Temper Tantrum

 

 

I thought I’d just throw today’s journal right onto my blog, written as though you all were not reading it.

On the news, several teens lost their lives today and over the weekend in car accidents. I found tears in my eyes just hearing about it and did more than thoughts and prayers, but earnestly got on my knees and thanked God for my family and offered heartfelt prayers for those terribly bereaved grief-stricken families who will not see their teens grow up.

Then in a matter of minutes I received a phone call from the surgeon’s office I have an appointment to visit tomorrow for gallstones. The receptionist called just to ask me to bring someone in with me tomorrow because there would be papers to sign. I feel so selfish, turning my thoughts inward when there are so many larger problems in our world. Yet, in my little selfish world as a blind person, I found tears in my eyes again, for all those with disabilities who keep on being asked to do things differently. Since this was just an office visit, not a procedure, this is unacceptable to me. As this was a message left on my machine while I was outside, I immediately called the number right back, and was thankful the office had already closed, causing me to stop before blasting the nurse. Then, I called back to the nurse’s line to leave a message and blasted her anyway. I reminded her that, according to the American Disabilities Act, it is their responsibility to make things accessible for me, not mine to make it easier for them.

Well, guess what? The nurse called me back and apologized. IN our conversation she said that everyone was asked to bring someone with them, whether they had a special need or not. I reminded her that if that was part of their protocol I would have been informed at the time of my appointment, not called back an hour later.

Now, for a funny note:  Has anyone gotten the I phone 6 yet, a rhetorical question. Well, I updated my I pad and turned on the feature that lets Siri speak with no hands. You are supposed to begin by saying “hey, Siri.” With all the electronic talking things I own, Siri keeps answering them.

It is a rainy, gloomy Monday. Just thought I’d let you know … I have them to.

However, it is time to turn my thoughts to God who will surely teach me tolerance one of these days. All I need to do is listen.

 

HOW TO MAKE A SANDWICH WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED

First of all, you must know where all the ingredients and/or condiments are kept. Otherwise, you will have to feel around the pantry and refrigerator, wasting time and becoming hungrier while you do. Let’s make a sliced turkey, tomato, and lettuce sandwich.

Open your pantry door and pick up loaf of bread from shelf where you store it. Place it on the cabinet counter top. Close pantry door, otherwise you will run into a half opened door which could cause a nose bleed, while wasting time, and becoming even more hungry.

Open refrigerator and take out sliced turkey from drawer or from where you have stored it. Take out tomato from its place in fridge, as well as lettuce. Place on counter top next to bread. Go back to fridge and pick up mayo from storage place, probably on refrigerator door. Close door and set mayonnaise on counter top.

Roll off a paper towel from roll and place it on counter top. Open loaf of bread and take out two slices. Lay the slices side by side on the paper towel. Go to cabinet drawer and take out knife. Open mayonnaise and put knife in jar to get enough to spread onto bread slices. Put the bread slice in your hand to keep from spreading mayo all over the sides of the bread down onto your paper towel, making a mess when you pick up your sandwich. Lick (I mean wipe) off any mayonnaise that might have gotten spread onto your hand accidentally. Once you have spread the mayonnaise onto the bread slice, lay it down beside the other slice of bread on the paper towel. You can put some mayo on both slices of bread if you wish. Close mayonnaise jar or you may forget where you placed the lid, thus having to hunt it, wasting more time while you get hungrier.

Open package of sliced turkey and place as many slices as you wish on top of mayonnaise spread. Close package. Wipe off with corner of paper towel and use your mayo knife if you wish to slice the tomato, being sure you slice the tomato away from your fingers. When you have as few slices as you wish, place on top of turkey slices on bread. Find a small sandwich bag and put left-over tomato inside, seal it up and place it next to mayonnaise on counter top. Open lettuce and tear off enough to top off the sandwich. Seal up lettuce head or bag. Now, place the unused slice of bread on top of your lettuce. Remember, bread slices go together in the right way, otherwise your sandwich will feel crooked and  you will not know where to start eating because there is no bread continuity. Take loaf of bread back to pantry, being sure it is sealed tightly. Close pantry door. Put lettuce, left-over tomato, and turkey slices in fridge where you will know how to find them again. Be sure the door closes.

Get a brand new paper towel or a paper plate and place your sandwich on it. Throw away used paper towel, rinse off knife, and place in dish washer. By this time you should be thoroughly hungry, as well as tired if you have never done this before. Carry your sandwich out of the kitchen, sit down and enjoy your lunch. I hope by the time you get settled you won’t remember that you wanted a pickle or something to drink with your meal.

Throwback Thursday from Journal

January 26, 2008

Stream of Consciousness

Somehow feelings that run through me seem so cold once just laid out on paper. I have spent today reading a Jan Carron book and realizing why I have not been writing.  It is because I have not been reading.  It’s easy to cover over those strong feelings inside my heart with life.  It’s even easier not to let myself feel them at all but just bury them in the days that slip through the telling of the heart’s story.  And detail?  Who cares about the tiny incidences inside one day?  How did the cold metal mailbox feel to a hand pulling out the day’s mail?  I open my back door to let Mego (my black lab) run outside.   From a business across the fence in back of me, a 1960’s folk song plays loudly, causing a slight shock-wave as it almost seems to skip right past all my ears into another time.  It was a time when people advised everybody not to have babies because the days ahead were too uncertain, but it was too late.  I remember the unrest of 1968 when Kevin was less than two months from being born and the apartments in back of our own burned to the ground. 

…

Mego runs past me back into the house and I close the door on the music and sit down in my chair to read some more, but I have to stop because my mind is too full of feelings with no words to go with them.

Where are my children?  Christi calls every day.  We’re quite a pair, she and I.  We hug each other through chain mail and phone calls and sometimes for real.  But today my children are off with their own adventures, with their own children and memories and lives, looking forward.  I sit here looking backward, gathering up memories from the past like a bouquet of bright flowers placed on the dining room table inside my thoughts.

My chair is warm and comfortable and I rest my head as I can smell those flowers as if they were five minutes ago.  My chair reminds me of the front seat of our 1955 Pontiac where I sat between Mama and Daddy.  I was twelve years old, much too old to still ride up front like that. 

But the feeling jumps away as quickly as it comes, and I scan my life as quickly as one watching it before their eyes when dying.

Suddenly I see my friends; Laverne’s face young and pretty and Belvia’s blonde hair all beautiful, and it feels like we are hugging each other someplace I have never even been.  It has no walls or shape like in a dream and I hear us laughing.  Then that hug too is gone.

“Where is everybody?”  I think in my half-awake half-asleep place in my chair.  I called Winnie at 9 A.M. but she was already out for the day.  Winnie is my most special friend, but I doubt she knows it.  What is wrong with the words “I love you,” between two hearts on this earth?  Maybe it would make us too vulnerable?  Of course a woman and a man can’t say the words to each other without being thought of as “in love”.  

That reminds me of Mac, my best guy friend.  Like my children, he is off with his wife and his own family.  I’m just his work-spiritual-email-friend who will fade away too once he retires.  I add another flower to my bouquet of memories with his name on it. 

Work has crowded out my ability to feel, to experience, even at times to care as so many experiences crowd themselves around me.   There’s no time to write them down anymore and before I can truly digest one moment it has vanished and I’m reaching backward to pull it back at the same time I reach for the next one to take its place. 

The phone rings but it isn’t Winnie.  Jim needs to know how to turn off Jaws (a screen reader).

I call Nancy, my new violin partner and make a date to play Monday evening.

Then I turn back to the Jan Carron book and let the feelings wash over me and take me away.

Books don’t really do that however, they just reach in and pull out something inside us that has been there all the time … a time we cried, laughed, were afraid, angry, confused, silly, anything. They play with our emotions and drag them from those places in life we tuck away.

 

The phone rings.  My granddaughter Taylor’s cheer leading team was disqualified because they did a stunt that was not supposed to be done in that particular session.

 

Mego’s hair is black and slick.  He won’t sit still and let me pet him on the top of his head but when I’m sad he lays his head in my lap.  I wish I could see his eyes because I know they are full of expression and as close to actually seeing love tangibly as it could ever get.  He hears those “I love you” words more than anybody and I ask God to let him know exactly what they mean. 

So finally we get around to God who covers EVERYTHING.  There is no need to interject every single sentence with His name because He’s the one who provides the space in time for it all.

The phone rings.  It’s Winnie and we will go running errands.  As she walks in the door the phone rings.  It is Margaret.  Again I see my life before my eyes as I hear her voice, but I don’t have time to talk now.

…

Margaret sounds a little sad but we won’t talk about why.  Did she know how much I love her when she left?  She’s really gone now and I believe when she was here Christmas we both came face to face with the truth of it.  Never again will I pick up the phone and thirty minutes later hop in her car for a day of shopping, food, or fun.

 

Dorsey called while I was out and wondered why I had not called her.  I wonder too.  I just settle back into my comfortable chair, turn on my book, and disappear.

January 27

Now it’s past midnight, on Christi’s birthday.  I really hope she likes her gift.  I kiss my beautiful black Labrador’s head and turn down the heat.  The air blows from the vents and touches my face making it feel sunburned.  Jonathan and the pool thoughts splash a smile across my lips. 

Soon I will work eight hours, go to a meeting at church and then celebrate my girl’s 37^th birthday.  In three months it will be Kevin’s. Maybe I’ll write an entry on his 40^th.