Life Is Maria's Funeral

Let me tell you about a patient called Maria. Maria's mother was Greek. Maria is Greek. Maria's mother was very superstitious. So is Maria. Maria's mother knew and applied many wives' tales and home remedies to her life. So does Maria. Maria's life is a funeral, and I'm positive that her mother's life was a funeral too.

Today Maria came in for the first time since the Swine Flu has been in circulation. Maria brought her mask with her. Maria is sure that the government knows more about it than they're letting on because they aren't giving us more specifics about the Swine Flu; which symptom manifests first, how long it lasts, or that a temperature of 102.5 is very dangerous for adults. Maria is also sure because Cuba isn't letting anybody travel. Why would they do that unless they knew something? Maria is also sure the government knew before-hand that it was going to happen because her husband is going to give blood for their daughter's blood transfusion and the doctors told him that he couldn't leave the country for the entire year that he was giving blood. I assured Maria that it sounded like a standard precaution. Maria didn't remember ever hearing the doctors telling him that before. Maria warned me that I shouldn't go to the grocery store without using the sanitizing wipes. Maria asked me if we had masks at the office. I told her we didn't, but we had hand sanitizer and lots of Lysol=D But Maria has no sense of humor. Maria remembers when there weren't antibiotics and listed numerous home remedies for numerous symptoms:

For burns - put flour on it.

For bug bites - a paste of baking soda and water.

For bug bites that have already been scratched and irritated - a compress of vinegar

For swelling - a poultice of crushed onions

For a sore throat - a tablespoon of honey, then a shot of whiskey, and there's always tea with lemon and brandy.

Maria's brother got sick once and they gave him a milk bath. She isn't sure what it was for. Maria thinks it was to give him nutrition. (!)

Maria's mother bought a lottery ticket and Maria's sister gave their mother a black cat. Maria's mother was upset because it would bring bad luck in the lottery. Maria's mother won $10,000 in the lottery and said the cat brought good luck.

Maria also thinks that cats suck babies' breath.

So for twenty minutes, three times a week, my life is a Greek tragedy.

Who's There...?

Just something to amuse you...but make sure to plug in your night-light; I don't want to hear about it if you get nightmares!

Good thing I found that delicious chicken salad before I found YOU!

Dancing With The Geriatrics

Today's blog stars Grandpa Frank Nava. Apparently, Grandpa loooooves to watch Dancing With The Stars! Eighty-year-old Grandpa who normally goes to bed around 7 has to stay up until the show starts at 9 and continue staying up until it's over at 10:30. Thanks to Dancing With The Stars I get to have a grandpa that knows who Lil' Kim is. Thanks to Dancing With The Stars I get to have a grandpa that tells us about the various accidental boob-grabs on the show. I have much that I owe to Dancing With The Stars!

Another recent remarkability regards our front door window. This window is a medium for various love notes that I have penned in Crayola Window Markers. I just received a message of my own for the very first time this week!

It's very awesome!

Easter Ick

I had just sat down to publish a blog for my wonderful friend Megan when I was unexpectedly attacked on the buttocks by a very small, very pointy, and very feisty pair of choppers. That's right, Cosmo bit me on the butt! Here is a picture of him looking demurely innocent...

...hmm...nah, it couldn't have been him. Mighta been Sebby...

Speaking of Cosmo, he wanted me to share his Easter eggsperience with you.

Sebby has a wild and crazy preoccupation with Peeps. This guy really lives on the edge peep-wise. Instead of tearing of one peep and slowing consuming it in a state of contemplative tolerance he will pull out an entire row (out of one of many three or four rowed boxes) and take bites out of the whole log. Not my idea of fun. But whatevs. So he's really built up this reputation and is gloriously showered with peeps all easter season and any other season for which peeps can be shaped. Hannah and Miguel are the ringleaders in this sport and gifted him with a large easter basket stocked with several boxes of peeps, peep bubbles, and peeps that light up in such a way that I either want to take them to a rave or wear them in my belly button on the fourth of July. They also gifted us with easter grass. Now, easter grass is not something that I have come into contact with very many times in my life as it is a bane in my mother's. It gets all over the house and keeps showing up until next easter. Despite the skepticism with which I viewed this component of the gift, I decided to live dangerously and allow it to remain in the basket.

I'm bumming in front of the TV, leaving the basket unguarded behind me. Enter Cosmo. I hear rustling...is he after peeps? Does he want me to blow him more peep bubbles? He doesn't have a belly button and he doesn't have a girlfriend so he can't be after the bling peeps...

"COSMO! We don't eat easter grass! Plegh! Spit it out! Come here! No! Yucky! Easter grass is not for cats...Cosmo!"

I succeed in stealing the strands hanging from his chin and shoo him away from the basket. But he won't stay out of it! I kept shooing him away wondering what is so great about easter grass that makes him want to munch on it. I get to wondering so much at his persistence that I dubiously stick a strand in my own mouth...yep, just plastic. It's not the edible kind. I feel stupid.

I tuck all the easter grass underneath the gifts on top so that nary a strand is left to entice my strange feline. A job well done. I return to my episode of FRIENDS. Again with the rustling, again with the baby cat and human mama exchange. This time I tuck every strand into a target back and dispose of it in the trash. AND I watch him. He looks around and sniffs for his lost treat. After determining that I had been thorough this time he looks at me with loving eyes and starts kissing me, and purring, and chirping...but I'm cold. COLD! I leave my TV for Anne of Green Gables in the bedroom. I come out for a glass of water and see him sitting on the floor looking confusedly at a little puddle of ick. He looks at me with his sad sad "I prew up" face. I offer him sympathy, but not without tacking on a matronly adage. "That's why we don't eat easter grass, Bebe Coz."

After cleaning up his sad little mess and getting him a drink of water I went and hunted down the strands of easter grass that had mysteriously appeared under the table.

The moral of the story? Easter grass truly is a bane! That, and you'll feel stupid if you taste inedible easter grass, even if you're home alone.

The Butt-crack of Dawn

So today I went to work, which I do every day except for Saturdays and Sundays. This week, I've had to report for duty at 7:15 am every morning. An ungodly hour. Each morning as I walk up the path and enter the place of work and frustration to the funeral march I ponder the question of

"WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO DRAG A HURTING BODY OUT OF BED AT THE CRACK OF DAWN TO TAKE IT TO A 7 AM PHYSICAL THERAPY APPOINTMENT!!!"

After nearly a year of working in this office I have yet to figure it out. All I know is that it's dreadfully unfair to those of us who didn't make the appointment and were just minding our own business trying to make a decent living. And this is all before facing the ever-enduring fact that I have to work alongside my mother-in-law, again. Every day I think there comes the crisis at which I think I have finally snapped and will submit a hurried and passionate exit from employment. And every day, by some unknown miracle, I go home knowing I'll return to do the dance of death once more.

Tomorrow the dance of death promises to open in full swing. Again, I have to be there at 7:15 to massage a very loud, very old, not unpleasant, but not fun crooked butt-crack of Don. And yes, it really is crooked. It has a very pronounced squiggle in it near the top as if to say,

"I was cruising along, dividing cheeks as usual, when I thought to myself, why be like other cracks? What is with the monotony of all these straight lines? Do we have so little to inspire us that we have been lulled into complacency?"

At this point the butt-crack made a sudden swerve of passionate defiance. However, as he signed his name with a fancy loop towards the end, he realized that the only audience he had available would have to go to acrobatic effort just to see his attempt at revolution. With a sigh he cut his fiery revolt short, and returned to the original path destined for him.

Little did he know that his efforts were indeed noted by one, myself, at the butt-crack of Don.

Sincerely

Here I am for you to see following you. I will follow you as I always have, with the adoring heart of a friend. My adoration for you is found without the bounds of time or distance, and as such, it will always be yours.