Internet Ad Explained I'm Doing Everything Wrong

 

How is the new diet and exercise program going?  Great.

In the first four days of trustingly applying the new program, WHICH I PAID MONEY FOR, I gained six pounds.  Look, I’ve never gained six pounds in four days’ time in my life.  Not even in December.

It has taken me another ten days to get five of those six pounds back off.  And I’ve done that by incorporating some of the forbidden old things I had been doing in with the new things.

I feel like that was a two-week detour I didn’t need to take.

Meanwhile, I have to wait another forty-six days to apply to get my money back.

And the pills I bought extra to help me lose weight faster?  They never showed up.

I think I’ll just keep using my own devices, working as hard as I can every day in order to just stay this fat.  Like I have the past eleven years.

The Parable

 When I was a teenager, a cousin I very much admire was serving as the bishop of my congregation. On I believe a Thursday night, he invited all ward members to gather in the chapel for a special, extra activity. Over the pulpit, our young and handsome bishop read the parable of the talents from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. As I was becoming a fairly accomplished pianist and was beginning to learn to write, I liked the parable of the talents. I knew that, in the Bible, a talent was a unit of money, but I was also inspired by the idea of developing and sharing our personal talents in the common usage of the word. 

As the bishop read the familiar scripture, I listened carefully, the meaning of it clear to me. We were to take what we had and magnify it for the glory of the Lord. The bishop closed his Bible and spoke to us in his low and measured voice, explaining that we would each be given strips of paper representing ten talents as we moved from the chapel to the large multipurpose room across the foyer that served as the setting as everything from basketball games to wedding receptions. He told us that we would be allowed to use our talents as we saw fit, but, to me, it was crystal clear that we were to somehow double our talents before the activity ended. 

We filed out, each receiving our “talents.” The other room was set up like a carnival, with various activities to choose from. There were games where you could spend your talents for fun. There were games where you could earn new talents. There were items for sale that you could buy. There were treats you could purchase and eat. The hall reminded me of the world, with its variety and distractions. 

Avoiding all the activities that would take but not replenish my precious ten talents, I focused on the games and scripture challenges giving opportunities to earn more talents. One by one, I doubled those talents until I had twenty. Relieved, I knew I had used my time well and done my duty. 

I looked up to see what would happen next, and I noticed that there were a lot fewer people in the room than there had been. I couldn’t see anyone from my family. Were people just going home?  Had I misunderstood the activity after all?  

I walked by a man set up with a very expensive electronic kitchen gadget, who called out to me. I could obtain it for only eight talents, which I had. He very persuasively demonstrated how it was used, and I thought of how much work it would save my mother, and how I didn’t have a Christmas present for her yet. 

I hesitated. I knew I wasn’t supposed to spend my talents, but others were doing it. No one around me seemed to have kept and multiplied their talents like I had. And where had everyone gone?  It seemed late in the evening, and like the activity was winding down. I couldn’t see any of the people who served as my anchors. Would I rather go home with twenty gray strips of construction paper, or with the kitchen tool, nicer than anything else I could buy in real life, that I could present to my mother?  Maybe if I did buy it, there was still time to earn eight more.

I traded in some of my paper talents, and, as soon as the box holding the gadget was placed in my arms, the bishop’s wife came up to me and grabbed my arm. “I need you to come with me,” she said, insistently. 

I tried to tell her I was going to maybe do a few more things, but she held fast to me, saying that I had to go with her right then. She led me out of the cultural hall and down the stairs. With each step I took downward, my foolish mistake became more and more imprinted on my mind. I didn’t have the talents I had worked for anymore. I wasn’t prepared anymore for the “judgment day” to come. 

I was told to wait in the hall with other ward members. Clutching my prize, I could only hope that my selfless act would count for something. 

Once in a little room with one of the bishop’s counselors, I told my tale of woe. I HAD immediately applied myself to doubling my talents.  I had only given some of them up for something that seemed of greater worth, and that was a gift for someone else. The counselor listened and took my remaining talents, handing me a silver star to pin onto my clothes. 

I was being assigned to the terrestrial kingdom, the second place. And I had to leave the prize I had purchased behind. I could not take it with me. Guides guided all of us back into the chapel, where we were to sit in the section of our various kingdoms. About a dozen others had silver stars, and I sat with them.

My mother and maybe no one else, or maybe one or two others, sat in the front of the chapel, with gold suns pinned to them. Most of the ward crowded into the third kingdom. I looked around in amazement. How had most of the ward missed the message?  How had so very few passed the test of understanding and diligence?  But, even as I judged others, my heart convicted me of having also been deceived. 

As my soul had never before longed for anything else, it longed to join my mother on, as it were, the front row of heaven.  I had a hard time holding back tears. I felt stunned. How had it happened that I had given up what I knew, what I had clearly understood, for something worldly? How had I been tricked?

I resolved, deep in my heart, to never let that happen again. Whatever lay ahead of me in my life, I would not be deceived by the distracting messages of the world. I would not forget to prepare to present the Lord with the talents I could collect. 

Please Excuse Our Dust

I have to start this by stating straight out that my husband is the best.  He has never uttered one word of criticism about me.  He loves me endlessly.  He tells me I am beautiful, no matter how ridiculous my hair might be in the morning after a restless night, or what have you.  Of course, he has the advantage of remembering me when I was a sixteen-year-old girl, which, I'm sure, helps.  Because that girl is long gone.

Mark is a muscular guy who chose a profession in which he cares for helpless people and saves their lives.  He is a hero.  He doesn't see himself as such, and his true humility is one of the best parts of him.  His hands are the strongest man hands I have ever seen, but. . .Mark is also a little boy.

I am possibly the only person who sees that side of him, and I love that little boy.  In fact, I wish that when he had been a little boy growing up in a large, chaotic family, I could have picked him up and rocked him and sung to him and told him how special he was.  Because it seems no one did that for him enough.

I love the man, Mark, and I love the little boy, Mark, who is cute, and also, at times, funny.  To me, they are not really two sides of the same coin, but one and the same.  I'll give you an example.

The man, Mark, wants to do all he can to help me and protect me.  To him, it's his duty.  Of course I need a little help from time to time, but I am no damsel in distress.  I've been a superwoman working mother, single-handedly raising kids and managing a household for years at a time, twice.  This week, with Mark's help and the help of one of my sons who was handy at the time, I put on a birthday party for my youngest child, who turned eighteen.  (There are a lot of feelings about that that I may or may not share in a later post.)  But one of the things I do for a birthday in the family is put on a "birthday dinner," similar to what my mother used to do for us.

The birthday person chooses the menu for the dinner and the type of birthday cake and ice cream s/he wants, and I cook.  (I do buy the ice cream, but I usually cook everything else.)  I set the table in what I call our dining alcove (half the size of the splendid dining room in my previous house) with a table cloth, cloth napkins, and my seldom-used china.  I try to make it a little more special than our everyday dinners.

I learned today that, while helping clean up after the dinner, Mark protected me from what he must have thought of as extra work by putting some of the cloth napkins back in the drawer instead of putting them in the laundry.

I mean, it's a lot of work to toss three or four cloth napkins into the washer along with everything else.

As is my custom on Friday nights after my work week wraps up, I sorted and stain-sticked the laundry last night and started the nine loads I usually do.  I had to give priority to the work clothes that a son needed washed by morning, so I didn't follow my usual pattern.

This morning, as I folded the load of "lights," there were only three napkins.  I had set seven places.  Now, one of the people I expected had not come, so I could understand putting that napkin back.  Here is the list of the extra work that "saving me work" produced.

1. I noticed four napkins were missing.

2. I puzzled my head about that.

3. I looked for the lost napkins on the chairs in the dining room, and in the other loads, and in the laundry room.

4. I thought about where they might be.

5. I found them in the drawer when I went to put the tablecloth and three napkins back in there.

6. I noticed that one of them had visible food on it, and took that in.

7. I removed the four napkins from the drawer. There was no telling, now, which one had been at the empty place.

8. I stain-sticked the one with food on it.

9. I took a picture of it, because my mean streak told me to, and I was finding this funny.

10. I put the four cloth napkins in with another load.

Despite my husband having been married to his ex-wives and then me nearly the entire span of his adult life, he is still kind of a bachelor in the way he thinks.  It didn't occur to him that someone might have wiped his mouth, or nose, on a napkin.  Or that it might have dropped on the floor.  They were probably all handled or, at least, breathed on.

Any virus germs on them as they sat in the drawer for a week until they would be needed again would likely have died, but any bacteria germs on them would possibly have grown colonies.  And the likelihood of them finding the same owner the second time around is practically nil.

Maybe my Germ Tolerance Level is lower than many people's.  It's certainly lower now than it used to be.  (For reference, see the year 2020.)  Even without that, when I get what I assume is a clean, laundered napkin out of the drawer to place on my table, I expect it to be as clean as a washing machine can get it.  I certainly don't want to think about where it's been before. I certainly don't expect to be getting dirty, used napkins out of my sideboard drawer and placing them on my table for unsuspecting guests' use.  

So I have been smiling to myself and shaking my head a little bit today.  I have been weighing out how to raise this, gently, as a for-future-reference teaching moment that will not pierce a little boy-who-was-only-hoping-to-help-me's heart.  (Oh--tasks eleven and twelve!)  His being a little boy is cute.  And funny.  And I will definitely give that big man a hug.

(Mark approved this message, pointing out that we are all "under construction," so "please excuse our dust.")

Rudder Found

So, for a day or so, I thought, great!  I didn't tear any arteries in my neck.  I'm good.  I even used my physical therapy strap once again.  Once.

Because, morning after morning, I awoke with pain in my head and my blood pressure rushing through my neck like high tide.

The ER doctor and the neurologist had seen nothing on my CT scan. So, I had to think some more.

Sure, headaches can be caused by anything from an annoying coworker to a brain tumor.  The hospital had settled on calling my head pain a "migraine," their catch-all for headaches they could not find a source for.  Thing is, I've been lucky enough to never have a true migraine headache.  No history of that.

I couldn't pretend all was well.  I couldn't deny that the spot of referred pain in my forehead was the same as when I have had torn or bulging arteries in my neck, and at no other time.  And the pain wasn't just "in my head"--it was requiring me to take 800 mg of ibuprofen around the clock.  Either high blood pressure or a blood clot coming loose from an arterial injury could potentially cause a stroke, and I am not in the market for a stroke.

Because of an apparent cancellation, I was able to follow up with my primary care physician yesterday instead of in mid-December.  I pitched my theory to her.  Of course, she could neither confirm nor deny, but she did not discount it.  She said it made sense, and could explain my symptoms.  "I'm going to go with that, then," I told her.

You have to understand--I had been wrapping a strap around the back of my neck.  And then pulling fairly hard, as instructed by my physical therapist, while turning my head as far as I could in each direction, in order to help my neck free up space between my vertebrae and become more supple.  This was to prevent the kind of headache I usually get--from tense muscles in my shoulders and neck.  Tension headaches had been disabling me up to once or twice a week.

I think I bruised or irritated the arteries at the back of my neck by doing this.  I obviously did no structural damage that would show up on a scan, but I think I affected them just enough to trigger the symptoms.  Also, in the past ten days, I have been slowly healing.  Which, with my theory, I would. Blood pressure is back to normal.  Pain is intermittent and less severe.  So, that's my story, and, in the absence of more information, I'm sticking to it.

Rudder found.

Four People ahead of You

I bit the bullet Monday and returned to the emergency room to find out whether I had torn an artery in my neck. I’m not sure how I would have torn it, but I had been experiencing that same weird hollow pain somewhat off-center in my forehead that I experienced only when I had torn arteries in the past. Because of what follows, I won't say which emergency room, but it is associated with a major university.  

The first time I tore arteries, I had been coughing so hard it seemed my lung would come up through my throat. The second time, I had lifted something too heavy and popped a bulge. Lately, I have been wrapping a physical therapy strap around my neck in order to loosen it up. I don’t use a great amount of force, but it is my neck, and there was that peculiar pain showing up like a recurring nightmare.

After ignoring the quarter-sized pain a few days (in which it was plausible to think my COVID shot could have been a contributor), I cleared my afternoon and drove up the hill to where they have neurologists, CT scans, and the Stroke Center. 

The waiting room was busier than I have ever seen it. I thought maybe showing up straight from work in my business clothing might illustrate that I knew what I was talking about. Instead, it encouraged them to push me to the back of the line, over and over again. 

They did the initial blood pressure, fact gathering, and filling of three vials of blood in pretty quick order, then told me to go back to the waiting room, where “the longest wait has been three hours.”

They plopped a wheelchair-bound woman a few feet from me, who joyfully carried on a long conversation in a foreign language with great voice inflection and plenty of laughter. At ten minutes, I noticed she was talking too loudly. At twenty, I started to fantasize about politely interrupting her to ask if I were being too loud for her conversation. At thirty, I considered filming her and putting the video on Facebook as one of those “found this creature in the wild” videos. At forty minutes, I realized that she was not on the phone. She was her own good company. At fifty, an employee came up to her, crouched to her level, and announced, “We are going to drive you home.”

Good, I thought. Ah, but the fun was just beginning. 

As my third hour and phone battery drew to a close (I wasn’t talking on my phone, just reading it), I lifted my eyes in hopes of something happening soon. 

It didn’t. 

The horse pill ibuprofen I’d taken at four-fifteen in the morning started wearing off.  My pain started to climb from the “two” I’d—stupidly, I was starting to realize—announced to the triage staff, to at least a four. Maybe they should know that?

I went to the front desk and told them my pain was rising.

“Where is it?” they asked. 

“In my head,” I reminded them, bringing my hand up to touch the spot of pain. 

It worked!  They pulled me right back behind the door and took my blood pressure again. “Do you still have the cuff we gave you?”

I pulled it out of my lunch bag. Heaven forbid they should charge me for two of them. They announced my blood pressure, normally on the low end, was 148 over 96, and sent me back out to the waiting room. I guess they wanted it higher, and a few more hours of stifling my breathing in their noisy, crowded, germ-infested waiting room was likely to do it.

I should have enjoyed and been amused by the humans out there, but, by then, I was far too crabby. There was the man who either crouched by, vigorously massaged, or practically lay on his tall, pretty wife, when he wasn’t loudly discussing her very private symptoms on a cell phone call to her regular doctor. And there were others. 

A couple of young women came back out of triage and sat down next to me in order to have the most banal conversation I have ever had to listen to. I should have taken notes so I could share it with you, but I was doing my best to shut it out. I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe anyone would ever talk about such worthless details. But here I am. 

Finally, I decided to make the ER a deal. I went back up to the counter. “Hi. I’ve been here four and a half hours. Could you please tell me how close I am?”

“Four people ahead of you.”

“That’s what it was ninety minutes ago.”  I told them, “I realize that my case isn’t urgent enough for me to be here right now. Why don’t I go home and come back in the middle of the night, when you’re less busy?”

“Totally up to you, but we’ll charge you again.”

“Why?  I haven’t been seen.  I’ll keep my bracelet on.”

“We’ll have to start all over again,” another employee told me. 

“You’re going to the throw away my blood?” I heard my voice rising on the last word like a crazy person, but the rest was measured.

“We'll keep your blood, but we’ll charge you again.”

“Why, when you don’t have anywhere for me to sit down, and you’re not moving me forward?  Why can’t I just go wait in bed, then come back at two or three?” I thought my proposal was honestly a win-win for both sides. 

I was told I could wait in my car, and they would phone me.  I readily agreed to that. 

Walking to my car in the parking garage, I totally intended to drive home.  But, as I got closer, I started to rethink that. I plugged in my phone and called my husband. Had a drink of water and munched on my cucumber snack. 

After an hour, I started to worry that they would call my name in the waiting room instead of calling me on the phone, so I walked back in.  I was really starting to resent the professional outfit I’d put on that morning and longed for leggings and a tunic. “Hi,” I said.  “I’ve been waiting in my car for an hour. Where am I on the list now?”

“Let me check. Oh, you’re really close!”

“Okay, I’ll wait in here then.” There were some chairs available. I sat down across from a couple that kept complaining they’d been there four hours. I was at five and a half. I was dismayed when they got called back.  They literally didn’t know how lucky they were. 

A man who looked like those mix-and-match cards kids play with--where you stack up sections of people--was also across the room.  His head looked like a regular old man--short gray hair with a large bald spot on top.  The next layer was a flowing floral blouse, backless.  Next level--men's cargo pants.  Last but not least, hideous glittery sandals (over socks) that no sane woman would ever wear, but that he seemed very proud of.  Bold choice, my man!  He was happy, and that’s all that matters. After making a big deal about seating himself, he played a song so loudly on his phone that a security guard came out from the mysterious backside of the doors we prospective patients had never seen and told him to turn it off.  He negotiated a lower volume, which he increased halfway back up again as soon as the security guard left.  Then, he opened up his huge yellow garbage bag, drew out his supper, and started to eat it.  Someone must have ratted on him, because the security guard came out again and told him to take it to the cafeteria.

"Will I have time?  Will I miss being called?"  Not a chance.

Then, I noticed that a woman talking to staff had been a client of mine. I was wearing a big, paper mask and my readers, and I hoped she wouldn’t notice me.  I can’t acknowledge her unless she talks to me first, and I just didn’t have it in me to deal with anything more than enduring to the end.  But it made me very quiet and still, especially when she came and sat right next to me. I knew that, if they did call me, I would have to state my full name right in front of her.  And then she'd know. I kept my head turned away and played solitaire until my phone battery ran out.

Then, I approached the desk, yet again.  Four people ahead of me. I told them I was going back to my car. 

At six and a half hours, I decided to go in and plead my case again—to a supervisor, maybe. It made so much sense for me to get out of their hair and get my hair out of there that I thought maybe someone with some authority could be reasoned with.  I took two steps and my phone rang. 

“We have a room for you.” 

Great!  Half done. I figured I would probably be allowed to leave the hospital by three a.m.  (It was actually midnight.)

Honestly, by then, I felt like a celebrity who had won some grand prize!  I had a room!  I was walked so far back into the depths of the hospital that I thought maybe it was no longer part of the ER. I went to the bathroom and put on a hospital gown. I told the nurse the chest pocket was ripped at the seam, and what was below it was playing peek-a-boo. “I need another one.”

“They’re all like that,” she explained.  What else.

The nurse was nice, but she scoffed when I told her I had a blood pressure cuff in my lunch bag and she didn't need to use another one. I started to hear a cash register sounding in my head.

When the ER doctor on my case came in, the first thing she said to me after introductions was, “Your face is asymmetrical.”

I started laughing.  Everyone’s is, to some extent. I thought it a hilarious place for her to start.  Of course, she was trying to determine if I’d had a stroke.  She got out her personal cell phone and reversed the camera so it was like a mirror for me.  “See?  Does your face always look like that?”

Before or after seven point five hours of torture?

“See?  This side of your mouth when you smile is not quite as high as that side of your mouth.”

“I just have a permanent smirk on my face.” I honestly could not take this seriously.  I had most definitely not had a stroke.  Yet.

She asked to see my driver’s license, to compare my lopsided-to-her smile with it. 

“I guess you always look like that,” she said. 

She put me through numerous neurology tests, which I expected. When I was able to read through a list of very simple, short sentences, she complained I was passing everything too well. 

I got the long-awaited CT scan, and waited a couple more hours. The ER doc said it didn’t show any damage to my neck arteries. And then she started to propose that I might be coming down with a condition I had never heard of that involved inflammation and blurred vision. 

I didn’t think so. 

“But you said you had blurred vision.”

“No, when you asked if my vision was at all altered, I said I wasn’t sure.  This pain in my forehead makes me feel diminished.”

Even though I was trying to be nice, she got tired of me real fast. “But at your AGE. . .”

I got a little tired of her, too, although I knew she was just doing her job. I really did keep trying to be polite.

She sent someone in to get more blood so she could test for the strange disease she had settled upon. I had more questions. She said she had a responsibility to make sure I didn’t have it, because, if I did and it wasn’t treated, I could experience vision loss.  If I left before the neurologist saw me, it would be against medical advice. 

At that point, I had not eaten for eleven hours, not counting some cucumber slices.  I had taken the huge ibuprofen my husband had run up to slip me, then added to my empty stomach the three Tylenol the ER doc had insisted I take. I told her I was getting nauseated and asked if I could eat something. She agreed to bring me a snack.  I never saw her again.  

My heroic husband left the room to hunt and gather, and came up with two bagels and a brownie, which we shared.

I did want to stay for the neurologist. I wanted to know if he could see any damage to my arteries on the CT scan (he couldn’t), or thought I had the mysterious illness (he didn’t). 

So, too late to make a long story short, there is nothing wrong with me. Except that old, familiar referred pain in my head that no one can explain. (They wrote “migraine” on the discharge papers.) And galloping blood pressure, also not explained. “We expect it to be high in the ER," the neurologist said. (That makes sense.)

And, I feel I have lost my rudder.

It's a Small World

I made a comment on an online news story today, and used the word "heck."  As in, "Heck--it's still before noon."  Someone named. . .okay, I'll use a made-up name--Ron Madrigal, commented on my comment, "Who says "heck?"  (I add the punctuation here for him, because I'm nice like that.)

I saw that and let it go.  But, later, a woman added a comment saying that a lot of people say heck.

Taking that as encouragement and support, I replied to the heckler, "Are you the Ronald Madrigal who went to Liberty Elementary?"

Not too long later, he said, "Yes."

So I said, "I remember you.  That was a heck of a long time ago."

Ahhhhhhh.  That felt good.

Attend Your Reunion

Recently, my long-since-closed high school had an “all years” reunion for anyone who had ever attended it. This is the second year they’ve done this, and my husband and I went. Back when he had golden curls and I had hair down to my waist, we met there. 

I hoped more people I knew would be there.  A couple weeks ago, I posted about it on Facebook.  When I asked one person if she were going, she said no. “I don’t want anyone to know how fat I am, and that I’m a failure.”

I was stunned.  She's one of the best people I know.  “How are you a failure?”

Basically, she hasn’t written a best-selling novel, invented anything, nor cured cancer.

“Neither has anyone else,” I said. “And we've all passed through just as many years.”

I have worried about similar things, too, in the past. Well, okay, and now, somewhat. My overall experiences with reunions, though, is that no one’s judging—they’re just glad to see you. Everyone has grown up, and it’s not like when you couldn’t say hi in the hall to one of the cool kids. 

At least, not with the high school I attended, which was not snooty. You didn’t have to have a hot-shot dad who made a lot of money to be someone at our school.  I liked that so much about our school that I bought my first house inside its boundaries, so my kids could go there.  Then, they closed it down.

So, Mark and I went to the reunion, and we comprised forty percent of those who attended from our class. I wish there had been more than five, but I did meet some people who grew up in my same neighborhood. They had been older than me, but I remembered some of them. I really appreciate knowing the things they told me. Like, that my sister, Linda, had played the violin so well that she had been idolized her for her talent. I had known she had played, but I didn’t know she was that good. In fact, I don’t remember ever hearing her play. 

One older guy that I do remember told me he has a twin that I was never aware of!

Even though we only saw two people who had actually been my friends, I enjoyed myself and was enriched by talking with people. Given that I now read with old-lady readers, it was harder to read their name tags as I passed them than it was to strike up conversations. That’s what I’d like people to know about attending a reunion. And I do wish more people would give it a try. 

There were tons of people there from my sister’s class--too many for it to have been random. When I got home and looked at Facebook again, I saw that one woman from that year had posted, calling out her class: “Be there or be square. We are all old and fat.”

Amen.  Just go.  No one cares about what you think they would care about.  But I bet they'd sure like to see you again, or meet you for the first time.

Sweet Relish

For the past year and a half, I've been doing all the cooking at home.  All the shopping too.  Which has not been a problem.

(That my children are relieved to have me doing most of their cooking now is a sweet secret I smugly savor, like having a chunk of the best chocolate to enjoy in private.)

The only problem I've run into is this: we've had this no-sugar-added pickle relish as a staple in our home for years.  I would say, ever since we gave up sugar as a regular part of our diets almost thirteen years ago.  We went to Disneyland that summer, and the lower-than-in-the-house mirrors in the hotel revealed to me what I didn't want to know. So, we decided to try the Sugarbusters diet my sister-in-law had been having great results with.

As part of our sugar purification, my husband had found a pickle relish that was made with Splenda instead of sugar.  We've been using it ever since.  It's gone on hot dogs and hamburgers, into tartar sauce and tuna and egg salads.  We've just always had it around.  I took it for granted that I could keep getting it.

So, as the last jar has run out, I have searched for no-sugar-added pickle relish at the grocery store. No luck at Fresh Market or Costco.  I went out of my way to visit all the grocery stores I know he used to shop at.  He could make a whole weekend out of shopping at five or six stores, but I was pretty sure I knew the names of them.  Albertson's. Dan's.  Smith's.  Sprouts.  Looking for that relish, though, I bombed out at every one of them.

I NEED this relish.  Honestly, avoiding sugar is no small feat.  It's hard enough to avoid desserts.  I don't want it in my regular food.  If I'm going to eat sugar, give me a chocolate donut.  Don't hide it in there with my fish.

I took a good look at the nearly empty jar for the brand name.  Mt. Olive.  I went back to all the stores, inquiring about Mt. Olive brand. My regular grocery store has a whole wall of pickle relish.  Not a Mt. Olive in sight.  Not any other type of no-sugar-added relish, either. After I spent the better part of an afternoon reading each and every pickle label, the manager took down the information and said he would get it stocked.  The other stores said, basically, "Nope."

So after waiting a polite amount of time, I went back to my regular store and still didn't find it.  I talked to a different manager--the one who does the ordering.  He pulled out his flip phone, saying, "Don't judge," and called the person he orders from.  "It's not on the list," he said.  That was his whole answer.

I guess it can't be put on the list.  But, honestly, if they would put it on the list, I would come back to that store, faithful as an old dog, every time my relish got low, and buy some more.  For the rest of my life, which should be decades.  He and his flip phone were long gone, though, before I could get all of that out.

I looked up the brand name online.  Couldn't find out where it's sold locally.  Took the lid off the last, empty jar standing forlornly on my counter until I could figure this out. Took it to work with me. Called the 800 number in North Carolina.  Was told that she can't see where their products are sold in my state.

"But I know it's sold here.  We've always had it."

So she told me that Target and Walmart are two large chains that "don't participate" in their "store locator."

Bingo!  I thought.  Unless my ex was hiding more about his true thoughts than I've discovered he was, I know he wasn't shopping at Walmart.  No need to look there.  But Target--that sounded like a ray of hope.

I shop at Target but don't think of it as a grocery store, even though I know they have groceries.  I determined that I would stop in as soon as I could swing it, and finally claim my very own jar of Mt. Olive Sweet Pickle Relish.  Before I heated up any more fish sticks.

I know what you're thinking.  Why didn't I just ask him where he's been getting it?

Well, it's complicated.  I tried to keep things friendly.  I really did.  I even let him come into my home on a nightly basis to say goodnight to the children.  For half a year.  But he's made it clear, in more ways than the number of years of my life that I gave him, that he is no friend of mine.

I'm not going to ask him.

Most of the time, he pretends I don't exist.  If I texted him, "Hey, where did you used to get the relish from?" I would get this response:















It's the same response I get when I try to talk to him about the kids. I'm not going to assume that he would consider my ability to procure relish to be more important than they are.

Saturday was my next opportunity to get myself to a store that was not already on my way home from work.  My teenaged son came along with me.  He wanted new ear buds.  (When does a teenager NOT need new ear buds?)  He was sympathetic as I told him all about my relish woes. After some time walking around in the grocery section, looking carefully among places where other condiments were stocked, we finally found the relish inch.  Looking at the one or two options, I remembered.  I had looked at Target before.

So I said all the same things about it to my son again.  I know it can be found locally because we've always had it.  I've tried all the stores I can imagine.  But I supposed I would have to order a case from North Carolina and pay the shipping charges.

I didn't have all these genius kids for nothing.  He asked simply, "But which Smith's have you been to?  Just Smith's or Smith's Marketplace?"  I had assumed they were one and the same.  I had.

So on our way home from Target, we stopped in at a Smith's that I've only frequented when I've forgotten to pack pantyhose before my pre-work workout.  We parked, walked in, located the condiment aisle, and found ourselves face to face with a WHOLE WALL of Mt. Olive products!  I almost wet myself.

Drenched in the sudden luxury of endless Mt. Olive products, I feasted my eyes along the rows until I found pickle relish.  I picked up a jar.  Then another.  No sense being skimpy about it after all that. Laughing with my son about our good, though long-delayed fortune, and how fun it would be to blog about this adventure, I paid for the relish and we left the store.

I stopped dead in the parking lot.

"Wait," I said.  "I don't think I checked for no sugar."  I drew out one of the jars and examined its label.  "Mt. Olive," it said, and "Sweet Relish."  It did not say "Splenda" nor "no sugar added" anywhere. Anywhere!  And, yes.  In the ingredient list, I did find enough dreaded words to make me hastily avert my eyes.

Moaning, we headed back into the store. Right back to that Mt. Olive aisle.  I scanned the shelves. You're not going to believe this, but I could not find "no sugar added" on any of the Mt. Olive pickle relish labels.

I did find some no-sugar-added house brand relish, and I picked up a jar of that.  My son asked, "Are you going to get two?"  So I got two.  But it wasn't exactly the right stuff.

I mean, it was sugarless pickle relish, thank goodness for that, but it looked different.  I exchanged the sugary Mt. Olive relish for it, and I took it home.  I'll use it in tartar sauce next time I feel like having fish.  Not saying when that will be.

But it all makes a good story.  And maybe I can get a kickback for the free advertising?

Being Okay

So, here I am, on a lonely Sunday.  I went to church and came home.  I'm chilling out until the time when my kids will come home.  I tried to take a nap.  It didn't work.

I feel restless.  There are things tugging at the corners of my mind.  Vague shadows, like monsters in the closet or under the bed.  There are things bothering me that will never go away.  There is work to do that I don't feel up to doing.  I'm stuck in a kind of neverland between the busy I was yesterday doing everyone's laundry, et cetera, and the busy I'll be as soon as everyone is home.

It's silent.  No one is expecting anything of me at the moment.  These are the moments I yearn for when everything is noisy and I have five or ten demands on me.  But this doesn't feel like a moment I yearned for.

I should be enjoying it.  I should be able to sleep.  Or maybe I should stop trying to sleep and get my outfits for the week set up.  Maybe I should cook dinners for the upcoming week, do something to make the time ahead of me easier.

Will the time ahead of me ever be easier?

I feel like I've lost myself.  I am always older than I've ever been.  Will I ever be the same again?

I keep going to the gym and cutting what I eat, but I keep gaining weight.  I want to write, but I'm allergic to the imaginary voices finding fault with whatever I might have to say now that my life is upside down.  I keep cooking meals, cleaning the house, tending to the household, but it seems to keep falling into disarray anyway.  I keep taking care of and protecting my children, but they seem to keep spinning farther away from me.  It's their job to do that, I know that.  But who am I now?

I keep going to church, paying tithing, praying.  I keep fasting when it's fast day, and even sometimes when it is not.  I read my scriptures most days.  I still believe.

I think I still believe, but where are the blessings I need?  Where is the promised land I've been trudging toward for at least forty years?  Are my prayers actually piercing the ceiling, or are they just bouncing off like soft billiard balls, making endless arcs and curves throughout my empty bedroom?  I know I'm loved, but where are my friends on a quiet day like this?

The invisible arcs of the billiard balls curve through my bedroom, hitting the closet door, the wall, the floor, the light switch, the ceiling, the blinds, the bed, my chest.  All the thoughts and questions and images and restless feelings just keep bouncing all around me like waves.

I try to catch one and pin it down.  What on earth is really the matter?  What can I pin down?

Yes, my life is different; I wanted that.

What is wrong?

Are the people I love still out there in the quiet somewhere?  Has God forgotten me?

I sit still on the bed for a while, just waiting for the arcs and curves of the balls to form some kind of pattern, to settle somewhere, for heaven's sake.  To spell something out.

I finally get a coherent thought.  It is this: Will I ever be okay again?

I stand up and look for something to eat.  I close the fridge.  I already ate and don't need anything.  I pick up my pile of laundry and smooth the bed covers.  If I do something, maybe I will feel better.

Will I ever be okay again?  I want to text my best friend and ask her.  But I hesitate.  What is she supposed to do with a pregnant message like that?

Will I ever be okay again?  I pick up a newspaper to move it off my bed.  My eye catches the headline to an article I had meant to read.  "Senior LDS missionary back. . .from Belgium."  I start to scan the article.  This is the man, older than I, who was blown up by a bomb but has lived to tell the tale.  And there, like a ball that finally found the pocket in the table, is my answer.  I read, "The first blast broke Norby's left fibula and left heel and sprayed him with shrapnel.  He also suffered second-degree burns to his face, ears, sides of his head, leg and the backs of his hands.  He later suffered an infection while hospitalized. . . ."  All of this happened almost four weeks ago.

I shake my head at my self-pitying self and get up to write.  There is nothing so wrong with me that I cannot proceed to be me.  Maybe writing will help someone else.  Or maybe it will help me.  I have to keep being me.  That is what being okay is. 

Spanish Rice

Several coworkers commented on my lunch today.  I often get a "That smells good" or "Whatcha eating?"  But I had more comments than usual for this very ordinary lunch. It's a dish I grew up with.  My mother used to make it.  It smelled and looked good, and it generated interest.

"What's that?"

I stifled my impulse to say, "Well, I call it Spanish rice."  It was not easy to stifle that, which I'll explain in a minute.  I forced myself to just say, "Spanish rice."

But then I added, "My ex-husband would say that it isn't really Spanish rice."

"Why is that?"

Because I don't make it the way he makes it.  Because it's not "authentic" Spanish rice.  Because real Spanish rice would never have meat or something as Anglo as canned tomato juice in it.  Because, he regularly asserted that the things he did were superior to the things I did.

He is a good cook.  He is a better cook than I'll ever be.  I'll give him that, no problem.  I always have.  I don't know where my mother got the simple recipe she used for her Spanish rice.  I don't care.  That's not the point.  And maybe it's true that he had learned somehow how to make "authentic" Spanish rice from some region of the Hispanic world.  I'll give him that, too.  But it occurs to me that Spanish rice in Spain could be different from Spanish rice somewhere else.  Is there even only one authentic way to make it?

I'll even concede that there's no way my mom's Spanish rice could be "authentic."  Sure.  She grew up in a white family in an Anglo state during the Depression.  She raised her family in the fifties and sixties in an Anglo neighborhood.  And she used ground beef and tomato juice.

That's not the point, either.

I once had a little boy who dubbed his red plaid pajamas his "Spider-Man pajamas."  There wasn't anything remotely Spidey about them, other than the red.  But who was I to tell him they weren't Spider-Man pajamas?  To him, they were.

It's work being around someone whose truth always trumps your truth.

He could have opened his mind to the possibility of there being at least two kinds of Spanish rice that had value.  What he considered to be authentic had value to him; the comfort food from my childhood had value to me.  He could have allowed himself to see that those two options could have equal, if different, value.  It shouldn't have been a problem for me to make it that way.  Even to call it Spanish rice, like my mother did.

So there I was, fully separated from this person by law, a parade of negative experiences, and more than a dozen months, still struggling to not qualify the name of my Spanish rice in deference to his opinion.  Still feeling, even though I knew all along that his ways did not necessarily surpass my ways, like I had to say, "It's not real Spanish rice--that's just what I call it."

Gah!

There could be fifty ways to make Spanish rice.  This is my way.  It's delicious.  It's comfort food.  My children love it, and one always asks for it for his birthday dinner.  My mother raised me on it and kindness.   It attracted the interest and compliments of a handful of people who work with me.  There is nothing wrong with it.  I'm eating it.  And it is Spanish rice.

Consecration at Christmas

Consecration at Christmas

Bring your words, your penciled sketch,
Your spot-on imitations.
Belt your high notes, sob your low tones.
Offer up your turtle doves,
Your baked goods and that dish you love.
Bring your fever and your aching bones,
Your excesses and hesitations.
Come, let's go now and see this.  Stretch
Out your hands, your arms, your feet,
Your clear emboldened voices.
Present Him with your graceful twirls,
Your triumphs and your tumblings,
Your bad hair day, your stumblings,
Your bruises and your golden curls,
Your brave acts and bad choices.
Hasten to Him in a heartbeat.

Swirl over Him purple and fine linens.
Lift your bow, spill notes into the air.
Bring the wrongs you want forgiven,
Your scarlet cheek, your trembling chin.
Lay down your purity and your burning sin.
Place them where a Son is given.
Bring your bed, your favorite chair,
Your Christmas doll with blue hair ribbons.
Bring your handshake, bring your smile,
Your raised eyebrow and tear-filled prayer,
Your broken heart, your dark thoughts.
Bring your eyes, bring your ears.
Bring your laughter and your tears,
Your spark of faith and thickened plots,
Your best red coat and stained underwear.
Throw them all into the pile.

Share your flying dreams and nightmares,
That time you couldn't sit, for joy,
That time you couldn't sing, for grief,
That time you hiked through boot-high snow,
The time you made love in the meadow,
That time you groaned for pain relief,
The first view of your newborn boy,
Your demons and your crippling cares.
Under the starlight rests a spectacle.
Bring your learning and your questions,
Bring your hunger, bring your thirst.
Play for Him your best drum solo.
Give Him your yacht. Give Him your yoyo,
Your saved-up seeds, your mound of earth,
Your sacrifices and obsessions.
He'll know the truth though men are skeptical.

Show up at the manger.
Press into His tiny hand
Your one pearl of great price.
Spread on Him your spicy ointment.
Bring your hopes and disappointment,
Your fancy cupcake, your grain of rice.
Show him your beloved, and
Bring a neighbor, bring a stranger.
Wear your finest gown.
Wear your holey jeans.
Bring your sleepless nights, your mornings.
Throw in your last little mite,
Your secret treat and appetite,
Your computer and your earnings,
Your new car and your magazines.
Lay all your treasures down.

Dance your dance, plie, kick high.
Toss in your wedding ring.
Unclench your pearls; let go!
Bring your children, bring your grandpa,
Your worst mistake and all your chutzpah,
Your needle and your hoe,
Your bird with broken wing,
Your full lamp and the one that's dry,
Your foul ball and your tall cold drink,
Your pie crust and your burnt toast,
Your home run and your brush-off.
Don't hide your broken frame,
Your favorite game, your foot that's lame,
Your sunburn or your cough.
Bring the thing you fear the most.
It's more important than you think.

Shower on Him dreams and discoveries.
Loose that bird flapping in your chest.
Give your finest gold and friendship yarn,
The part of the puzzle you've completed,
The times you found you were defeated,
The pants you know will not be worn,
Your unrequited love and emptied breasts,
The chips you earned in your recovery.
Share your ripe peach and scraps of fabric,
Your fine china and your daily mug,
The swan gliding on your placid lake.
Show the shining of your well-scrubbed floor,
The pastel laundry you folded into the drawer
Before your baby was awake,
Your masterpiece and braided rug.
Carry it all into the magic.

Bring feed for His lambs and for His sheep--
Milk, honey, and your stored-up wheat,
The brilliant flashings of your mind,
Your favorite ornament, though broken,
The needed words you left unspoken,
The thank-you notes you never signed.
Lay all burdens at His feet.
He'll smooth the bad; the good He'll keep.
Bring chocolate cake, your guacamole,
The letting go of someone's hand,
The bearing of a small, dark corpse,
Your hatred and your acts of mercy,
Your dog-bone in the controversy,
Your expulsion from the workforce,
The struggling, post-stroke, to stand.
He'll shape them into something holy.

Tell him of the thing you're craving,
Your discipline and your compulsion.
Bring your pet and your tormentor,
Your fire-scarred limbs and patchwork quilt,
The house you built, the milk you spilt.
Give it all to your Creator:
The light that draws you, your revulsions,
That ragged spot you missed while shaving,
The rhymes you've worked, what you think plausible,
Your confusion and your rages,
The dusty miles you had to walk.
Your finest gifts for consecration;
The ugliness for your redemption,
For: from this stinky hole in the rock
Springs the bejeweled shrine of ages,
Where miracles abound, and anything is possible.

I Can Too

Recently, I noticed an obituary in the newspaper for a former coworker of mine.  Dan was delightful to work with.  He seemed to always have a smile on his face.  He was agreeable and low maintenance.  He was smart--the director of his bureau, with, I would say, about thirty-five subordinates.  Although he had gray hair, he was still working.  Cheerfully.  I cannot remember a moment when he seemed down or said something contrary.

And he did all of this from a wheelchair.

It's been two decades since I left that job.  I'm glad to know that Dan was able to have a long life.

I've reflected a lot since then on what impact Dan made on my life.  For sure, it wasn't huge.  We had the same boss and attended the same meetings for over four years, but we weren't close friends.  We never confided in each other, nothing like that.

I am, however, impressed by people who do good in the world.  I'm even more impressed when they seem to do it easily, competently, and cheerfully.  And I'm most impressed when they have triumphed over great obstacles in order to do so.

Dan had had polio as a child.  He had been in a wheelchair for a long time before I met him. It doesn't seem to have held him back.

Now, sure, some people's disabilities do prevent them from doing the things they want to do--no question about that at all.  Whenever I see someone disabled seemingly just as able as others, though, I am really inspired to do more myself.  And complain less.

My friend's brother's blindness didn't seem to hold him back from anything he wanted to achieve.  There were two people in my master's degree program who were deaf, and another one who had been born without a right hand.  It was amazing to me that they were doing all the same things I was doing, and succeeding just as well at them.  Maybe it shouldn't have been.

I have another friend whose spouse is in a wheelchair.  It has been interesting to see what, for them, it is like to have to deal with that struggle.  According to them, it's not easy to get one of those motorized carts in the grocery store, because able people who are tired use them, too.  My friend often has to search high and low to locate one.  Pushing both a wheelchair and a shopping cart around a store is a challenge I would not relish.  And people don't often help.  They push past.  They hurry ahead to the checkout line, seemingly afraid to get stuck behind that train.

But, really, the people struggling with the extra machinery have lives, too.  They want to get out of the store just as fast as others do.  Don't they have just as much right to approach the line without people darting in front of them?

I have to admit that I have probably behaved like the darters.  It's so much easier to think about the differences among us than it is to think about the similarities.  Just today, I noticed there was a new woman at work who was wearing a strange kind of hat on her head.  Her face was beautiful.  I imagine she has beautiful blond hair under that hat.  But what if she doesn't?  Maybe she's been a cancer patient.  It's none of my business.

Even though I don't know her, I felt the urge to ask her why she was wearing a hat that covered all her hair.  I didn't, of course.  But I did stop to ask myself, what is that?  Why on earth, when I know it is rude to ask people personal questions, would I even want to?  I think about all the asinine comments and questions I endured during my pregnancies--and even some pregnancy-related questions I endured when I was NOT pregnant, ahem--and I cannot believe that I would be driven to ask someone, a stranger, even, why she is different from me.  (One neighbor's first utterance to me was to ask whether I wanted my baby.)

I decided that it must be this: we want those around us to be familiar, to be similar enough to us that we don't feel threatened or uncomfortable around them.  If we notice a difference, we want to know about that.  Why do you cover your head with a hat?  Why are your children a different race?  How do you feel about that baby you're carrying around inside of you?  We naturally want more information so that we can figure out how to deal with the unexpected difference.

But we have to stop ourselves.  We need to focus on what is the same.  This woman is now working in my building.  How is her job going to be similar to mine?  Will she be on my team?  How can I help her feel comfortable there?  These are the things we should focus on--the similarities.  In every place.

And how we can all contribute to the whole effort.  How we can honor and respect and admire each other's efforts and accomplishments.  How we are benefited by and can benefit each other.

We all have struggles, and what they are varies.  But this is what knowing each other does for us.  If Dan could live a full and successful life, if he could exude joy, I can, too.