Becoming a New Sleeping Woman

I've been feeling as if I've been dragged behind a '73 Pinto with a bad exhaust system over gravel roads every night.  So I went to see Dougie and I told him it was hypothyroidism.  Sure, he's a doctor but I looked it up online. And besides I attended Sister Mary Imabitch's Institution for Emotionally Unstable Nursing Students less than a million years ago.

But that Dougie, he's wise beyond his years. "Do you snore?" he asked.
"Evidently about three husbands worth," I replied.
 He sent me to have a sleep study even though I told him I sleep all the time.  I even fell asleep on the toilet at work. Twice. Not good, really. Sleep study.  How tough can that be?  You go to the hospital and let them watch you while you sleep.  Piece of cake, right? 

So I arrived at the appointed hour and two people stuck 573 electrodes on my head and body.  The ones in my hair were adhered with a combination of Super Glue and Vaseline, and evidently my skin was too smooth so they had to rough it up with a wood rasp before rubbing it with alcohol in order to get the electrodes to stick to my legs, arms and chest.  Then they attached sensors around my eyes and under my nose and basically any place they could find to attach sensors.  Then they pointed out the camera that they'd be watching me with all night.  Then they said, "Goodnight. Sleep well."

One gets really tired being dragged around by a toxin belching Ford night after night, so I went to sleep in spite of all that, until I heard a very loud, deep voice coming from the air above me.

"Miss Campbell."

I immediately came to a sitting position, wires and all. "You can call me Fay, God."

"Miss Campbell, sleep on your back."

I think I usually begin the night on my side, but hey when God tells you to sleep on your back, whatcha gonna do?  I rolled over.  By my reckoning it was about every two seconds that this repeated. Eventually I heard, "Miss Campbell!"  God sounded a bit angry and I wasn't all that happy with him, either.  "Sleep on your back.  You stop breathing when you sleep on your back."

Say what? I thought you wanted me to breathe.  I began to suspect this wasn't God at all.  I rolled over.  Two seconds later. . . "Miss Campbell!  Damnit all anyway, I told you to sleep on your flipping back, now roll over before I come in there and start ripping those electrodes outta your hair!"

That last bit may not be an exact quote, but it had the same tone and intent.  I rolled over.  Again.

The result of the test was that I roused an average of 18.8 times per hour.  Well, duh.  Also I stopped breathing 124 times that night, but honestly, when God starts shouting you awake, I think it's a natural response. The average time of not breathing was 16 seconds and the longest was 47 seconds.  Excuse me?  I can't hold my breath for 47 seconds.  I tried after I read the report.  Couldn't I get some drain bamage from not breathing all those seconds?  Why didn't the technicians or God or whoever rush in and give me some oxygen or something?  

But the good news is, now I get to wear a Darth Vadar type mask at night now.  The mask is attached to a hose which is attached to a pump that forces air into my mouth and nose.  It also has a humidifier so my dainty little mucous membranes don't dry out.  I mean, we wouldn't want this to be uncomfortable.  There is a setting which will cause the pressure to sneak up on me over 20 minutes.  The machine goes from 2 to 16 and evidently I need 16 to make sure I breathe.  This is sort of like sticking the hose you use to fill your flat tires into your mouth and breathing naturally.  There is a learning curve.  And the coolest part is there is a little computer chip that allows my doctor and the insurance company (which actually runs the world) to know when I go to bed, how many times I get up to pee, how often I stop breathing, etc.  How comforting is that! 

But the very best news is that my pulmonologist told me I'd be a new woman once I started using this machine regularly.  She didn't say who. So I told Dougie, who is a genius, a miracle worker, and a really cool guy no matter what his wife says, that I wanted to be a 30 year old, happy, healthy, slim woman with long heavy black hair, green eyes, and the IQ I actually had when I was 30.  He said he'd see what he can do.  I'm psyched!

Happy Birthday Fiddy-Six

I'm fixin' to be fiddy-six.  Now, isn't that just a good enough age to be?  My hair is getting more and more silver, which is a beautiful color for hair.  I am free of trends and fashions.  I am comfortable in my thinning skin.  I laugh at myself. Sure I can speak my mind, but I can also speak my heart without embarrassment or fear.

I'm not crazy about the aches and pains and I'm certain  that I used to be smarter.  But I'm also certain I'm wiser now.  And at the end of the day, I reckon wisdom trumps smarts. 

I don't really understand the obsession our culture has with sustaining youth.  Just glance at those magazines in the checkout line.  Everyone of them promises the secret to feeling and looking younger.  Why is that?  At what age do we stop wishing to be a bit older and start wishing to be a bit younger?  I guess it must be around 27 for most people.  I think that's such a waste.  I'm so much cooler than I was at 27.

Why don't we just embrace the age we are now?  Right now, I'm older than I've ever been before and I'm really ok with that.  If I get smashed to death by a falling oak tree tomorrow, that would be ok with me, but I'd be a bit disappointed that I have so much more to do. My bucket list grows faster than my to-read list.   

There are a few pearls of wisdom I've collected from the great philosophers of the ages over my years.

• Life is short, but it's wide
• You can't always get what you want
• Obla di, obla da life goes on
• To everything there is a season and time to every purpose under heaven
• What you think about me is really none of my business
• Everything is holy now
• Sometimes you just gotta
• Listen
• Love and knowledge are never wasted
• Things will own you if you let them
• There's a big problem with perfection

I'm sure there are more, but you know, I don't remember things like I used to.  I think it's because I'm taking up valuable memory space with gems such as the exact words used to break my heart every single time it's been broken.  That's a lot of times.  Lucky for me that thing heals.  And how boring would life be if you didn't have your heart broken by cruel middle school kids or a forgotten anniversary or the death of a friend or loving someone who didn't love you back?  My bridge master told me that if I didn't go set a third of the time, I wasn't bidding bravely enough. 

Be fearless!  You get better at screwing up the  more you practice. 

In the seconds before that big oak tree falls on me if I have any regrets, I hope to honk they are for things I've done and not for things I haven't tried.

From Tiny Acorns

The Cutest Acorn in the Garden

There is a connection between the falling of the great White Oak in my front yard and the month-early birth of my grandson. It’s a connection one feels with that other sense – the sense that bypasses the thinking brain and goes straight to the soul. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, I am sorry for you.


The oak tree is well over a hundred years old. One of six in my front yard. This one was closest to the house. My husband’s new car was parked in the driveway when the storm came. He and Blanche, our dog, were in the opposite side of the house. The tree broke off about three feet below ground and fell exactly where it would do the least amount of damage. It just clipped the corner of the garage with its grand trunk. A large limb lay across the hood of the car but it didn’t actually hit the car. When the car was moved, the limb remained in place. There wasn’t so much as a scratch in the car’s paint. It was all over and the wind was calm when I got home from work.

The tree easily could have cut our little house in two. It could have taken some other trees with it. It could have killed my family. It could have uprooted and torn up the driveway and the shade garden. It could have landed on our neighbor’s house. It could have. But it didn’t. It was the noble dying gesture of a very kind, great tree whom I loved and who loved me. No one can convince me otherwise.

My grandson was born in a different sort of storm. His mother, my daughter, is the strongest and bravest person I know. If I ever grow up, I hope to be like her. She jumped through hoops to maintain her fertility. Two years of Lupron without complaint. And her pregnancy was no bed of roses, though I didn’t know that until the very end.

She was in and out of the hospital a few times in the days before the baby was born. I kept getting long distance updates from my calm-sounding son-in-law. Back pain, inducing labor. . .then kidneys not working, fast fever. Plane tickets! Labor went nowhere so they broke her water and there was lots of blood. My baby couldn’t breathe and she saw stars. Within minutes she delivered not only my grandbaby, but an appendix that was headed south. I was headed north to Chicago.

By the time I got there, they were both out of intensive care. The storm had passed. But like the storm that took the tree, this one left more to do. My daughter will require more tests and treatment. But after a week in hospital they are home.

Collin Joseph, my perfect grandson was 7 pounds, 10 ounces at birth. We’re all relieved he didn’t go full term in that respect. He has taken to eating like a pro. He belches and farts and makes funny faces. He’s a champion pee-er and pooper! What a boy!

And it’s so much fun watching my perfect daughter and son-in-law enjoy him so much. My daughter is eight years older than I was when I had her and eight years more ready to be a mother. She’s calm and so very happy and grateful.

I found seedlings growing near the tree. They will be nurtured and grow strong long after I’m gone. The big tree has been cut into pieces that will all be used. I have several two foot trunk pieces to use as stools. Longer pieces of limbs will be used to make raised garden beds. Some will be firewood to warm the house during South Carolina’s two weeks of winter. I have a friend who does lathe work and a brother who can carve wood. Maybe some branches will be used for furniture. I will always have a piece of that tree. And so will Collin.

Please (pleadings from the nearly overwhelmed)

A meteor came within 7,500 miles of the Atlantic Ocean today. It takes way more frequent flier miles than that to get anywhere for free. I think I felt the whoosh mess up my hair.

But I know!. . . . Let's close down the space shuttle program.  A damn waste of money if you ask me.  I mean, we could be buying lots and and lots of bombs for the cost of one space mission.  And Lord knows it's more fun to blow up our neighbors than to save the Earth from a cosmic collision that could easily reduce all of us to the equivalent of dinosaur bones in some future-world museum.

Seriously, I'm pulling out my hair here!  Bump, my grandbaby, is about to make his grand entrance and I'm afraid he may be getting here late.  We need his brilliance to help us out of this mess, but give the boy a break.  He isn't even 0 years old  yet!

A big tree from my front yard gave it's life falling in exactly the only space it possibly could have landed in order to do the least amount of damage.  It clipped the corner of our garage.  Some damage there.  But it also landed on my husband's new car.  However, when he moved his car the tree held the limb up so that the car was only actually hit by leaves.  No damage.  A very kind tree's dieing gestured.  I loved that tree.

(By the way, those commercials where the insurance adjuster is there holding your hand while the storm is still blowing . . . . yeah, well in our case that was a whole lot of blowing!  We finally got a voice mail saying, "Your agent will be in the office on Monday morning."  Yeah, well the tree fell Friday afternoon.  Thanks.  I don't feel your good hands at all.  But that's another blog.)

So evidently the insurance God says we can hire someone to cut up the tree, but that person can only schlepp the tree to the dump.  He can't sell it to people who need it to heat their homes this winter.  And the tree cutter guy as  sure as heck fire isn't going to give it away. This is immoral.  Why do the insurance companies care?  Can you convince me that they are making so little money that they have to control things like that?  If I could split wood, I'd do it myself and give it away.

The problem with this culture is that it's totally insane.  We've been so conditioned to believe that politicians doing business by making deals is the way it must be done. The common citizen is just too stupid to understand politics.  We've been led to believe that making money makes the world go round.  That there is NOTHING that money can't solve.

Well excuse me and kiss my plump white derriere, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee picked by peasants in some far-off country you don't have to think about.  Just try to remember what you learned in Sunday school.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

It's not all that complicated.  When it comes to greed, just stop.  Let all of us who have some glimmer of morality left in us, all stop at once.  I'll have the tree-cutting guy cut up the grand tree and leave  it here.  I'll find something to do with it, even if it is to let it become homes for the little beings in the back yard.

Let's all go out on the limb (pardon that obvious pun) together.  Let's just have some increasingly uncommon common sense.  Let's don't waste.  Let's don't buy plastic bottles of water when we could just filter water and save a gazillion plastic bottles.  Let's all grow as much of our own food as possible.  Why should the average American meal travel 1,500 miles to get to our table when much of the world would love to have just our leftovers? 

Until we can switch to non-fossil fueled cars, let's all fill our tires to the pressure they are supposed to be filled and avoid jack rabbit starts.  Maybe car pool or take the bus or the train. 

Let's turn that thermostat to 76 or higher in the summer and 70 or lower in the winter.  Let's insulate.  Let's all water our gardens, if not flush our toilets, with water from rainbarrels.  Let's just stop acting crazy.

Please. I'm sincerely asking you, please.

Something to Offend Everyone

Yay!  It's show and tell time in America's politics.  Between the debating and the sexting, I'm not sure which disgusts me more.  I just have a few questions. 

First of all, if you dump a man in an eight year old pile of manure and he digs out of four years worth in  three years, how can you blame him for not getting rid of the whole pile? Is it possible to campaign without focusing on trashing ones opponent?

How will deepening the chasm between the haves and have-nots improve America?  Will decreasing taxes for the wealthy really create jobs?  How does that work again?  And what about making sure that only the haves get health care?  Just exactly how does that keep America great?  And what about the commercials that talk about how increasing taxes on fossil fuel will just devastate the economy?  Huh?

And guess what?  I have some answers.

It seems to me that anything that pushes us to use sustainable energy is a good idea.  Let's give companies that create clean, renewable energy a tax break.  Let's stop pretending that blowing the tops off mountains for coal and forcing chemicals into the planet to squeeze out some natural gas are good ideas.  Any second grader can tell you that they're horrible ideas.

A country full of healthy people is always stronger than a country two-thirds full of healthy people.  That's just common sense.  So let's make health care for everyone a priority. 

And instead of pretending that we are the world's police force and that we know best how other cultures should run their countries, why don't we bring our well-trained military home and put them to work here.  We've got plenty for them to do.  Our bridges are falling down.  Our roads, electricity grid, and sewage systems need lots of fixing. We have hurricanes, we have tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes.  We could send some Navy Seals into crime-ridden urban neighborhoods and get rid of gangs that poison lives.  Put some U.S. Army drill sergeants in charge of physical education in our public schools and we'd not have to worry about childhood obesity. 

The way I see it, if we stopped spending gazillions of dollars and the lives of our troops on blowing up countries and then paying to rebuild them, we could just have our troops rebuild our country.  It would be much less dangerous for them and much less expensive.  We could still have the best military defense in the world without having the biggest, most costly offense in the world. 

If we want to save money on Social Security, let's start by finding the people who get disability income who actually just don't know how or don't want to work.  There's another job for our military.  Let them investigate that.  I don't think someone should get their "gubment check" just cause their daddy  did.  Those scammers make me especially crazy when I learn of someone who really can't work, but can't seem to get disability income.

And why pay to jail non-violent criminals?  Whom does it help when we put deadbeat dads in jail?  Make the suckers work!  They should be picking up garbage and recycling or patching pot holes or detassling seed corn with the money going to their children and paying their way, while they live in dorms that need few guards.

Speaking of non-violent criminals, have you ever thought that the only reason organized crime is into drugs is because drugs are criminal?  If we spent money on detox and treatment instead of prison, I think our money would be better spent.  Let's save incarceration for the really nasty people.  God knows there are enough of them.  Of course if they burglarize or mug to buy drugs, then they are nasty criminals who need to be incarcerated.

And while we're on the topic of drugs, I'm subject to random drug tests at work.  That makes sense to me.  I think everyone should be.  Including people who collect any sort of income that comes from tax dollars.  If you are spending your disability or SSI check (aka my tax dollars) on drugs, I think your check should be immediately stopped.  Talk about savings!

The way it is now, if someone has been in prison for 10 years or more, they are probably broken when they are released regardless of what they were incarcerated for.  If we worried less about making the experience miserable and more about kicking their behinds to learn how to live on the outside, perhaps we'd have fewer offenders.  That would save a bundle and leave room in the nasty prisons for people who are truly wicked.

I think our government has a lot to do.  Why on earth do they waste time on worrying about who marries whom or someone smoking an occasional joint or even the sexual escapades of politicians?  If my plumber does a good job on Monday and leaves my house better than it was, I'll happily pay her and hire her again when I  need her, even if she if she gets stupid and smokes pot and sexts strangers on Saturday.  But these days finding a good, honest plumber or politician is getting more rare than hen's teeth.

Cider

A recent trip to England led me to write this socio-culturally significant piece.


Cider

Oh, pour me another pint of cider
Sweet elixer of the tree
God knows there's nothing wrong with apples
And cider's very good for me.

Oh, pour me another pint of cider
Shining, warming liquid gold
Happy, hardy rounds of laughter
Ring with every story told.

Oh, pour me another pint of cider
Wholesome sunshine in a glass
Don't dare say I've had too many
Until I fall down on my ass.
An

Cider, tea, and communion wine

I recently returned from a trip of a lifetime to England.  I didn't hang out in London at all.  Instead I spent nine days inspecting very rural southwestern England.  The real England I'd like to think.

I experienced places of worship from pre-Druid through new Druid.  I lit candles in some incredible cathedrals, wandered around 900 year old country churches, marveled at Stonehenge and Avebury Circle, meditated at the Temple of the Goddess, and read some Gospel at John Wesley's pulpit. And though technically not places of worship, I experienced more than a couple of tea rooms and a pub or two.  And while you probably think those places didn't have much in common, I reckon they really do.

People like to congregate.  The ancient Druids liked getting together at the huge, wondrous stone circles at certain times of the year.  They drummed and danced, probably.  The cemeteries at the old stone churches tell the story of generations of congregants who met there to sing and pray.  The magnificent cathedrals with their elaborate carvings, acoustics and grand scale continue to provide places for people to perform grand ceremonies. And in Glastonbury, the Temple of the Goddess provides a place for people to gather and perform brand new ancient rituals. 

You might think that the pubs are about cider and the tea rooms about tea and scones.  But let's face it, you can drink cider and tea at home.  Those places, too, are about congregating and rituals.  All these places are about community getting together to wonder at miracles. 

Surely the ancient people who somehow put Stonehenge together were in awe of the miracle of the celestial cycles.  And people who visit Stonehenge are in awe of the mystery of how it was built.  People lighting candles in the grandeur of the cathedrals wonder at the peace and grace they feel. Women in the Temple of the Goddess perform Blessing Ways for infants, marvelling at the miracle of new life.  And the boys down at The Royal Oak lift their pints and laugh and wonder about the glue that holds people from all walks of life together, seemingly making psychotherapy obsolete.

We could argue all day long about the correct place and method to worship.  But if we're going to do it, let's all agree on a place and time and bring a dish to pass and a jug of cider to share. Maybe while we're there we can take time to stand in awe and gratitude for the miracle of the oak trees growing from acorns and then all our debating won't have been in vain.