A Tale of Two Toilets

     For years the toilet in our master bath had a crack in it.  Because the crack was superficial, we didn't bother to replace it. Frankly, a toilet with a crack on it seemed only fitting.  But when we needed to replace the flush pump for the second time in a couple years, we decided to dump that idea and aspire to a new throne. Aside from the tiny toilets you see near a school's kindergarten class, I have always thought of toilets as a one-size-fits-all item, like Snuggis, only way more useful.  But good fortune smiled upon our cracked potty when I found a Costco coupon for a small tank, dual flush, tall toilet.  I wasn't sure about the other features, but I realized a tall toilet might help counteract the increasing gravity that has accompanied my increasing age.
     Where is Al Gore when you need him?  No one is sounding the alarm about the global gravity crisis.  I have no hard data, (but neither did Al Gore) and I have noticed an alarming increase in gravity the closer I get to the floor. It gets worse every year, yet the U.N. does nothing, but then, that's what they are there for. But there is something I can do, I can buy a tall toilet.  In our miniature, master bathroom, now the only victim of the gravity vortex is the soap.
     One problem solved, another created. I cannot seem to reprogram my knees to adjust to toilets of different heights.  At first, I found myself landing abruptly on the tall toilet. Now, having gotten used to it, I keep landing abruptly, shall we say, short of the runway on the normal sized toilet in our main bathroom.  I did not realize until now that part of the fearful and wonderful way our bodies are made includes toilet- tailored sitting.  This is a minor inconvenience compared to serious matters like the gravity crisis, but still a tall tail tale worth telling--at least here, where the expectations are low.

Eternity in Our Hearts

     Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "He (God) has set eternity in the hearts of men."  I understood that verse in the sense that I cannot imagine my own extinction. I cannot conceive of not existing.  I also think of that verse every time I stand at a graveside saying goodbye. An innate sense of right and wrong tells me we are not meant for this, we were not created for goodbyes.  But I heard a message from Ecclesiastes last week that stressed another side of having eternity in our hearts, the knowledge that, no matter how much we achieve here on earth, death will claim all. Wealth, fame, accomplishments, all will be left behind. The king carries no more beyond the grave than the pauper.  Eternity can be a bitter weight to carry in our hearts.
     Eternity is only a comfort to those who know where they will be and who they will be with. It is like the aroma of Christ in 2 Cor. 2:15, 16--to the saved, it is the fragrance of life, to the unsaved, the stench of death.  It is our nature to both long for, and fear, eternity, for only eternal life can give this earthly life significance. It is God's nature to use both the fear and longing to drive us to him. In the heart he transplants into his children, eternity fits perfectly.

Clutching Crutches

     Until yesterday I had not used crutches for 31 years. At age 24 I had surgery to correct a kneecap that had been dislocating since I injured it playing in a sawdust pit at age 9. I was not very good with crutches back when I was younger, stronger and more coordinated. Having grown older, weaker and fatter has not improved the situation. Fortunately, I did not need to use them for long thanks to my bff Cortisone. Within a few hours my knee went from pain from any movement to able to bear weight. Now I only need a crutch for walking longer distances, like out to our mailbox, and I only use one crutch. Even I can't be too big a clutz using one crutch.
     The culmination of the crutch crisis was another of those odd answers to prayer I have blogged about.  Having a stiff, painful knee is nothing new for me, what was new is that the problem was my right aka "good" knee.  I have always counted on "Righty" to make up for "Lefty" and I suppose it felt taken for granted, so about a week ago, Righty got sore.  But not too sore.  I have had two cortisone shots in my left knee because it not only got sore, but unbending.  Bending is a handy thing for a knee to do.  It is practically their entire job description. Righty was painful but still bending fairly well so I couldn't decide whether or not to have it shot.  Then, like an idiot, I prayed about it. The answer came quickly.  Wednesday morning I gimped out to get the newspaper and around the house as usual but when I sat down at the table my right knee hurt like crazy.  I decided to have it shot after I was finished taking blood pressures at Sykes.  Halfway through my two hour shift I hobbled back to the rest room. The trip back to the pharmacy took the remaining hour.  Not really, but I realized partway back that Righty had about had it for the day and I wasn't sure I could make it back without her.
     I knew I could have asked someone to help, but the number one unspoken rule when I was growing up was--Don't draw attention to yourself. If I ever have a heart attack, I will probably text 911 so they can get back to me at their leisure. It is very hard not to draw attention when the place wounded knee decides to make its last stand is in the middle of a restaurant. I got back to my chair in the pharmacy, but by the shock waves I was experiencing, I knew I would not be able to walk out of there. I could have asked the pharmacists to help me into my car but, even if I could have driven, I still wouldn't have a way into orthopedic urgent care.  So I called Reed to pick me up after my shift--literally.
     Another odd God thing is that the doctor I have been waiting two months to see about a knee replacement for Lefty, happened to have an opening between patients and decided to help out the urgent care.  He gave me a cortisone shot, recommended crutches, and told me not to run any marathons.  What luck, I didn't happen to be scheduled for any.  For my birthday Monday, I'm getting an MRI--and I hadn't even asked for one.  If my miniscus is torn, I will need arthroscopic surgery.  I should use that time as crutch practice for my upcoming knee replacement when Clutzy Connie clutches crutches again.

Mortitas--Little Dead Things

   
    The famous philosopher Descartes said "I think, therefore, I am", although he said it in French so it sounded classier.  My philosophy is simpler, "I have cats, therefore, I have little dead things".  That might sound better in French, but I only know Spanish, and I think little dead things would be translated "mortitas".  These mortitas are usually left on the front doormat so we can appreciate them the minute we step outside in the morning. That is why I walk outside gingerly as if our front deck was a mine field. Sometimes there are whole mice on the mat, sometimes just livers, which means either they saved the best part for us or that cats don't like liver.  Thanks to the water feature we added to the front yard, our doormat has been added to the frequent feather program. I was never willing to put up a bird feeder because we had cats, but I didn't realize our little waterfall would be one of the top 10 sparrow spas. We might as well have installed a kitty McDonalds in the front yard.  For something so aerodynamic, wings and feathers don't rise from the doormat very well, even with vigorous sweeping, so the evidence of disassembled birds is there for all visitors to enjoy.
     Maynard is exceptionally proud of his hunting ability and meows loudly until someone comes out to congratulate him, which I do--sometimes, through clenched teeth.  It is occasionally unsettling to realize we share our home with creatures who take such delight in killing. I could eliminate the mortitas problem by not letting them outside, and I am aware that indoor cats live longer, but I would rather have them live shorter lives doing what cats are meant to do than long lives stuck in the house. . .wanting to kill something.

Crossing Guard

    I have worked as a home health aide since '98. That means I have probably been instructed about boundary issues 98 times.  Fortunately, in this context, it has nothing to do with the Rio Grande, and more to do with real ordinary.  Boundaries in home health care means not blurring the lines between profession and friendship.  It is wonderful to be able to assist people in the comfort of their home, the problem is the comfort of their home.  With no institutional formality, no supervisor looking over your shoulder and, sometimes, years spent with the same client, it is natural to become close. (I refuse to use the current buzzword for client--"consumer". It makes us sound like food.)  In fact, if I were a client, any caregiver who could work for me several hours a day, year after year and never discuss anything personal would give me the creeps. Clients need company as much as competence. Boundaries do not mean there is no friendship between client and caregiver, boundaries mean you function in their home as a professional, not a friend.
     I have worked the same days with the same client for years. In that time I have seen aides for the other days come and go.  Some of them have taken her laundry home to do on their own time, loaned money, borrowed everything but money (she doesn't have any), brought family members--including dogs to her home, eaten her food or taken her out to eat on a daily basis, invited her to holiday dinners, etc. The problem is not so much that it makes us boundary crossing guard caregivers look uncaring, but that eventually those aides wind up sitting on the couch watching movies. They have slipped into friendship mode. Eventually, they have to be replaced. I have many boundary violations of my own. My client has had my cell number for years, but I gave her a "special" ringtone so I can screen her calls. Every light bulb, dish sponge and razor she has used in the past 6 years have come from my house, yet somehow I have managed to keep our relationship professional enough to have had years to enjoy it. When you value your "home work", sometimes the best defense is the fence.

The Not-So-Great Smoky Mountains

    Twice in the past week I have explained to people new to Montana, or new to being alive, that summers filled with forest fire smoke are a relatively new tradition here. I grew up in Missoula, whose name means--a bowl-shaped valley especially well suited for trapping fumes.  My childhood memories smell like the pulp mill or smoke from the garbage burning barrel, back in the days when recycling was done with a match.  When I was a child, Smoky Bear was still alive and fire was considered bad because it destroyed things.  Logging was deemed good because it provided lumber to build things. In mathematical terms:  destroy = bad, build = good.  Although we understood that fires return nourishing nitrogen to the soil, we felt that returning good lumber and animals to the soil was too high a price to pay for plant food.
    Now logging is considered bad and fire is considered good--unless it it man caused fire, that is still bad. (I don't think the trees recognize the difference, but the people who hug them do.)  It is this Smoky Bear-eness and abundance of fuel in unlogged forests that produce the combustible cocktail we are forced to drink every August. This summer, we are even importing smoke from Idaho. Environmentalists consider forest fires a natural process that replenishes the soil and should not be interfered with, but breathing is also a natural process that forest fires interfere with and I'm afraid some of the soil replenishment will be the bodies of those with respiratory trouble.
     But underlogged, overhugged forests and Smoky's demise are only part of the reason for the cyclical, summer, sun siesta; turf wars among the fire fighting agencies also contribute to the Molotov meltdown.  We know of several instances where fires have been reported by pilots while they were still small and manageable but, by the time the various bureaus had finished marking their territory, the fire was a roaring conflagration.  I know that the swing of the pendulum that took us from the "spit on fireflies" fire fear of my youth to the "laissez faire" (let it be) trend of today, will someday reach a sensible synthesis. Yes, home builders should realize that their cabin/mansion in the woods will burn like a campfire/marshmallow, and that fire fighters can't save the behinds of those who chose to leave cities behind.  But it is not unreasonable for smoke soaked states to be able to breathe in the summer.  Someday I will tell my grandchildren, or anyone else who will listen, about the idiotic fire noncontrol of this time--that is, if I have enough breath to do so.
    

Environmentalwist

     Sometimes I wish I was an environmentalist because:

1. The smoke from "natural" sources like forest fires would not make my throat and head ache. I would only be bothered by man made emissions but, as a friend pointed out, that would be most of the time.
2. I could drive an electric car without worrying about the huge carbon footprint of producing the battery or the fact that, in an accident, it might electrocute the emergency responders and/or negate the term-- survivors.
3. I would be willing to pay more "green" for less efficient green energy sources, as if electricity was produced by rubbing fairy wings together and hydrogen is sucked from the atmosphere through a magic straw.
4. I could use lawsuits to destroy the economies of logging communities and still sleep soundly at night in the house logging provided for me.
5. I could jet to conferences all over the world to read mounds of papers on global warming and not recognize the irony.
6. I could protect fish from the erosion produced by logging so they can choke to death from the erosion produced by fires.
7. I could restore balance to the ecosystem by introducing an unlimited amount of predators.
8. I could protect animals from the cruelty of hunting so they can be eaten by the above or die of starvation.
9. I could work to designate more wilderness areas so fewer people will have more places not to enjoy.
10. I would be too busy supporting environmental causes to have to support my fellow man, which is okay because humans are the only species I would consider intruders in earth's ecosystem.