Twenty Years

If I’d known the 20 years between age 10 and age 30 were going to go by so fast, I would have:

1.  Colored more pictures.

2.  Taken the old mason jar with holes punched into the cover and caught and released more fireflies.

3.  Played more marble games.

4.  Saved my won marbles.

5.  Watched more cloud formations.

6.  Eaten more berries by the handful on a sunny day.

7.  Stolen more rhubarb from gardens.

8.  Skipped rope more with my friends.

9.  Written down my friends names and addresses so we could always be in touch.

10.  I would NEVER have given up chocolate for Lent.

11.  Dated more.

12.  Listened to more music.

13.  Saved ALL of my earned money.

14.  Given my Mom more flowers.

15.  Told my Grandmother I loved her – even though she knew I did.

16.  Kept writing in my Diary.

17.  Travelled more.

18.  Visited more friends.

19.  Been kinder to my brothers and sisters.

20.  Kept on trying to ride a bike – even though the first time resulted in the bike going across the road and over the river bank where it was thrown against the rocks and I was also banged up and bruised.

Fatagoo

My teenaged daughter was reading an article in a magazine and she asked: ‘Mom, what does fatagoo mean?’

‘Fatagoo?  I’ve never heard of it.  How is it spelled?’

This is what she spelled:

‘F  a  t  i  g  u  e.’

Elevator 3

My husband was at the local hospital having a test done.  I waited for him by the gift shop which is directly across from the elevators.

There was a lot of banging, pounding and shouting:  Help!  We’re in here!  The elevator is stuck!  Help!   I saw the electrician walk by.  The pounding and shouting continued.  Then:  Silence.

The elevator door opened.  Two nurses came out.  They had been on their way to the second floor.  One nurse went back into the elevator.  The other nurse shook her head.

‘I’m going to find the stairs,’  she said.  ‘I’m not going in the elevator again.’

And – I told myself – I’m never, ever, going into that elevator.

Elevator 2

While working for a telephone answering service, I received a call at 2 a.m.  The night security guard was trapped inside an elevator.  I asked if he was alright.  He said yes, he had his lunch box with him.  He had food and drink.  But, his concern was, he couldn’t do his night’s work.  He wanted me to phone his boss and tell him why he couldn’t do his work.  He would be okay until the workers arrived at 8 a.m.

I phoned his boss who became very upset and wanted me to contact the electrician right now.  I didn’t have the number for the electrician.  I only received calls from Otis Elevators.  I suggested, this boss phone the electrician himself.

I was thinking:  this elevator could be hundreds of miles away from me.  The security guard must be quite important to this boss.  This guard was experiencing one of my fears – being trapped in an elevator.  Do elevators have oxygen inside of them?

Elevators

While on vacation in Atlantic City, my mother and I used the elevators to go up several floors or down to the lobby.

Not once did the elevator stop in front of us.  It was always the elevator on the far left or the elevator on the far right and we would hurry to catch it.  We called it ‘chasing elevators.’  Those elevators were fast.  We had a plan.  We would push the elevator button, one of us would watch right and the other would watch left.

One night we were joining our friends for a pizza party several floors above us.  Of course, it was the elevator on the far left that stopped.  Mom and I hurried to the elevator.  Inside was a boy about 9 years old.  He was leaning back and had both hands on the railing.  The doors were starting to close.  The boy said:

‘I said, WHOA!  But – WHOA!  doesn’t work.’

The doors closed and up went the elevator.

That Thing

In my hospital room, there was a ‘thing’ that ran the length of the window.  Cool air blew from it.  There were no knobs or controls on ‘that thing.’  It was November and I didn’t see the need for an air conditioner.

When a nurse entered my room, I asked her what ‘that thing’ was.  She said:  ‘it’s an air exchanger.  It moves the air from room to room.  Some people don’t like it because it triggers their allergies.’

As she spoke, I could feel my eyes opening wider.  Moves the air from room to room?  What room is that cool air coming from?  Does the lady 3 doors down have pneumonia?  What about the flesh-eating disease?  What germs are being circulated by ‘that thing?’

If I had a say in how hospitals were run – I’d say this:  Unseal those windows.  Screen those windows.  Every day at 9 a.m., every window on every floor in every hospital is to be open for 15 minutes.  Rain or shine.  Sleet or snow.  Let the fresh, clean air blow all germs far away.

Of course, that night, I had a nightmare.  Huge, purple, hairy germs were filling the room.  Chasing them were green, alien germs with black lights for eyes.

‘What are you doing?  You’re all over the bed!’

I woke up.  the nurse was trying to untangle all my I.V. tubes which were twisted around my left arm.  Charlie (my I.V. machine) was bleeping his alarms.

‘Sorry.’  I mumbled.  ‘Bad dream.’

Invitation

I invite all the people who read this blog to take a stroll over to my website at:

http://moonbeamsandrainbows.net

A Strange Thing

Yesterday, I sliced into a red pepper and saw a strange thing.  Growing inside of the red pepper was a green pepper.  An inch in thickness.  I’ve never see that before and I’ve sliced a lot of peppers.  In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture of it.  A picture I would have posted on this blog.  How did that happen?  Now, I wonder about the green peppers.  On my next trip to the grocery store, I’ll have to buy a green pepper and check for a red pepper growing inside.  Another thing that only I saw.

Hospital 2

I’m in the hospital for tests, so I’m not ill enough to be in bed all the time.  After a few hours in my semi-private room, I feel the walls closing in.  I walk around the cardiac floor.  One nurse said to me, if the hospital had carpets, I’d be wearing a hole in them.

I asked my husband, where did all the nurses 40 years of age and older go?  He said, they probably retired.  Now there are all these young nurses.  They all look like teenagers except their faces are cleanly scrubbed.  I must say here:  the nurses on the cardiac floor are terrific.  They’re compassionate and efficent.  I’ve been very lucky in my hospital stays to always have capable and understanding nurses and most of them have a good sense of humor.

On returning from my walk, a nurse I’ve never seen before is standing in my room.  She looks to be about 15 years of age.  Here’s what she says:

‘I’ve been looking for you but I didn’t know what you looked like – so – I was looking for an I.V. pole.’

I walked over to her and said:  ‘Well, if you had found an I.V. pole, you still wouldn’t know what I looked like.’

I could almost see her wheels turning.  ‘You’re right,’ she agrees.  ‘I wouldn’t know what you looked like.’

And – I’m thinking:  do these things only happen to me?  I mean, on the cardiac floor what do you see except patients (if they’re well enough) pushing I.V. poles or hugging little, red pillows or being supported by a nurse on each side while trying to walk?

The Hospital

I’m in the hospital again.  On the cardiac floor.  I’m outside by the elevators talking to my brother on a cell phone.  I tell him – ‘the cardiac floor is the noisest floor in any hospital.’

He says:  ‘You’d think it’d be the quietest.’

‘No.  There’s always all kinds of noise.  Dropping things, etc.’

‘Wonder why that is?’

‘Maybe they’re trying to kill off the patients.’

I watch as a man pushing a laundry cart and heading South goes past me.  He’s too short to see over the top of the cart and he doesn’t look around either side.  From around the corner, two housekeeping women are pushing a cart loaded with metal buckets filled with water, mops and cleaning supplies.  They make a turn heading North and the laundry cart crashes into them.

What a racket as the metal buckets crash onto the floor.  Water runs everywhere.  The women are busy mopping the water, putting up wet floor signs and cursing the fellow pushing the laundry cart.

‘What was that?’  My brother asks.

I tell him and add, it just proves what I was saying.