Monthly Archives: April 2014

Resilience

Posted on by
1

The term resilience came up in one of Erica Diamond’s posts on her blog, Women on the Fence. A guest blogger talked about her cancers – two bouts with two different cancers – and the strengths she discovered while fighting for her life.

The CEO of the company that oversees my teaching job is showing her resilience against cancer – also for the second time.

The first time I heard about resilience was in a training for teachers. We were learning about families with drug and alcohol problems, how to recognize the problems, and how to help the children get the help they needed. Our training showed that resilience comes in many forms and it can be developed and strengthened.

Resilience is a strength, the strength to hold on and survive. It’s more than recovering from influenza, although influenza can knock even the strongest person off her feet for a while. It’s more than getting through that last class for the advanced degree, although that certainly takes strength and endurance.

People who are resilient are not the ones who win all the time. Those folks on the top have strengths, too, but they haven’t been tested. Those who show resilience get tested and come up and out of the test stronger than before. And somehow, resilient people keep a sense of humor.

What doesn’t kill me may make me stronger, but even more than that, every time I find humor in a difficult situation, I win a small battle.

Readers, how do you show resilience? Where do you find strength when the going gets tough?

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Comfort Food away from home

Posted on by
2

When I came home from the hospital in January, Amigo asked me, “How was the hospital food?” I told him I’d been pleasantly surprised at the decent food choices and quality.

This time, I wasn’t expecting to be in the hospital. I certainly hadn’t expected to be laid out, on flat bed rest (no more than 30% raised at the head), and my right leg immobilized straight ahead. I needed comfort – and the hospital menu had some standard comfort foods.

Oatmeal. I had oatmeal for breakfast with a fresh fruit cup of diced cantaloupe and grapes. I managed to eat the fruit cup, but I needed to be fed (spoon fed!) the oatmeal and the cranberry juice given with a straw. All in all, it was still comfort food.

I was sitting up by lunch, so I had soup and salad. Chicken noodle soup, in fact, satisfied my comfort food craving perfectly. The salad was spinach with hard boiled eggs, bacon bits and a citrus dressing. This salad was tasty enough that I thought about making it myself when the spinach is ripe in June.

I’ll take that as a collection of very good signs. I was hungry, I fed myself. I enjoyed the meal. I thought ahead, ahead to going home, and ahead to the future.

Gardening, I’m told, means believing in a future, and I was looking to the future, That’s a comfort in more ways than one.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Thanksgiving in April

Posted on by
1

Signs that I am a literary type —

Every time the nurses asked me the standard question, “What month is it?” I was tempted to say, “April is the cruelest month” instead of simply “April”. I did find myself saying, “Still April for a few more days!”

My dear darling husband “Chuck” suggested that pre-surgery, maybe I was like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. I had a brain, but it wasn’t running on all cylinders. Now that the carotid artery is unblocked, who knows what ideas might surface!

I spent one morning chatting with the nurse about our favorite authors.  It all started when she noticed I’d brought my Kindle with me. I recommended a book for her, and she recommended one for me.

The day nurse showed the tender spot on my abdomen to the night nurse and warned her that I was very, very sensitive there, but the pressure had gone down significantly since I moved onto the ward. I pointed toward the ceiling and told her, “See the footprints? Those are mine.” The pain was bad, folks. No way around it. Relief, however, was on the way.

Chuck and I shared a funny with the night nurse when she asked me to close my eyes and touch my nose. M*A*S*H fans to the end, we giggled a little about a recent episode when Blake was treating Radar and asked him to close his eyes and “…touch the old nose.” Radar, literal as always, closed his eyes and reached out to touch not his own nose, but the Lieutenant Colonel’s.

On a more serious note, people, I’m very thankful for many things. Most of all, I’m thankful that I didn’t know the extent of the blockage in my carotid artery until after the scan and surgery were completed. I freaked out a little (okay, I admit it, a lot) when I got the news. Now that it’s over, I can just feel relieved. Very, very relieved.

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

The Consequences of Disaster

Posted on by
1

It was almost a year ago that madness and mayhem struck the O.K. Chorale. A skillful (not) subcontractor digging to make a new sidewalk hit the curbstop that takes water from the main pipe in the street to our home. He looked around to see if he’d been seen, plugged the marking stick back in the dirt, smoothed out his tracks, and went on working.

The short story is this: his action led to water saturating the ground, pouring into the basement, and the attempt at repair led to a broken gas pipe and evacuation from our home with my purse, phone, our prescription meds, and the clothes on our backs.

The latest reminder of The Disaster came in the form of a dozen roses. I know we own vases, I know they’re in the basement, but I couldn’t find them. Due to The Flood, everything got moved and rearranged in the basement. I said rearranged, not reorganized. We’re still working on that.

The result? Hey, we’re nothing if not resourceful.

roses in vase

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Pinterest Fail at the O.K. Chorale

Posted on by
Reply

I tried. In fact, I tried twice. The first time, I didn’t document the attempt. Instead, I invited my dear creative cook husband “Chuck” to try it.

Bunny Buns on Pinterest

Bunny Buns on Pinterest

After all, how hard could they be? This time, I documented the action.

They have ears.

They have ears.

They have tails (sort of).

They have tails (sort of).

After baking, they looked like this. Warning: Put down any beverages you might be drinking. Swallow. Okay, now you may look.

Baked "bunnies"

Baked “bunnies”

Chuck thought they looked more like Pikachu. Amigo thought they were fine.

I have a little more frozen dough left. There may be a Next Time. I’ll share — but only if they look good.

 

 

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

And More Awareness

Posted on by
2

Today’s political climate is scary in that so many seem to have forgotten the fights that have already been fought. Seeing so many attempts to return women to a marginalized group (I can’t bring myself to say “minority”) reminds me of a story from not-really-so-long ago. The original title was “Being a Woman”. Here it is, courtesy of Grandma Daisy. 

I almost posted a quiz – a list of feminist slogans and quotes along with a list of years, with an opportunity for readers to match the two. Instead, I offer you an chance to reminisce about creativity in the feminist movement. Remember the Barbie Liberation League? In the 1990s….Grandma Daisy does this sort of storytelling best, so here she is.

Oh, children, your world is different, thank goodness. I lived through a fascinating and yet difficult time we called the Women’s Movement, or Women’s Liberation, Women’s Lib for short. We reminded lawmakers and voters that we are people, endowed with basic human rights along with our, ahem, voluptuous figures. To put it bluntly, we didn’t need balls to make good decisions about …. oh, your mother is listening. I can’t say that in front of you young ones., so back to the history behind the story. We had rallies, we held demonstrations. We ran for office ourselves instead of waiting for men to take care of our needs. We worked to pass laws that protected our right to make health care decisions.We built awareness of the importance of birth control and how much that birth control meant for our freedom, our liberation. We fought for equal pay for equal work. Laws passed, medications improved, but attitudes were harder to change. 

Sometimes women got creative to make a point. The Barbie Liberation League was one such example. We females were determined to be good students and make it “cool” to be smart. Math and science were supposedly men’s territory, so girls had some catching up to do. Adult role models like teachers and nurses pushed us young ones to go farther, higher, faster into the world of advanced math and sciences. 

Barbie dolls. You know the doll, right? Of course. They’re at the bottom of your sister’s closet with the rubber ducky and the worn out blankie she won’t throw away. Barbie, the doll with the unrealistic figure (39-21-33 at 6 feet tall were the proportional measurements, if you’re into trivia) was a favorite of many young girls. Girls knew she wasn’t realistic, but some tried too hard to look like her and became anorexic. A doll for a role model? Well, it happens.

When the Talking Teen Barbie came out, she had a limited vocabulary. Unfortunately, the people who programmed and recorded Barbie’s phrases had been in a fog throughout the entire women’s movement. Take a look at these examples.

Will we ever have enough clothes?

I love shopping!

Math class is tough.

Wanna have a pizza party?

In the old toy store aisles, G.I. Joe was a parallel type of doll, er, action figure, on the little boy side. His vocabulary was macho and tough – what they called “all male” back then. 

This is going to be rough. Can you handle it?

I’ve got a tough assignment for you!

Mission accomplished. Good work, men!

The Barbie Liberation League took action. They bought Talking Barbie and Talking G.I. Joe from toy stores, swapped out the voice boxes, and then repackaged the dolls and returned them to the stores. Little boys and little girls got Barbies that said, “Vengeance is mine!” and G.I. Joes that suggested, “Let’s plan our dream wedding.” When Joe proclaimed “Math class is tough”, it sounded ludicrous.

Well, darlings, that was the point. If a man couldn’t say it without sounding idiotic, why should a woman repeat that phrase and internalize that philosophy? Talking Barbie wasn’t pulled off the market, but the feminists and the Barbie Liberation League had made their point. Being female didn’t mean being less intelligent. It still doesn’t. 

Anyway , my grand-precious ones, some day I’ll tell you what we did when the guys at our college claimed that women couldn’t play jazz. Hah! We showed them, all right. Now go practice your trombone, and I’ll tell you that story later. 

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

The Second in the series: Awareness Encores

Posted on by
1

This post originally aired about one year ago. Since then, the magic number of prevalence has become 1 in 67, up from 1 in 88.

It’s April, again. Autism Awareness Month. Now that autism numbers are estimated at 1 in 88, shouldn’t we already be aware? Shouldn’t we as a society be moving on?

Moving on beyond awareness means learning about each other, neurotypical or on the autism spectrum. Even under the old numbers of 1 in 166, the estimates indicated so many children and adults with autism that “normal” needed redefinition.

Awareness, people, is not enough. Awareness is a low form of knowledge, and knowledge itself sits down low at the base of the learning pyramid. Awareness means knowing that the student sitting next to your child in class might have autism. Knowledge and understanding come around when that child responds to gestures of friendship, perhaps awkwardly, yet making a step toward joining the social peer group in some way.

Awareness? Awareness means slapping a multi-colored puzzle-design ribbon magnet on the back of the family minivan. Understanding means that when the minivan next to yours at the red light is moving back and forth propelled by the rocking of the teenager in the front seat, you notice but don’t judge. You might offer an understanding smile to the driver if the opportunity comes up. By refraining from negative comments, a parent provides a role model for the rest of the minivan passengers.

The “R” word is also still active, unfortunately. The word Retarded hasn’t been in active use for educational professionals in decades, but it still turns up in verbal put-downs. Awareness means knowing the label Retarded is unacceptable. Knowledge and comprehension would show that anyone with limitations in learning faces enough challenges without getting their diagnosis tossed around as a playground insult.

I wore my “R” Word t-shirt on the appropriate day. That’s my awareness activity. To bring it to a higher level, I vow to stop and comment when I hear the word used: stop and educate those who would otherwise redefine a person in narrow boxes.

Now it’s time to take Autism Awareness to a higher level, too.

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

The Awareness Series: let’s move on, already.

Posted on by
3

From fall of 2012 — I still feel this way. The first in a three- day series, Awareness Encores.

Breast Cancer Awareness is all over the networks – at least it’s all over ESPN, NFL Network, NBC, CBS, and Fox Sports. Guess it yet? The NFL is blowing the horn to the tune of Pink – massive pinkness in the most macho of arenas.

Pink Gatorade towels. Pink shoe covers. Pink wristbands. Pink cleats, chin straps, and ribbon decals. Pink whistles for the (real) referees, for heaven’s sake. And why?

The purpose of all this pink on the turf is supposed to make all NFL football fans think about breast cancer. Be Aware. Know it’s there.

I can’t help it. My inner cynic is screaming “Enough with the pinky dances already!” My inner cynic, for those who don’t know, is very tuned in to breast cancer in the realm of early detection through mammograms. I’m more than aware of radiation studies, chemo, reconstruction – you name it, friends and family in real life have lived it. Yes, Mom, my latest mammogram was once again normal.

Before readers denounce me as a Bah Humbug, my inner cynic must look into its own wardrobe for two (at least two) pink t-shirts designed by an art teacher who was raising money for the Avon Walk in Chicago. I also own a pink polo shirt with the Green Bay Packers logo on it and the famous pink Packers baseball cap pioneered by Deanna Favre. Both of these items sold out quickly, and not just for Deanna. We still liked Brett back then, but we who bought pink knew a significant portion of our purchase money would go toward breast cancer research.

Well, readers, you might recognize my tone already. I have contributed to breast cancer research through purchases of t-shirts, baseball caps, and just simply by donating to sponsor my amazing friends who walked the walks. So why, why would I complain about the wealthy NFL putting its pink on parade to bring attention to breast cancer for Breast Cancer Awareness?

I complain because awareness is the lowest form of knowledge. Awareness means we know it exists. Awareness means, hey, look at that guy, he’s man enough to put on pink wristbands. This pink thing must be important. What does the pink stand for again?

Awareness doesn’t mean understanding, public support, private support, or personal support. The biggest anticlimax is that all that pink doesn’t mean financial support.

I’ll pose a few questions.

The NFL plans to auction off pink gear to raise money. How much will they raise? How much do they hope to sell? What percentage of the proceeds will actually become donations? And to whom will those donations go?

How much did Gatorade spend on those towels? I’d venture a guess that it could have funded many mammograms for women who don’t have medical coverage. Those dollars might have made up for some of the bucks that Susan B. Komen foundation tried to pull from Planned Parenthood – money that funded just that.

How about those pink whistles? Cute, huh? Cute, however, doesn’t pay the bills when a woman is recuperating from reconstructive surgery. Putting the bucks directly into a fund for follow-up care would go much further than the whistle-stop campaign.

The hot pink shoes, wow, they really show up well on TV hoofin’ their way toward the end zone or during a dramatic kickoff or punt return. But again, at what cost? How much good could that money do if it were used for research toward saving lives?

Okay, NFL, you know I’m a fan. I’m a true blue green and gold cheesehead shareholder type. I’ll keep watching games, pink or no pink. The token pink, though, still irritates me.

Let’s see the teams and their officials and their coaching staff wear the regular colors and have the organization instead make a more-than-token donation to breast cancer research. Maybe when public groups like football teams move beyond the pink ribbons and towels we as a society can admit that research and treatment will gain more from a sizable infusion of cash than from muscular young men sporting hot pink shoelaces.

Until then, maybe I’ll stick to listening to my beloved Packers on the radio for the rest of October.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Reviving Poetry

Posted on by
Reply

I added a few Book Spine Poems to A Mother’s Garden of Verses. I contributed a post to my corporate employer’s national blog. In that contribution, I created examples of my own and recruited a student to contribute another.

Meanwhile, I read posts and editorials and commentary about Autism Awareness month. Awareness Months bug me. The concept of raising awareness, of shouting “We are here! We are here!” just doesn’t cut it any more.

Instead of posting for Autism Awareness Month, I’ll stick to celebrating poetry.

Most of my examples were winter poems because I wrote them for a lesson I taught at the end of March. The month of March in Wisconsin managed to come in and go out like a lion this year with cold, colder, and coldest followed by snow mixed with rain and sleet. We were still wearing our fingerless gloves and pulling out our cubicle blankets on windy days. When the social media folks wondered why the sample poems were all about winter, I reminded them that we had just exited (and might still see signs) a long, long season.

The student had offered ideas in class, so I asked her to revisit that poem and complete it for me. My favorite part comes in the last two line. What do you think?

Enter a world full of everlasting snow

Freezing the water, when you try to row

Giant blizzards coming, though very rare

Hills of snow beyond compare

Ice falls in mounds at my feet

Jabbing at my body, the cold stings my cheek

Knowing how endless we may seek

Lies spring around the corner, waiting to astonish me?

May the snow melt soon, much to my glee

Nevermore, calls Mother Nature

O’er the hills and through the forest in her nurture

 

Me? I know she’s brilliant. Maybe we’ll see her work published some day.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Decisions, decisions.

Posted on by
Reply
  • Should I make a single batch of banana bread or a double?
  • Double, of course. We have enough bananas. Do you even need to ask?

 

  • It’s raining outside. Can I accomplish any garden tasks in the rain?
  • No, silly. Get the laundry done and play in the kitchen, instead. Did I hear someone say banana bread?

 

  •  Big headline in the newspaper about a state level politician reaching his tipping point. What’s the book I’m currently reading?
  • The Tipping Point, of course. It’s on my table in the den.

 

  • “Mom, you have banana bread in the oven. Why are you making bread in the bread machine?”
  • Why not? That wasn’t a good enough answer, apparently. The real answer came from Chuck: “It’s raining outside, so Mom can’t work in the garden. She needs to use her energy in the kitchen instead.” ‘Tis true. Very true.

 

  • I had a message from the Clinic That Shall Not Be Named with a subject line How Are you Doing? and the name of my family doc listed as “from”. How am I doing?
  • Well, Clinic, I was misled for a moment and thought someone actually cared to follow up with me. But when a message is extremely generic and is signed “The Clinic Physicians”? Somehow, I don’t feel obligated to answer.
  • So, Daisy, what was this generic message from the Clinic That Shall Not Be Named?
  • Here’s the actual text:

Thank you for your recent visit. Because we care about you, please take a moment to tell us how you are doing. If you were prescribed any medications, please let us know how they are working or if you have any financial issues affording them.

Do you have any other questions since your last visit?

Thank you for your time.

 

  • How tacky can this clinic get?
  • Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares