decided I would stay. Good thing. It wasn't even one minute after the shots that I began feeling strange in my head, flushed, ears throbbing, something moving through me very fast. I went back in to the nurse immediately and said, "Hey, I think something's. . ." but didn't finish.

She got her Adrenalin out and prepared to inject me. I asked her to wait a minute--I don't know why. Then I began feeling faint and dizzy, my heart beating fast--I thought--short of breath. She took me across the hall into the drs' office and had me get up on an examining table. I was frightened and told her so.

Another nurse came in. They laid me back on the table and bent my knees. Someone ran and got the dr. He asked if they had given me the Adrenalin. No. Give it to her, he shouted, .3. I said, "Will it make my heart beat faster? It feels like my heart is beating very fast now." I don't know all that he answered, but they gave me the shot. I couldn't breathe lying down and asked if I could sit up. No, they told me, my blood pressure was too low and they needed it to come up before I could sit.

Four or five people were in the room with me. He ordered a shot of Tagamet and the sensor put on my finger. Then he dropped the machine the sensor was hooked to and swore. I think that's when I told him I was trying to be calm. I think I had a fear that they could not save me and they knew it. But I was lying there, with a very clouded mind, not sure but wondering if this was the last thing I would know on this earth, here in a room full of strangers, not loved ones. Maybe this was my time, but how could it be? It couldn't, too much to do, too many people. But I realized I was helpless and not in charge of anything and it was happening.

Someone brought in a machine that had a respirator with some kind of vapor coming out. I was to sit up now and inhale that. As they raised me everything got worse. My ears were pounding, my mind was numb. I was going to die and I was terribly frightened of it. Nothing I could do. It's like, I think now, when I watched Alyce slipping away in the hospital. But we took care of that and saved her. Maybe these people couldn't save me.

They put the respirator in my hand. I couldn't see. Everything was moving, blurring. I said I was afraid I was going to die, took one breath, tried to take another, and dropped the thing.

Next I knew I opened my eyes and was on my back again with my lower body propped up. I could breathe better, I was sweating now a little, whereas before I had been cold. A nurse was giving me another shot of Adrenalin, .2 this time. Something had happened to save me, and I knew I would not die.

In that time between when I dropped the respirator and when I awoke, something or someone happened. It was like I went somewhere, not for long, and there was someone. I could almost see the person, but I cannot be sure what really happened or who it was, maybe my mother or Lola or Ann. It isn't clear. I didn't look down on myself from above, like people talk about, but when I passed out--that's what they said I did--something was suddenly okay. I was okay. And someone was in my mind. Whoever it was had blond hair.

Before very long I began to feel pretty good. I don't know when they called Wayne, but soon he came to drive me home. We left my car in the parking lot.

I went home. If I thought about the whole thing, I cried, and I'm not sure why. Richard called and I cried. Lola came and I cried.

Dr Ganier called not long after I got home. His nurse called an hour later. I thanked them. I know they were scared. I could feel that throughout the whole incident.

The questions I had clinically concerned the fact that both times I experienced a systemic reaction, I had been taking an antibiotic, Trimox. Of course, Dr Ganier said, "Theoretically there's no indication that blah, blah, blah," whatever all that was. But you'll never convince me. So I quit The Trimox, and thought I should quit the allergy shots, too.

For a long while afterward I felt closely connected to something way beyond my self. I thanked my Heavenly Father for my life that day. Still do.

Warning: Patriotic Post

July 4th, Independence Day. We celebrate America, our independence from any other nation, our greatness, and our precious freedom. I wish our celebration would bring to our minds all those blessings we have enjoyed all our lives.

I am an American. I love this country, and I humbly proclaim I belong to America. My ancestors—on both my father’s and mother’s side of the family—gave up their homes, all they had, all they knew in their native England and Denmark to come to here. They had joined a new church and were gathering in America, where they knew they could worship freely.

My mother’s people sailed from Denmark on a ship called The Westmoreland, and once in this country they walked most of the way to the Salt Lake valley. My father’s people sailed from Liverpool, England, in an old vessel and had to bail water all the way across the Atlantic, the voyage lasting six long weeks. They passed through Ellis Island and eventually took a train from New York to Omaha and walked the rest of the way to “Zion” to begin to build their lives anew. Their first home was made of mud. They never regretted the sacrifice.

Today I live in freedom, comfortable and safe in my own home, not made of mud, blessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and by His church, blessed by the strength of my own ancestors and by the sacrifice of patriots who truly loved liberty more than their lives. I owe everything to my fathers and mothers and to the fathers and mothers of this country.

I say this week is a good time to look back to my own history, to remember, and then look forward and renew my commitment to live truly, faithfully, and to honor the heritage I so fortunately possess.