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Crippled People (#200)

"But I don't want to look like a cripple."

This is the argument Mom and I get into most often, and I have no doubt but what it'll happen again today. It's Doctor Day, and I'm escorting her. I'll insist that Mom use the deluxe, Cadillac-quality rolling walker I bought her last summer when she blew her knee out, and that will make her mad.

"We've been over this before, Mom," I'll say. "I can't catch you if you fall. You can't depend on me for that. You have to use your walker."

Mom is unsteady on her feet. She's frequently dizzy and lightheaded, and often complains that she's about to keel over. And she's no small lady. In fact, Mom is exactly twice my size. Not only that, but I also am the bearer of a couple herniated discs in my neck, making me a poor candidate for Catcher of the Mom.

I would say that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak--except for that some days, not even the spirit is willing.

Mom used to say she wouldn't use a cane because she "didn't want to look old." Old, I'm sorry to say, has had its way with her, and she's gradually shifted her viewpoint. Now it's apparently OK if she looks old, as long as she doesn't look crippled.

"I can't worry about how you look, Mom." I will say. I don't want to sound mean, but she's stubborn and I have to stick to my guns. "I'm responsible for keeping both of us on our feet. We're taking the walker."

We all have ways we want to look, don't we? And ways we'd like to avoid appearing, also. Is anyone really fooled when we look whole, but then fall alone to the ground, a shattered mess?

Each of us ends up depending upon an assistive device of one type or Another, whether we care to admit it or not. It takes grace to lean on something--Someone--we've hesitated to fully trust, even if that Someone happens to be the only one who can truly support us in our weakness.

Mom will stand upright behind her walker today, pouting, and give it an unwilling first push forward.

"But I don't want to look like a cripple..."

Me, neither, Mom. But I'm learning to want it more.

Posted by Katy on 01/27/05
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Starting Over (#201)

"Hi, babe..." he mumbles.

My groggy husband, who worked until after midnight, is having a hard time waking up this morning. I've been up a couple of hours, though. I've done all my morning things, and have now decided to read on the couch in our bedroom.

"Hi, honey," I say. "It's morning."

"Did you sleep OK?" he asks.

"Great," I say. "It seemed like you slept well, too."

"Yeah," he says, "I did."

Thirty seconds later:

"Hi, babe..." he mumbles.

"Um...didn't we already have this conversation?"

"Yeah," he says, "but I woke up again."

Posted by Katy on 01/27/05
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Call It What You Will… (#202)

There's been some fascinating and borderline-contentious debate about whether or not my complaint detailing my husband's nocturnal jerking qualifies as nagging.

One of The Three Michaels Who Comment Here says the men have to stick together so, of course, he argues that I'm breaking my commitment to not nag. Several women have agreed to meet me for coffee, since they understand that a double expresso is clearly what it takes to recover from three nights of being bounced from one's own bed without nagging at all.

And then there's Kevin, the commenter who just can't wait for the mud wrestling to start.

This morning, Doug and I arrived at a few definitions of terms, though it's still unclear whether or not we see eye-to-eye on the interpretations of our own definitions.

"Nagging," I said, "is when I'm bugging you about something you should do, something you've been avoiding, something I need or want you to do--like take out the trash without forgetting the trash under my desk in the office, fix the doorbell, unclog the left-side sink in the bathroom, put three new lightbulbs in the dining room chandelier..."

"I get the picture," he said. "You've painted it clearly enough, but you've left out the nuances. Like whining, for instance. Nagging and whining are very different things, but certainly there's a lot of overlap between them..."

"What are you saying? That I've given up nagging and replaced it with whining? How can you think that about me? Whining would be all about me, wouldn't it? Why, I never give a single thought to myself and what I want...I never whine! I may use my strong personality to motivate--"

"Ah, yes," he said. "Motivation. That's what I feel when you issue one of your ultimatums, all right."

"Okay. You've got to be kidding, right? When have I EVER issued an ultimatum?"

"Last night, remember? You said that if I succeeded in not jerking for one whole night, you'd make it worth my while."

He had me there, but still, I think the poor man misunderstood my intentions.

"Oh, honey," I cooed, "that wasn't an ultimatum. That was a bribe."

It worked, too.

Posted by Katy on 01/26/05
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Not Exactly Steve Martin, But Still… (#203)

You could say the guy I'm sleeping with is a real jerk. You'd be partly right--he is a jerk. But I'm SURE not sleeping.

You know that crazy whole-body (or sometimes just one random limb) kind of jerking you do when you're drifting off to sleep? I've always heard that it's some kind of built-in defense mechanism that humans are equipped with as a kind of double-checking system.

"Are you SURE you should be going to sleep now?" the Big Jerk asks. "Are all your kids safely in their beds?" (Another Jerk.) "Have you locked the doors or did you forget again?" (Huge Jerk.) You're not driving a car down the highway at 75 m.p.h. right now, are you?" (Jerk, Jerk, JERK!)

It must be for self-defense, because it sure isn't for the protection of the person sharing the bed with the jerk. For three nights now, I've slept with my arms crossed over my face, afraid Doug would lash out at me again right after he says something nutty in his sleep like, "Come here and snuggle with me, babe..."

I'm not falling for it anymore, buddy. What started out as some fairly typical, within-the-norm falling-off-to-dreamland jerking has turned into several nights of 8-hour-long sparring matches. One of his jerks is enough to practically bounce me off the bed.

"Wake up!" I hear myself say all night long. "You're jerking again! What are you dreaming about?"

"Huh? What's the matter? I'm not dreaming. I'm sleeping just fine..."

That makes one of us.

I thought when we purchased the Select Comfort bed--now more commonly called the Sleep Number bed--that my problems would be solved. We found our individual numbers, which are so wildly divergent from each other that you'd think it would be like sleeping in two different beds, but NO.

I gave it a good five years before purchasing a mattress topper last week. It's made of what they call Memory Foam, and is about two inches thick. If I'm not mistaken, this is the substance that TempurPedic mattresses are made of. You've seen the ads: A lady jumping on the bed with a full cup of coffee on the other side and not one drop spills. How could I resist?

The Memory Foam's done wonders for my neck and back, which is a good thing. Because after Doug beats me up all night, I need all the therapeutic relief I can get.

And a huge cup of coffee on the side.

Posted by Katy on 01/25/05
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Sheesh. (#204)

So Saturday I got a little testy and nearly broke with my 7-day-long commitment to not nag my husband. I caught myself in time, but just barely.

"If you get lucky," I heard myself say, "this could be the last day of the first week of the rest of your life."

Sometimes even I don't know what I'm talking about.

Posted by Katy on 01/24/05
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Croak City (#205)

"I'm not afraid of dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

Woody Allen

I've lived most of my adult life on the edge of Croak City. I'm here to tell you that while the metropolis itself may be nothing to fear, hanging around on the outskirts can really get to you.

I'm the type of chick who used to regularly land in the ER with drastic symptoms of Toxic Shock Syndrome (hypothermia, non-discernable blood pressure, rash, unconsciousness), back when that was all the rage. (What can I say? I came of age in the '70s.)

I've had my doctor tell me that when he got the call from the hospital to meet the ambulance there, and they described my condition to him, the only thing he could think as he raced down the highway was, "Disaster."

I've watched so many doctors examine my test results before uttering one of the few words a patient really hates to hear--"Interesting"--that it's not even funny anymore.

As my disorders became less dramatically deadly, they increased in number. I embraced fibromyalgia (ouch!) and several undiagnosed bouts of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I've had quite of number of major surgeries, too, the most major--as far as potential for unhappy outcomes--being brain surgery.

Still, I've got to say, I'm happy with the outcome. And not just with the brain surgery, either. I'm happy that even though I really am one day closer to my actual demise with each passing twenty-four hours, I no longer subsist in a crummy shack on the run-down edge of Croak City.

You see, I've spent most of my adult life dying. Until the past five years, when I reclaimed my health, every time I caught up with the laundry I did it so that my husband and kids would have clean underwear for as many days as it took to get them past my funeral. I used to load up my freezer with casseroles and cookies, figuring that if I dropped dead that day, like I fully expected to, they'd thank me later.

For the food, that is. Not for the dropping dead--at least, I hoped not.

I don't cook so far ahead these days. And my laundry's on a long leash, too. I stopped believing that I'm somehow slotted for an early check-out and decided to do everything I should to take care of myself, so that I at least enjoy the possibility of living a long and productive life. Amazingly, with only a few positive steps on my part, the bulk of my health issues resolved.

Like everyone else, I know I can only count on this moment. It's all we've got, any of us. I think I've been through as many near-death experiences (real and imagined) as it took for me to have largely lost my fear of death by now.

But unlike Woody Allen, I definitely want to be there when it happens.

Read the Marginal take on this quote...

(Thanks to Michael O'Connnor for suggesting this quote. Feel free to send your favorites our way.)

Posted by Katy on 01/22/05
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Signs (#206)

It won't be long now. The signs are all falling into place.

I hear him rustling through the cabinets, searching in vain for the one cereal he will still eat, but which I can never remember the name of when I'm at the store. Then he moves on to scrutinize the shelves of the fridge, and he mutters to himself--but also to me, I'm guessing--about how we're out of orange juice and the milk's getting iffy.

There's plenty of stuff to eat in this house--that's not it. And I try--I really do--to remember to pick up his favorites when I'm out. But his tastes are changing, maturing. He's restless when he's here too long with just his dad and me, and it's useless for me to try to prevent or to outsmart the natural order of things.

I wouldn't attempt it if I could.

He's twenty years old. He'll get his own apartment soon. That's as it should be, I think.

So I don't offer to iron his dress clothes for work very often anymore--he needs to take care of his own wardrobe. If he injures himself playing soccer and I'm worried that he's torn a ligament or worse, I don't overreact. Instead, I hear myself say something understated like, "Well, what do you think you should do?" He stares at me blankly for a minute before the lights flicker to life. "Go to the doctor?" he asks.

Now he's in my bathroom foraging for hair products. We're separated by one thin wall and I feel his frustration as he bangs around in the closet.

"It would be nice if we had one can of hair spray that actually worked," he says from the next room.

Growing up is never easy. Pulling away from everything you've known feels wonderful and horrible, all at once.

"Why don't you buy what you want?" I ask.

I cannot bear to withhold a single good thing from this child. But I do, and on purpose. It is time.

"I don't want anything special," he says, banging the can on the counter. "I just want it to actually spray..."

He's given us nothing but joy for twenty years. If I buy the man some awesome hair spray, he just might stay forever.

"Your standards are pretty high," I say. "You should probably buy your own so you'll have what you want."

We both know what's happening here. It was bound to happen; even from the first time I looked into his sparkling eyes, I've known it.

"I just want it to spray..." he says again.

It won't be long now. The signs are all falling into place.

Our baby's leaving home.

Posted by Katy on 01/21/05
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I Can’t Take It Anymore! (#207)

Every four years, on January 20, an American president is inaugurated. The event used to be called an "inauguration," but in the past dozen years or so, the media has taken to referring to it--both orally and in print--as an "inaugural."

Inaugural WHAT, people? Inaugural is an adjective, which must modify a noun. Some possibilities for possible nouns which might be used appropriately with the adjective inaugural are "address," "parade," "oath," and "ball."

Oh, yeah. And also "hurricane lamp."

President Bush was presented with a Lenox crystal hurricane lamp to commemorate the day, etched with a depiction of the White House. The inscription on the crystal was dedicated to George W. Bush, January 20, 2005, on the occasion of his inaugural.

Not that I blame the crystal company, but do you think Lenox would spring for a re-do?

Posted by Katy on 01/20/05
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Why My Palms Sweat When I Watch American Idol (#208)

Last night marked the beginning of my fourth season as a bona fide American Idol addict.

Only on American Idol can you hear contestants say things like, "I just found out I can sing two weeks ago. I've never even practiced this song before. Can you believe it?"

Only on Idol does someone preface her tryout with the words, "God already told me I'm going to be the next American Idol," and then, when she gets turned away by four judges who don't happen to include--or even agree with--the Almighty, she cusses them out on camera.

And where else can you witness a woman gyrate through a teeth-jarring version of "I Feel the Earth Move" before she moves on to dis the opinions of the judges? "They're just WRONG. They don't know me! I WILL make a CD, they'll see. My mother and all my friends say my voice is AMAZING!" Oh, it was amazing, all right.

Then there's the poor girl who actually has a modicum of ability, but who had to hawk her wedding rings to get to the auditions and whose husband is, let's just say, unsupportive. He didn't want her to audition, but since the judges voted to put her through to Hollywood, he guessed he'd go along with it. "It's her dream," he said, none too enthusiastically.

And what about the guy who said he's Toni Braxton's cousin? He put a bit too much faith in heredity, don't you think?

Of all the types who show up at Idol auditions, the ones that shock me most exude a kind of brash, unfounded confidence that has nothing to do with skills and talent, and (evidently) everything to do with somehow believing they're entitled.

For all the parents out there who don't give their children an ounce of encouragement, there must be many more who incite their progeny to believe they can do anything, win any contest, achieve any dream--and all without the slightest bit of training or discipline.

Which brings me to why my palms sweat while viewing this show: It's just that the gazillion-to-one odds these kids face remind me so much of the odds of being happily published. And not only that: I realize more and more with each passing season precisely what's involved in becoming (notice I didn't say "being") a successful contestant.

I've got to wonder if editors and agents, as they meet with wannabe writers at conferences and slog through unsolicited slush piles of unuseable submissions, don't feel a bit like Randy and Paula and Simon must after a long day of harrowing auditions. Because, from what I've observed, wannabe writers often exhibit behaviors just like those of wannabe Idols.

This season, if you want to be published like I do, let's learn a few things from American Idol. Let's work on our craft, enjoy as many good books as we can gets our hands on, get input from peers and mentors, take lessons and follow instructions, and write like we've got something to prove.

Because you know what? Sometimes, even if we've come to expect otherwise, "yes" is exactly what Simon Says.

Posted by Katy on 01/19/05
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Extra! Extra! Update On Life In The No-Nag Zone (#209)

As unbelievable as it seems, this is the beginning of Day Four of what started as a One Day Only Special Commitment to stop nagging my husband.

You people might as well know the truth. It had gotten ugly around here. My poor spouse had become so dependent on my directions that he couldn't remember to shave for an important meeting unless I complained about the whisker burn he gave me with his good-bye kiss.

When a wife's gotten to where she nags while kissing, things have gone too far.

On Sunday morning, when I decided on the spur of the moment that the Sabbath would be also known as Dougie Raymond's Day Off, I figured it would take all the grace God could dispense for me to keep my commitment. He might even have to withhold grace from some other needy sinners just to come up with enough of the commodity to bail me out. OK, bad theology, but suffice it to say, that's how desperate my need felt.

Sunday was as tricky and mine-filled as the first day of a diet--replete with the headache and shakes common to any cold-turkey withdrawal. But I got through it with no major slip-ups. So what did I do? I awakened on Monday morning and pronounced it Day Two.

"How are you doing with this, babe?" I asked. "Should I try it for another day?"

"It's OK," he said. "But it does seem to me that in your effort not to bug me, you're not talking at all..."

He was right about that. If I told you how many times I've slapped my hands over my mouth in mid-nag, and then said something like, "Oh, you know what? I think I just won't say that, after all..." you'd be shocked.

Tuesday, Dougie Raymond's Third Day Off, had its challenges. He had an important meeting to which he went unshaved. By the time he got home, I'd had a few hours to obsess about the list of honey-dos that hadn't had any check marks applied to them for several days.

"I won't ask," I said sweetly, "about whether or not you called Best Buy to clear up that problem on our receipt. And I definitely won't bother you to inquire whether or not you're getting reimbursed for the computer you bought for your mom. I would mention that you missed trash pickup again on Monday, but that might start to sound like nagging."

"Everything's cool with Best Buy," he said. "I called them at noon and we worked it all out. Mom's sending a check for the computer. And Monday was Martin Luther King Day. The trash guys had a holiday."

You know what? If they get a holiday, so does my man. In fact, he gets Dougie Raymond's Fourth Day Off.

As for tomorrow, we'll just have to see. As the Bible says, "Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Posted by Katy on 01/19/05
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Caution! You Are About To Enter A No-Nag Zone! (#210)

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'm not much for New Year's Resolutions.

I tried again this year--against what I know to be true and pervasive about my weak-willed character--to commit to a daily Bible reading schedule. I got twelve chapters into Genesis before falling irrevocably behind the ambitious schedule, which happened by Day Three. It's taken 34 years or so, but I've become a certifiable expert on Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, and the Tower of Babel.

Next year, I've resolved, I'm skipping Genesis (Hey, wouldn't "Skipping Genesis" be a great title for a book?) and starting fresh next January 1 with Exodus and the baby Moses. That way, by the time I die, I might at least have two books under my Bible-Reading-Schedule belt.

In the meantime, I've hit upon an idea which may not cause me to fall into undue consternation about the depth and quality of my Christian dedication: New DAY'S Resolutions. Like a bona fide twelve-step devotee, I'm going the route of "one day at a time, just for today."

So this morning, to my husband's utter amazement and delight, I pronounced today Dougie Raymond's Day Off. For just one day, I committed to my husband that he would enjoy 24 hours without spousal nagging, reminding, correcting, and directing.

It's two in the afternoon now. We've been home from church for a while, and Doug's wandering aimlessly through the house like a sheep without a shepherd. He'll be OK, I think, if he can just hang on for another ten hours...

But what if my commitment to stop nagging should extend itself into the morrow? Can our marriage survive such a dramatic change in dynamics? Or will Doug Raymond shuffle off into the sunset without his wallet, keys, and cell phone?

Any guesses?

Posted by Katy on 01/16/05
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WWJB (#211)

I'm afraid I might have scared people off with my recent post, "Maybe It Takes A Blogosphere."

Doug and I had hit a rough patch in our writing experiment, that's all. We hadn't spoken in civil tones to one another for upwards of thirteen minutes, as often happens with couples who are together 24/7, and the pressure was more than I could take.

So--since I couldn't very well turn to him without being reminded, in eloquent terms, that he was STILL waiting for my completed companion post on Engineering Physics As It Pertains To And Overlaps With Elemental Intelligent Design--I turned to you, my faithful readers.

I hoped that with your combined wisdom, wit, and wackiness, the comments box would be instantly filled with enough brilliant and beautiful quotes to keep Doug and me from breaking several of the Ten Commandments of Blogging.

("Thou Shalt Not Aggregiously And Without Remorse Murder Your Spouse And Blog Partner," "Thou Shalt Not Lie Through Your Teeth About The Character Of An Innocent Human Blogger," and "Thou Shalt Not Covet Another's WAY-More-Excellent-Than-Yours Blog Entry" spring immediately to mind.)

My young college friend Kevin responded to my plea with a much-loved Mother Teresa quote, one we hadn't considered until now and may just use one day soon. (Thanks, Kevin...)

And then Lori arrived on the comments scene. For those of you who haven't read her remarks, please do so now...

I haven't had such a good laugh in a long time, a laugh which emanated from somewhere so deep within my spirit that it managed to ameliorate not only the ill feelings I've had toward my husband, but also my latent fear of breaking one of the aforementioned commands.

Until, that is, I remembered Number One:

"I Am The Lord Thy God. Thou Shalt Have No Other Blogs Before Me."

Posted by Katy on 01/14/05
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It’s Downright Ear-y, Don’t You Think? (#212)

Usually, when I come down with one of those rare disorders/diseases that no one's ever heard of because only one out of 100,000 people in the general population contract it, I end up feeling pretty lonely.

That's the way it was with my brain tumor. Until you heard about me, chances are you'd never known anyone who'd had an acoustic neuroma, which is the name for a benign tumor on the eighth cranial nerve--the one that controls hearing and balance.

Evidently, my exclusive little club has a growing membership which consists of cell phone users who've been holding their phones to their ears for at least ten years. The incidence of acoustic neuroma is four times higher among long-term cell phone users, and the tumors invariably appear on the side of their heads where the phones have been.

I still feel a little left out, though. Not only was my tumor removed five years ago, before we'd had a cell phone for ten whole years, but my tumor was on the right side of my head. I'm definitely left-eared and always have been--but even moreso now that my right ear is deaf.

If only, if only, I'd been able to hold off a few more years. Maybe I could have held the cell up to my right ear a couple of times before calling this man.

Sigh. As usual, timing is everything.

Posted by Katy on 01/12/05
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Words To Die By (#213)

I've always been fascinated by the last words people speak before they die.

The girl who used to babysit my sisters and me when we were kids died at age forty. She and her hubby were eating at TGI Friday's, having a wonderful evening together. In the middle of laughing and carrying on, she stood to her feet and said, "Oh, my head!" before keeling over dead.

There are disputed stories regarding my father's last words. The last words he said to me, before he fell fatally ill, were "My God, you're butt's getting big." My sister Liz was with him within a few hours of his death, when his condition had supposedly rendered him speechless, and she swears he said, "I coming to see you, Patrick." Patrick is my older brother, who died when I was two.

I like Liz's story better! And just for the record, my butt wasn't that big.

Here are a few last words that put a life in context quickly, and leave the listeners with an memorable visual aid, don't you think? What a way to go!

Any famous last words among folks you've known?

Posted by Katy on 01/11/05
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Maybe It Takes A Blogosphere… (#214)

"Not only do I not know what you're trying to say, I don't even know what SUBJECT you're on!"

I hear myself shout the frustrated words in the precise direction of my deer-in-the-headlights husband. It's not the first time I've used this exact line, causing me to have that deja-vu all over again feeling. He, however, looks completely surprised by my outburst, as if he's been thinking I'd somehow been miraculously cured since the last time I said something so...like this.

You may think our silly argument was over our commitment to be companion bloggers, to use a famous quote as a point of departure and then write individually about it--our little experiment on how even happily married couples often don't see things eye-to-eye.

This particular time, you'd be wrong. This time, it was a pesky tax question about which quarter of the year to attribute a 941 payment to, if the check was written in 2005 but the pay period it corresponded with occurred in 2004. I've done this incorrectly enough times in the recent past to know that one false move will bury me in letters from the IRS for the next couple years.

Suffice it to say that on ALL matters pertaining to math and taxes and accounting and bookkeeping, Doug and I have never understood a word the other is saying.

He handled all the family finances for the first ten years, creating an unfortunate quagmire the likes of which I'd never experienced. I've been the CFO for 18 years running, and he just has to trust me when I say I'm doing an adequate job. If we try to sit down with the books and talk about it, we don't get too far. On math-intensive stuff, we don't speak the same language.

The best we can do is designate a driver a decade at a time, and let the other one sleep it off in the financial back seat.

We thought it would be different with a cooperative writing project. We're both pretty good with words, and I'd finally learned to accept his brilliant criticisms and edits of my work. It was easy to imagine us tap-tapping away on our Macs for an hour or two, and then taking a refreshing Starbucks break in the early evening to compare posts.

Rinse, lather, repeat. Sounds simple, huh?

Too simple, as it turns out. To our astonishment, we've learned something new about ourselves, about us as a couple. And that is, "Writing together ain't the picnic it's cracked up to be, baby."

Here's where you come in--at least, we're hoping you do!

One of our chief difficulties has been agreeing on workable quotes. Doug's criteria for a quote is that it be something about which he believes he can write without battling writer's block. He'll choose quotes about physics or theology or principles of good design. I use my veto power to powerfully veto his choices. My choices, on the other hand, tend to revolve around the quote's potential for writing something quirky, off-the-wall, or inspirational--all of which give Doug writer's block.

We're hoping our dear readers (you!) will help us out. Can you send us quotes (either through our blogs' comments or by email) that you'd like to see us both write about? If your quote or Scripture verse is chosen (and after a heated discussion at the Raymond home, it just might be...), you'll be credited with giving us the idea.

It might take more than two of us to make a go of this thing. Please shoot us your ideas!

Incidentally, Michael O'Connor gave us this one, and we think he may be onto something...Thanks, Michael!