Doctor’s Orders

January 7, 2010 at 3:21 pm (Family Life)
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Kate wearing Grandma's Nurse Cap & Cape

It is good to have the ability to take it easy, to relax with a good book in my lap and fall asleep when my body tells me to.

I don’t take this pleasure for granted.  My sister Christi has been fighting a sinus infection (or something) for over a month and has pulled herself up by the bootstrap every morning to soldier herself into work.  My husband regularly does the same thing, and since he has a virtual office, he keeps his germs to himself.

Where I mess up in own health care is that I mostly ignore the doctor’s orders.  I’ve been known not to take my pain pills.  Or to forget to take my anti-biotic.  Or to just say no to most recommended medications.  The worst is that I push myself to resume normal everyday life too quickly.

Maybe it’s an age thing, or perhaps this dental surgery has taken more out of me than one would think, but this time I’m not pushing.  I’m listening to my body and trying to give it what the doctor ordered:  Cold packs every 20 minutes yesterday and today it’s cold and hot packs alternating.  If I’m hungry, I force myself to eat a little something unexciting.  For now, it’s a soft food diet — all cold yesterday — today it’s warm and cold.  If I’m in pain, I’ve taken pain medication.  Although, already I’m weaning myself as I hate the groggy side-effects.

As I was eating my lukewarm lunch a few minutes ago, I was comparing life after surgery to becoming a baby again.  Lots of sleep.  Lots of soft food.  And someone who I call ‘Honey” magically taking care of all of my little jobs to keep my slice of the world going  — the laundry, feeding the dogs and getting supper for himself and Kyle.

Just a little bit ago, my husband checked in to find me in bed.  I had been up earlier.  But at noon, I had gone back to bed.  Rather than making fun, my husband said he was proud of me.  But you’re not going to believe the best part:  With a big smile on his face, he told me that I was beautiful.   Imagine that.  I didn’t know my man had a weakness for that half-puffy jaw and smashed bed hair look.

But then… my husband is scheduled for lasik surgery tomorrow afternoon…

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Epiphany from a Wise Guy

January 6, 2010 at 9:21 pm (Family Life, Spirituality)
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With many others today, I celebrate the Christ child made known to a traveling band of Magi.  It had been a long journey.  They came out of the east guided only by a star, their questions and faith.   The wise men must have felt both joy and relief, for surely they arrived in Bethlehem tired and sore from their travels.

Today I am more tired than sore thanks to the wonders of pain relief medication.  But I too received  gifts from  completing my long-awaited appointment with the dentist’s chair.  No frankincense, myrrh or gold are in hand, but my gifts were precious all the same, since they lightened the heaviness of  a day that I’ve fretted over since this time a year ago.

My dentist would be surprised to find himself the bearer of gifts in my eyes; his quietly spoken quips are just his ordinary dose of levity to keep patient’s distracted from the task at hand.  He may not have thought I’d remember the words to tell the story.  I was, after all, under the effects of nitrous oxide for the better part of an hour.

In my experience, the gas called laughing gas normally tends to make life calm and serene, even when someone is putting all kinds of scary torture devices into my mouth.  But today it actually lived up to its name.  In that happy place, far removed from the fear of leading edge dentistry by one of the city’s best and brightest, I wonder at my daring to call one of my  gifts  epiphany, defined as,

“a sudden, intuitive perception of …or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

In no particular order, I share all my little treasures with you — the  “Quips from my dentist” alongside  (my unspoken thoughts in parenthesis)…

  • “Boy, I’d forgotten how tiny your mouth is.  But I bet YOUR friends don’t find it so small.  (Really, now, how does he expect me to reply to that, especially with a needle in my mouth.)
  • After many, many one-line quips, to which I was in no position to respond with a half-dead tongue, I thought:  (Being a dentist is a great proving ground toward becoming a stand-up comedian)
  • At the critical point where it was  time to install the implant, my dentist thoughtfully said to my tiny mouth, “Now, how am I going to do this?”  (Do I want to hear these words coming out of your mouth right now..?)

Having shared these, I realize none of my gifts may actually be viewed as an epiphany outside that far away land of nitrous oxide.  But today, it’s all I  have — these few moments of levity that brought light into a dark scary place — which made my dentist no ordinary wise guy.

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Twelfth Night

January 5, 2010 at 9:22 pm (Family Life, Prayer)
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“Out of the jaws of death.”  — William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night or What You Will

I am tired, on this last night of the Christmas season.  The week has been busy and I have not slept well the last two nights.

I woke up to names last night.  One in particular, a little boy named Al, who was seriously injured in a car accident yesterday that left his young mother dead.  At the end of  last night’s class I was asked to pray for Al.

I guess I went to bed thinking of Al.  And if it’s possible to pray while one sleeps, maybe I did this.  It would be a first for me to wake up in prayer; usually, it’s the other way around

Yet, once I’m awake, I’m awake.  There’s no turning over and going back.  So no longer sleepy, I lay in bed and pray.  For Al.  For Connie.  For Connie’s mom who is dying.  For others.  For peace.  An hour later, I am at peace.  Sweet blessed sleep.

Daddy was sleeping when my brother Jon and I walked in to Dad’s room this afternoon.  It’s been two weeks since our last visit.  Too bad today was mostly a sleeper.  Even Daddy’s roommate Larry slept through our visit.  I’ve noticed Larry sleeping more these days, every since Larry told me a month ago that he was ready to die.  How does one wake up to a new day when they are ready for death?

Tomorrow I will wake up to dental surgery.  I’m having a dental implant that both dentist and husband assure me is the right thing to do.  Why am I less sure than they?

What I am sure of is that post-surgery, I will be less than my normal cooking self.  So I spent this morning  preparing soft meals for the next few days.  It will be good to have this long dreaded surgery behind me — it will be better to have sore jaw that the angst I feel right now.

I pray to sleep tonight.  And I pray Al to sleep tonight.  And Connie too.  But for Connie’s mother and Larry — for those in the jaws of death — how do I pray for these on this twelfth night of Christmas?  I know.  Just this, Father God: What You Will.

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Praying Peace by Piece

January 4, 2010 at 3:46 pm (Family Life, Prayer, Spirituality)
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I picked up the threads of everyday existence this morning as my husband returned to work after two-weeks off.   My three greatly distressed dogs are off at the groomers, and already, I’ve completed tonight’s reading for class.  There’s no question that the holidays are officially over for every member of our Mesta Park household.

For now, I have this old house all to myself.  No sounds of video games float up the stairs.  No doors are slamming.  No dogs are barking to be let in or out.  All is quiet.  Peaceful.

No so in others parts of the world.  I picked up the morning papers to take in a disturbing piece of news –  a story about two Middle East embassy closings amidst threats of terrorism.  I walked up the stairs to two pieces of  e-mail.  The first was a quickly dashed note from a friend asking for prayer as she keeps a sad vigil by her dying mother’s bedside.

The other came from an e-card vendor, gifting me with  a soothing e-card that played soft music and images of olive tree branches growing and a dove soaring with a piece of olive branch tucked in her beak .  The card read  “Happy New Year.” And in the place reserved for personal greeting, Ann wrote, “Pray for Peace”.

It was the same plea hidden beneath my own Christmas greeting this year, that without fanfare said, “Peace on Earth”; and I believe there were similar pleas buried within the news piece about embassy closings as well as that piece of email from my friend whose mother is dying.  Oh, that we might enjoy peace on earth and goodwill toward all peoples, living and dying.

I do pray.  I pray even when I don’t say I will.  Sometimes it’s better that I pray as I will rather than as I say I will.

There are many situations for which I pray.  I pray not so much because I believe that the people and situations need my prayers as much as to satisfy a mysterious urge within me.  I pray because I must.

I pray with my life mostly.  My prayers take the form of a written note or a new garden or a weeded yard for a neighbor.  Sometimes it’s a home-cooked meal.  Or even a piece posted in this blog.

I hold people and situations close to my heart as I go through the motions of my everyday life.  Sometimes I pray with a few scattered words here and there.  But mostly, I just whisper names.  Or I name the need or the situation.  My prayers are not weighed down with many words.

My piecemeal prayers are a reflection of who I am  –  a person that is not so disciplined, who ponders mostly with her heart instead of her head.  Even my words to my friend Ann this morning were mostly heart pondering, which I call prayer more than correspondence –

“When and how does peace come, I wonder, but through dying.  Not just the death of the grave but the death that comes from dying to the need to control others through power or dying to the need to control riches (like oil)… and all those other human traits that rise up in us that make us so inhumane (to others) that divides the world into pieces.  But pray?  Yes… this I can do… even my piecemeal way of praying can’t hurt.”

With lives tattered and torn, we pray with the thread of imperfect prayers  –  piece by piece.  We ask another to do what we cannot do for ourselves.

Peace.  Sweet Peace.  The weight of this word may bring me to my knees.

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A Simple Affair

January 3, 2010 at 9:34 pm (Family Life)
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“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

It was a good party, small in number but lively in conversation, as seven gathered to celebrate my mother-in-law’s seventy-fifth birthday.

As college football and holiday movie talk got traded around the table, I wondered of the changes witnessed by Janice over the last seventy-five years.  I wondered about her glad times and what she was most proud of.

And looking around our table, I also began to wonder how birthdays were observed in the year she was born.

Janice is a big believer in keeping life simple.  She didn’t want a big fuss made on her account. What she wanted was a simple birthday meal;  and while we honored her request, I imagine a Sunday birthday dinner seventy-five years ago would have been a more elaborate affair.

Certainly, they would have dined using cloth napkins rather than paper; and china rather than Chinet®.  And surely Sunday dress has become more casual in Janice’s lifetime, as at least half of us were wearing faded blue jeans to mark this special occasion.  It made me wonder whether table conversation had also become simpler over time.

I knew I had a book at home that could answer my question.  Published the same year as Janice’s birth, the 1935 edition of The Ethel Cotton Course of Conversation is bulky,  containing twelve lengthy lessons.  Lesson Nine offered the information I was seeking — five rules to observe for conversation at home:

1.  …Discuss topics only of interest to all.

2.  Introduce a subject of special interest to one member of the family and see if you can succeed in getting the others to take part.

3.  Try to discover what each has done of particular interest during the day.

4.  When callers are present, share a joy, not a sorrow, except to ask for advice.

5.  Ask a leading question of each person present to permit [each] to express themselves.

It appears good conversation, seventy-five years ago, was not such a simple affair.

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Memory Keepers

January 2, 2010 at 3:10 pm (Family Life, Spirituality)
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Old Friends and New -- People Come to Life

“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

Today opened up when Jon and I granted ourselves a little breathing room.

Jon needed time to sort through old memories and collect his thoughts; he’s the main speaker for his Alcoholics Anonymous group this evening.  And I wanted time to sort and collect items for a simple birthday party-to-go; we’re making new memories tomorrow, as we gather family at my mother-in-law’s to celebrate her 75th.

Memories are life, are they not?    So I wonder what happens to memories that are lost  — these pieces of life — do they get lost in our minds like a set of lost keys?  Or are memories like keys themselves, in that they unlock truth about our own lives?  And what happens to memories that are never recovered — do we lose important pieces of ourselves?

I lost memories with Mom’s death.  The memories Mom kept of me before I could form my own are dead with Mom.  Gone too are half of the memories we made together.  It is the latter that has proved the more noticeable loss, since I’m now left to carry around half-memories like a sock that’s lost its mate.  Like any lost sock, the half-memory is no longer aired in public.

Personal stories are sacred.  It doesn’t matter whether the story is told in an AA meeting or in a spiritual direction session or in a cozy chat with a friend or in writing memoir — or even a piece of fiction that reads like memoir.  I lose myself in other people’s stories.   And because truth is truth, I also find part of my own story within another’s.

Personal stories need to be told and they need to be heard.  And with a little more breathing room, we could memory keep a whole lot better.

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Sopapilla Cheesecake

January 1, 2010 at 2:07 pm (Cooking, Family Life, House Keeping, Nature, Prayer, Recipes, Spirituality)
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I’m taking it easy on this first day of the new year.

Not so yesterday.  With my husband’s help, I swept the house clean of Christmas, save for three ‘everyday’ nativity sets which reside in our living room.

We dusted, waxed, wiped down counters and cleaned windows.  Then, we vacuumed carpets and mopped wood floors clean of salty residue tracked-in from our recent snow.   Our morning’s work of hard labor left the house smelling as fresh as it looked.  I can’t recall ever beginning a year in such spartan surroundings.

It’s hard to clean amidst Christmas glitter and garland, which in my house typically hangs on through Epiphany.  Yet, the need  for housekeeping is not so apparent when decorations help distract eyes from dust.  Perhaps it’s this way with people too.   Our exterior adornments and ministrations can easily draw focus away from tender care of the soul.

It’s a thought that leads me to pray; and today, this borrowed one will do:  “Create in me a clean heart.” And in this new year, put a new and right spirit within me.  Let me be kinder to myself.  Help me not push myself into a dizzy tizzy.  Let my expressions of love be as simple and right as today’s meal will be.  No New Year’s resolutions these; I will need God’s help to live everyday life simpler.

Unlike New Year’s past, we’ll have no feast today.  Instead, it will be an everyday meal of fried chicken and gravy for three.  I’ve made this meal so many times it’s become a simple undertaking.  No more than thirty minutes, from start to finish, I’ll complete our supper with mashed potatoes and a few vegetables.  Perhaps I’ll reheat a few of Max’s frozen Rocket Rolls — he’ s always glad to share … for a price.

For dessert, we’ll enjoy this simple Sopapilla Cheesecake, which came into our lives through Kara last winter.  The recipe mixes up quick — 10 minutes — and bakes in 30.  It’s good served warm or cold.  I like it for breakfast with a cup of coffee or tea.  For small groups like today, I half the recipe.  For larger gatherings, I make the full recipe.

Somehow the dessert reminds me of snowy days.  Maybe it’s because of the fluffy cream cheese filling.  Or perhaps because I returned Kara’s favor and carried the dessert to her and Joe one snowy afternoon last winter.  Or maybe it’s because the dessert lasts about as long as a Oklahoma snowfall  – there are rarely leftovers for another day.   In the end, the reasons don’t matter much.

What matters today is that a new year of simple pleasures awaits us.  May they be as good as this simple dessert.  From my life to yours.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Preparation Time:  10 to 15 mins.  Bake Time:  30 Mins in 350 oven

2 pkgs Crescent rolls
16 oz. Cream Cheese, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar, divided
1 tsp cinnamon
1 stick butter
1 tsp vanilla

In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

In the bottom of a 9×13 pan, flatten 1 can of rolls, so that they form a continuous crust.

Beat together 1 cup sugar, vanilla and cream cheese.  Spread on top of crescent roll crust.  Unroll the second can of rolls — carefully stretch and shape to form top crust to cover cream cheese filling.  Pour melted butter over this.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Bake for 30 mins in a 350 oven.

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