Posts

A Third Elephant’s Tale

Image
While waiting to board my recent flight, I sat amazed by the number of passenger classifications who were welcomed onto the plane before me.   By the time they got to calling the Basic Economy group, I got a sense of what the Steerage class must have felt like on the “Titanic”.   “Sapphire Perks Members! Come on down! May we rub special lotion on your dry, back skin?” “Knights of Serbia, enter!” called the flight crew in unison, holding up the heart-sign with their hands. “Emotional support animals?   COME!” “Bueller?” The airline kisses up to its elite customers, thanking them way too many times for flying with them.   I watched a flight attendant divide the entrance way into 2 separate lanes, so that the special passengers could walk down a special path and not co-mingle with a line meant only for substandard customers.   Was the carpet puffier on that side of the room?   I’ll never know. “Who wants to sit on the plane longer than you have to?” I reasoned.  

Bigamists, Bearded Women and Hairy Beasts: Welcome to My Family Tree

Image
I always knew I was different.  Thanks to my brother’s research on Ancestry.com, I know why. Springing from closets, slithering out of old books and pictures, arising from graveyards across the 7 seas, my relatives have been creeping their way into my life. I’m fascinated— and terrified . I can be really clumsy. Could that be a gift I inherited from great-grand pappy “Trips in Front of a Train?” How about my crooked lower incisors? Yarns have been spun about Great Aunt Mill’s oral self-care. So objectionable were her rotten teeth, she pulled them out herself with a pair of pliers. I’ve always had untamable eyebrows. It makes perfect sense now that I’ve met Uncle Canis lupin.  Of course the odd ones stand out. My grandma once told me about her Aunt Amelia who was nervous and fuzzy. Today I would have asked her a LOT of questions, but as a youngster, I just sat mute. I have ever since been hyper-vigilant for signs of either trait. I wonder what they would think of m

Big Girls Don't Pee in Cups

Image
Not well anyway. Ahead of a recent physical a sadistic nurse handed me a teeny--tiny bathroom cup and asked me to fill it to a very high line. The cup laughed at me. If it were a Dixie Riddle Cup, it would have read: “What has 2 legs and a wet hand?” “A big girl getting a urine sample.” Alas, peeing in a tiny vessel is not something I think to practice before the annual performance. Not since my early childhood gym days have I felt as ill-prepared for a physical feat. As I once heard children taunting my feeble attempt to crab-walk, I now feel “nursey” rolling her eyes, daring me, yet expecting me to fail (and to make a mess). Nurses, medical assistants, drug-screen enforcers! Please don’t hand me a chalice so small it disappears in my undercarriage. One so small, I feel like the Friendly Giant holding it in a comically massive hand. So small, that having to blindly assess where the next burst of pee will occur (and capture it) is a big girl’s worst nightmare (followed closely

Men in Wet Shorts

Image
You can get into big trouble trying to diagnose your own ailments on the computer.   As tempting as it is, there is no substitute for a medical degree, a cold stethoscope and a scale that adds 10 lbs.   However, one night recently, I turned to the dark-side and read up on the residual pain from my gall bladder surgery.   Of all the crazy things it could be, the one I settled in on was:   A plugged, spasming bile sphincter. Oddly, this diagnosis soothed me and I went to sleep. Later, the next day, I attended a water aerobics class for the first time in many months.   The two male lifeguards who were on duty that night I knew from years past.   One was a college kid; another man was nearly my age.   They asked how I was doing. “Much better, but I had some complications after my surgery.”   I said.   I should have said, “Fine”, but I felt compelled to give more details.   It’s what old people do. “Oh?   What kind of complications?”   This was an unexpected question .   Men in w

Huey Lewis and 50 Shades of Grey

Image
Last night we attended a “Huey Lewis and the News” concert.   Huey’s still got it: the fantastic voice, the hair, the muscles and the jeans-friendly body.   OK, I'm back. At the entrance to the event was, in contrast to paragraph 1, my first real glimpse of myself as an old woman.   This occurred when we comingled with our fellow concert-goers-- the cast of “Cocoon ”—in line at the door. My daughter and I stood for a short time to have our tickets scanned, not by a tough bouncer searching for pot or explosive devices, but by an elderly woman who wouldn't hurt a fly. In my seat, I lost myself again, youth recaptured, as Huey entered the stage to the heartbeat at the beginning of “Heart of Rock ‘n Roll.”   With the lights out in the darkened theatre, it was a magical night.    Then they played “I Want a New Drug” and flashed the spotlights on the audience.   WHOA!!   50 shades of grey !!   I felt like I was standing in a cotton field.   We looked like the matinee audience

Seven Facts to Blow Your Mind

Image
A blogger friend of mine sent challenged me to write 7 facts about myself.   Opening the door into Heidi’s “Fact safe”…creeeeeaaakkkkk: 1.          I spent a night with Elvis Prestley . O.k, O.k, I was with a stadium full of people in 1973 (I was 8) at one of his last white-jumpsuit shows.  I was not impressed and spent the entire concert with a scarf over my face (the flashbulbs were blinding) and my fingers in my ears.   Thank you.   Thank you very much. 2.          A Hamster helped me get through my divorce in 1991. On one, lonely, miserable night just before my divorce to my then husband was final, I felt especially lonely and uncertain about my decision.     At 4:30 in the morning, I made a list of the Ex’s good and bad points.   Concurrently, our 7-year old, half-dead hamster, Elmer, squeaked his wheel, so I decided to make a pro-con list about HIM and compare it that of the Ex (hey, it was late).   The chart proved that even a smelly rodent who did nothing but sleep and

Equine Therapy: Heidi Gets a Pedicure

Image
Approximately 3 times a year, I treat myself to a pedicure at a nail salon.   Approximately 3 times a year, the nail technicians at the nail salon run to the back room and to do “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to see who gets saddled with my hooves. “I’m here for my “shoeing”,” I joked today to the Vietnamese girl who runs the place.   She doesn’t understand what I’ve said, but she knows my feet.   She announces something to the other employees in her native tongue-- something that sounds like: “Who hasn’t done a horse footed woman, yet?” I see their faces get longer and their eyes open wider and a younger girl is ushered to the front like a virgin about to be tossed in a volcano. She says, “Go pick a color,” trembling. It’s not my fault my feet are nasty…not entirely.   Heredity plays a factor--I got the thick heel skin compliments of my mother, and the petrified toenails from Dad.   I’m also a long way from my feet because I’m tall.   I also have a hard time seeing my feet witho