Monthly Archives: May 2012

I have SEEN THE LIGHT!!!

My knees have ached horribly since I was a toddler, I think.  I can’t remember when they DIDN’T hurt.  But lately, they have gotten so bad that I have been limping and dreading going up and down stairs, and frankly, feeling about 100 years old.    I finally went into my family Doc, Dr. Amar Duggirala (AMAZING doc…go to him if you if you need a doctor!), and asked him to point me to the nearest ortho-quack.

He knows I have a low tolerance for arrogant surgeons.  Maybe he knows this because his highly developed medical intuition has taught him how to read a patient’s needs.

Or maybe it is because I flat out said, “Don’t send me to a dick.”

It’s ok, he’s used to my frankness.

So he sent me to see Dr. Raffo today.   I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I’ve seen surgeons with good bedside manners, and surgeons with brusque bedside manners, and surgeons who are, in essence, dicks.

Oh, by the way, if you haven’t seen the movie “The Doctor” with William Hurt, drop everything, and go rent it.  Thank you.

So I went to Dr. Raffo.  He walked in, a handsome, clean-cut strongly built man, about my age, who sported a genuine smile, met my eyes, and extended his hand for a real shake (not a dismissive one.)

He checked out my knees, did the X-ray thing, established I have the body of a 90-year-old, gave me two shots of Cortisone and sent me on my way.

But before he did, I told him: “You know what, I like you.  Dr. Duggirala sent me to you because you aren’t a dick.”

He paused.  I let it register.  Then he laughed.

“No one has ever said that to my face before.”

Well, the injections worked for now.  I’m happily able to jog down the basement steps to do the laundry, and I’m nicer to my family because I’m not in agony.

So life is good.

Although, I’m not sure Dr. Raffo will ever forgive Dr. Duggirala for siccing me on him.

My Captain has been working a boat-load of overtime lately in an effort to meet our many bills.  He and I agree it is nobler and wiser to live ahead of the Visa bills than behind them, so we do our best to stay in the black.

That means, though, that he works a lot of extra hours.  For example, in the past 72 hours, he has worked all but 12 of them.

That is brutal.

I am so grateful to him and proud of him.

It’s a double-edged sword, though.  We miss him like the Dickens.

So we decided to take matters into our own hands and take lunch to him today.  To spend time with him. To thank him for working so hard so that mama can stay home with the kids.  And to remind him why he works so hard!

I packed him only the most delicious lunch EVER….Peppered roast beef, onions, swiss cheese, Dijon mustard, cream cheese with chives, and sharp new york cheddar on whole grain bread, added a fresh pear/strawberry/navel orange salad for the side, and finished it off with Black Cherry Greek Yogurt and Granola for desert.

Some people show their love with words.  Some with deeds.  Me, I show it with food.

But you may have already surmised that about me.

ANYWAY, Critter had brought along some of his ‘Can You Find’ books….he and My Captain enjoy solving these together.

They’ve done lots of these kinds of books together over the years.

(I think they are on to the fact that I’m taking pictures of them.)

This new seek and find book was a tough one, though, and we had some of the guys on the shift at station 23 come in to help.  There is nothing more touching than a bunch of grizzled, manly-man firefighters huddled around a 9 year old’s seek-and-find book to try to help him out.

LOVE THESE GUYS.

These are the same guys who would risk their lives in a blazing inferno to save a complete and total stranger.

To them it’s all the same:

Helping.

I got to meet the winners of the Moose naming contest yesterday.  Delightful folks from Poolesville, I was charmed by them immediately.

(Anyone who appreciates a ridiculous 9 foot carved moose is ok in my books.)

It never ceases to amaze me how many nice people there are in this world, and how you really don’t have to go very far to meet them.

Bob and Glenda were kind enough to allow me to take their picture (and Bob even allowed me to post his!).  Look how excited Maxwell is.  If he wasn’t planted in 1000lbs of concrete, I KNOW he would have jumped for joy!

I showed them our Mudpit, My Captain’s ongoing building project, and they raised their eyebrows.   I find it’s better not to delve deeply into the meaning of raised eyebrows, don’t you?  I prefer to assume they mean, “Wow, that’s impressive!”

It may be a life of delusion I lead, but I’m happy in it, thank you very much.

When they left, Bob and Glenda had a batch of Turbo-RumBalls in their hot little hands.  I promised them that if they don’t taste any good, I’ll make them another batch.

They are, after all, as fun to make as they are to eat.

Now then, what should our next contest consist of?  Hmmmm.   Maybe I’ll give away a Porsche or a Vacation for Two at Hershey.  One never knows.

I get so tired of negative nellies who claim this world is going to hell in a handbasket.  I think that is an entirely pessimistic view brought on by a sensationalist media and a societal preoccupation with drama.   And frankly, that is nothing new….I give you the Roman’s penchant for feeding Christians to the lions for crowd entertainment.

The ultimate reality show.

I don’t subscribe to that negative view of life.  It’s not that I’m putting my head in the ground.  It’s that I see more good than bad.  What is that old saying? “Whatever you look for, you’ll find.”

Look for the good and you’ll see how much of it is out there.

A couple of nights ago, we went to McDonald’s after Varmint’s team won a softball game.  When we approached the door, we saw this:

Unchained. Unwatched.

And when we left, a half an hour later, we saw this:

Equally unprotected.  Fearlessly left by its owner as they ate at Mickey D’s.

You see, there is no fear of theft here in our little town of Poolesville.  At least, not much.  We’re not over crowded.  We’re small enough that SOMEONE around here knows you, and will tell your family in a heartbeat when you’ve done something naughty….or nice, for that matter.  What crimes do happen are few and far between, and usually easily solved.

People help their neighbors around here.  You see it all the time.

There is a lot of kindness here.  It’s simpler here.  There are less rules here.  There is less government here.  People are expected to behave…not forced.  It’s America at it’s best.

I can’t imagine raising my kids anywhere else.

I told Varmint and Critter last night that we were – as a family – going to go help out a friend in need by working a bit in her overwhelming garden.  I expected fighting, whining, and possibly altogether mutiny.

I won’t lie to you, I got a couple of ‘Why?’s out of my Critter.  But my varmint shrugged her shoulders and simply said, “ok.”

Then this morning I rounded them up and took them over.  And they didn’t buck.

Much.

Throughout, Critter tried to wrap his brain around why we were doing it, so I attempted to keep his attention while espousing the benefits of living a life of generosity and compassion.  He said that he didn’t question that part of it.  He just wanted to understand why anyone would want a garden in the first place when it’s so much work compared to, say, watching Batman.

I snapped off a stalk of asparagus so fresh the morning dew still dripped from it, and had him taste it.  Then he really couldn’t understand why we were doing it.

Apparently asparagus is not a kid-friendly food.

But, God bless him, he didn’t quit.

He just sat there  – one hands in the weeds, the other in a red cast (Yes, I made my kid weed with a broken arm.  We don’t raise sissies here in Dickerson, Maryland.) shaking his head at the alarming stupidity of adults.

And I think I heard him mumble something about the grocery store, and working smarter, not harder.