The Great Tabletop Battle

It was time for lunch. As usual, we were heading for the patio, I with a book, a phone, a paper-towel bundle of cheese and crackers, and a diet orange drink, Levi with a tennis ball in his mouth, and Gimpy with only a happy face and a wagging tail. Just before I opened the door, I noticed movement on the patio table--movement that made me set down all my stuff, grab my camera instead, and leave the dogs in the house.

It was lizards. I see lizards all the time, but I'd never seen any like these before, with their brown coloration, black marks behind their eyes, and the dinosaur-looking ridges down the middle of their backs. What the heck were they? And what were they doing on my table?

I sat down at the table right next to them, aimed the camera, and watched as they circled each other.

They were focused. They paid little or no attention to me, even when I reached right between them and picked up the stick (makeshift paperweight) that was on the table.

They moved in closer and closer . . .

. . . and the fight began:

They were already turning green again by the time I started recording: 

The original video file was too large for Blogger, and it took me a long time to figure out how to reduce its size enough to upload it here. It looks fine on my computer, but there doesn't seem to be a way to test it on Blogger without hitting the publish button, so I apologize in advance if the quality isn't good. I also apologize for the wonky moment that happened near the end of the video when I jerked the camera because the loser lizard either (a) leaped or (b) was flung by the winner right at me. The good news is that we all lived to tell about it.

After a little bit of Internet research this afternoon, I've learned that the fierce-looking lizards in this post are the very same, usually mild-mannered, anole lizards that I see every day. Normally they look like this, all sleek, smooth, and green:

It's when they get riled up and stressed out--in a territorial dispute, for instance--that they puff up and morph into their darker, ninja-warrior selves:

I'm not sure what territory they were fighting over, but I can tell you that the loser eventually crawled over the fence, and the winner made his way up into the folds of the patio umbrella.

Afterwards, I ate my lunch right there and played ball with the dogs. I watched for the lizard the whole time, but he never came out.

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UPDATE: The resolution on the Blogger video was really bad, so I deleted it and uploaded via YouTube instead. Not great, but much better. Thanks, YouTube!

Brain Power Outage

The power went out at 5:22 p.m. yesterday. I know the exact time because my electrical service provider told me in a recorded telephone message I was able to receive only because I still have two hard-wired, corded phones in my house for use in just such an emergency. 

The sudden burst of quiet--no air conditioner, no computer, no refrigerator--alarmed Levi and Gimpy but not me. I turned off the air conditioner so it wouldn't be damaged by a power surge, fixed the dogs' supper to distract them, and ate my own dinner: the tuna salad I'd planned to have for lunch today.

The message from the electric company had stated that they expected to have power restored by seven--before dark. Good. I took the Doodle boys outside to play ball and pass some time, then came back in and considered what I could do next. I was disappointed that I'd just finished the last unread book in the house, but I had a new logic puzzle magazine and games to play on my iPad. A phone call from one daughter and a text from the other informed me that their power was out, too, which let me know that the outage was spreading and might not be repaired as quickly as originally estimated.

Seven o'clock came and went. It was beginning to get dark in the house, so I opened all the blinds and all the doors, put a flashlight and a camping lantern where I could find them easily, and settled in for a wait. The dogs were happy, going from door to door to keep an eye on the neighbors, and I was content working on my puzzles. Eventually, I turned on the lantern. The dogs went to sleep, and I switched to playing Free Cell on the iPad. At one point I looked up and noticed the red light on the DVR, indicating that my shows were being recorded. How could that be? I wondered. I decided there must be some way the DVR was drawing power through the cable wire, something I hadn't known was possible and felt pleased to learn. How cool is that? Yay, technology!

For at least another half hour I sat there on my usual end of the sofa. By nine o'clock the darkness outside was complete. I was beginning to feel conspicuous and exposed in the dim light of the lantern, so I got up to close the blinds and the doors. As I stepped to the front door, I was shocked to see bright lights on in my nearest neighbor's house. How come his power had been restored and mine hadn't?

I closed the door, looked out the window once to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me, and thought about it for a moment. Only then did I notice the quiet hum of the refrigerator. There were no lights on in my house because I'd never turned them on. The DVR had been recording because the electricity had come back on forty minutes earlier and I'd been too stupid to notice it. Dadgum it!

My Uncle Joe, who is only seven years older than I, used to tell me all the time when we were kids, "You might be book smart, but you don't have any common sense at all." He's the first person I thought of last night when I realized I'd been sitting in near darkness for no good reason. This proved his point. Don't tell him, y'all.

Linda Waits, Kim Waits, Tom Waits. Hold On.

So ... yesterday I wrote about a long day wasted in the waiting room of a surgical clinic. Today I want to talk about the difference between waiting and a similar but more intense state of existence: holding on. Waiting seems to me to be a benign, passive condition, requiring nothing more of us than to be patient while a long line creeps forward or a boring lecturer babbles on. Holding on is like waiting turned up to 11, hanging in there when your stress level is so high you can barely move, and your fate depends on your staying power.

Kim and I waited while seated in fairly comfortable chairs at the surgical clinic. If, instead, we'd been sitting in a leaky boat with sharks circling in the water below us, our comfort level would have zeroed out, and waiting would no longer have been a viable option; we'd have had to escalate all the way up the scale to holding on. And bailing. Never overlook the importance of bailing.

"Take one day at a time," people tell us. "Hang in there." "Wait and see." All of that is good advice, because sometimes conditions do change from one day to the next. Sometimes we change. So, yes, there are times when all we can do is hold on, and if that's all we can do, then we have to do at least that.

Sometimes things can't be changed. I'm thinking now of the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ... " There's nothing serene about holding on, and it may take a lot of holding on before one settles down into patience, then finally, if we practice enough, into acceptance and serenity. Serenity is a good place to live.

Then there's the second line of that prayer: " ... the courage to change the things I can . . ." That's harder, don't you think? I lack courage, so I'm a lot better at waiting and holding on than I am at changing things, even though I know that changing some things is every bit as important as accepting others. Bailing water out of a leaky boat is a good example of changing things. If you're in a leaky boat, serenity is not your friend.

The last part of the prayer, the part about "the wisdom to know the difference" (between things that can be changed and those that must be accepted) is tricky. Wisdom can definitely help us decide which things fit which category, but not if we don't even bother to ask ourselves the question: "Can I change this?" There have been times in my life when I've gotten so bogged down in the holding-on process that I haven't even considered whether or not I could do something to change the situation. I couldn't, of course -- not until I asked the question. Then, sometimes, I discovered I could. And did.

I suppose, while we're on this subject, we should at least acknowledge that there's a different kind of holding on, the kind in which we attach ourselves to people or things or beliefs or perceptions that hold us back and keep us from being our best selves. That kind of holding on isn't healthy. The remedy for it is letting go, another useful concept in our psychological toolbox.

So, in addition to praying for the wisdom to know which things can be changed and which can't, we might also need to ask for help in figuring out which kind of holding on we're doing in any given set of circumstances. It gets confusing, doesn't it?

**********

What prompted such a serious post on this beautiful spring day? Today's Saturday Song Selection did. It's one I've liked for a long time:

The song is "Hold On" by Tom Waits.
Thanks to Epitaph Records for posting the video on YouTube.
Click here to read the lyrics.

Wait. Someone Will Call You.

My older daughter, Kim, makes her living as an artist. Specifically, she makes glass beads, melting colored rods of glass at a torch and manipulating the molten glass to form designs. She's been doing that for more than a dozen years, ever since she left her writing career in New York City and moved back here. The hours and hours of repetitive motion required by bead-making have taken a toll, causing her right thumb (the one on which she was coincidentally wearing a band-aid in the photo below) to become stiff, painful, and sometimes unusable.

She went to an orthopedist a couple of weeks ago for a diagnosis and treatment, got a cortisone shot directly in the joint as a temporary fix, and was told she might need surgery. When she asked about the cost and told the orthopedist she doesn't have health insurance, he explained that if he were to do the surgery, there would be not only his fee, but also the fees for the hospital and the anesthetist. He helpfully suggested that she could save a significant amount of money by going to an orthopedic surgical clinic that's set up to do this type of surgery in house, and he gave her a referral.

Everything I've just written is backstory. The part I wanted to tell you begins now:

Kim picked me up on Monday an hour ahead of her scheduled appointment time. I had offered to go with her to take notes on her options, if any, so she could focus on listening to the surgeon and answering--or asking--any questions that arose. Armed with Google Map directions, we located the clinic in only twenty minutes, so we made an impromptu visit to McDonald's drive-thru for biscuits.

Back at the clinic, a sprawling, one-story complex, we followed a sign that read "surgical clinic." Still thirty minutes early, Kim checked in at the front window, then we took two of the only adjacent seats available in the crowded waiting room. Very few new people came in after we did, although a lot of those who were there when we arrived came in and out. Sometimes one or another of them would get called to the back, only to reappear in a short time and settle back into the spot they'd previously vacated. Kim and I had both brought reading material, but we spent the first part of our wait sitting quietly, orienting ourselves to the lay of the land, and watching people.

One man, built like a linebacker and wearing a neon-green knit shirt, left his backpack on a chair and left the building for what seemed like forever to someone like me, who had watched hours of TV footage about bombs in abandoned backpacks at the Boston Marathon. I don't know when I've ever felt so much relief upon seeing a stranger reappear. He left several more times in the next few hours (probably taking smoke breaks), but I didn't worry after the first time.

Across from us sat a very dark-skinned woman, also built like a linebacker, wearing an ill-fitting wig of long, straight blond hair with bangs. I watched her surreptitiously all morning, expecting that the wig might explode off her head if she were to frown deeply then raise her eyebrows suddenly.

Seated near the blond woman were a man and woman whom I presumed to be husband and wife. (Who knows these days? Who cares?) The woman napped, her head leaning into the man's shoulder while he talked on his cell phone. He was speaking quietly, so I couldn't understand his words, but it was impossible to miss his muffled bursts of laughter. It was the kind of laughter normally reserved for quiet places like a movie theater or church or a funeral -- the kind that happens when you get the giggles and it's inappropriate to let loose and bust out the belly laughs. Every time a snicker or snort escaped despite his best efforts, Kim and I got tickled, too, forcing us to match his restraint with our own.

Lunchtime came and went. (Thank goodness we'd had those breakfast biscuits.) I think all the patients who'd been in the waiting room when we first arrived were still present and accounted for at that time. We pulled out our e-book devices and read for awhile.

At 2:21 p.m. I texted my younger, daughter, Kelli, who had asked us to keep her posted:

Me:  "Still in the waiting room. Unbelievable!"

Kelli:  "Omg do you need me to bring y'all some food?"

Me:  "No thx. We're currently having Cheezits and Rice Krispy treats from the vending machine. Life is suddenly much better. I'm thinking we can hold out now till closing time."

Kelli: "SCORE!!"

We did feel better after we ate, and there were a few more vacant seats in the waiting room. Not many but some. I asked the woman next to me if she'd been to this clinic before and if this kind of wait was typical. She said she had and it was. Other people began to join in our conversation and talk about their experiences with long waits there. As appalled as we were by the idea of sick people having to wait so long, we concluded that all we could do was deal with it.

Kim and I laughed a lot that day. Both of us have a deep and abiding appreciation for life's absurdities, and the longer we waited, the funnier it got. Every time a nurse showed up at the inner door with a file in her hand, we perked up in anticipation that it would be Kim's name she called this time. It was always somebody else's, which made us laugh at our overly optimistic selves.

Through the course of the day Kim apologized a number of times for keeping me waiting so ridiculously long, but we both knew it wasn't her fault. She made repeated offers to let me take her car and go on home, but I was too involved by then to leave, too curious to know how this misadventure would turn out. People had started leaving and not coming back.

At three o'clock Kim announced, "Five hours. That's long enough. I'd walk out if I didn't have so much time invested already." By that time there were only a few people still waiting with us, all of them except Kim having been called to the back at least once. Kim went to the window, gave her name to the new woman at the desk, and asked how many people were ahead of her. The woman looked puzzled and asked Kim to wait while she checked. In a few minutes she returned and explained, "They have you down as a 'no show.'" For a brief moment there was a stunned silence, the room so quiet you could almost hear the eye-rolling.

We took our seats again. It wasn't long before Kim was called to a back office to fill out the preliminary paperwork she'd expected to get upon her arrival. That's why she'd made a point of getting there half an hour early. Paperwork completed, we were back in the waiting room again, where only one other person waited with us, an old man who told us he was waiting while his wife had outpatient surgery. He had the "cool dude" appearance of a blues musician. He told us he was 83 years old, though he looked much younger,  then went on to tell us the ages of his living siblings, all older than he, and of some of his twelve children, the youngest in her forties. "I come from a good line," he told us. "We live a long time." Whipping off his cap and leaning forward to show us his full head of coal-black hair, he added, "And we don't lose our hair."

While we were listening to the old man, we couldn't help noticing that wastebaskets were being emptied, floors were being buffed, and the halls were no longer full of medical personnel the way they had been earlier in the day. The old man's opinion about the current state of health care was interrupted when Kim was called again, this time by a pretty young woman who identified herself as a medical student and directed us to an exam room. She asked Kim all of the same medical questions she'd been asked by the first woman who interviewed her, then told us to wait where we were, that someone would be in to do a more thorough examination in a few minutes. She closed the door and left us. Time passed, and Kelli texted again at 4:25 p.m.:

Kelli:  "Please tell me y'all are not still waiting??"

Me:  "Yes, but we're waiting in a room now. We're the last people here. They had her listed as a "no show" even though I watched her check in."

Kelli:  "Oh wow that's unbelievable! Hope that's not a sign of what kind of care they give!"

Me:  "That's what we're wondering, too. We just opened the door to the exam room to increase our chances of not being locked in the building overnight."

Kelli:  "Part of me thinks that's funny and part of me thinks it's very wise. :)"

Me:  "It's definitely both. We've been laughing all afternoon because it's just so bizarre."

The medical student returned. Alone. "Um," she began, "I'm sorry, this is my first day in surgery, so I didn't know, but we just do general surgery here, not orthopedic surgery?" She ended her sentence on an upward note so that it sounded like a question. "We do have orthopedic surgeons who come here on certain days, and we're going to write a referral for you. It may take a few days for them to pick up their referrals, but as soon as they do, if the referral is approved, they'll call you to set up an appointment, okay?"

It was okay, and, then again, it wasn't, you know? It was okay because we were so glad to get out of there, but the only reason Kim was there in the first place was because someone from that facility had called her to set up the appointment after her first referral had been approved. "Okay," Kim replied, and thanked the young woman without qualifying the degree of "okayness."

By the time Kim dropped me off at home, that visit to the clinic had eaten up seven hours of our day. I'm proud of both of us for taking it in stride, maintaining our good humor and our assumption of goodwill, not needing to seek out someone to blame. It was a strange day, but not, after all, a bad one.

One day later Kim received a call with a new appointment. She saw their orthopedist first thing yesterday and was home by mid-morning. Sometimes, by accident or design, things go the way they're supposed to go.

Mothers and Others

Last Sunday was Mother's Day, a holiday that brings out my cynical side because it's always been so heavily promoted by card companies and florists. I'm embarrassed by the idea of Mother's Day. It feels as though the second Sunday in May has been set aside as the day when all the mothers of America line up, united like organized union members, and present our bills for services rendered. No matter how many pretty flowers you stick in it, it feels like extortion.

And yet . . . and yet I love those cards, obviously chosen so carefully, and even more than that I love the words my daughters have written in the cards, cherished messages I keep and reread again and again, reminding me that our bond is as important to them as it is to me. I don't need the cards to know that, but I love the reminders nevertheless.

We spent Sunday afternoon the same way we've traditionally spent Mother's Day in the past few years, with a crawfish boil at my younger daughter's house. I loved being with my two warm, beautiful daughters, my delightful grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and those of their significant others who weren't somewhere else working or spending the day with their own moms. We sat at long tables spread with newspapers, chatting and laughing as we feasted on crawfish, spicy boiled potatoes and corn on the cob, followed later by shamefully full bowls of chilled banana pudding. My son-in-law's music played in the background, music that always surprises me because most of his songs are my songs, too, and I like the fact that we share a cross-generational, mutual fondness for soulful sounds.

We all became lazier after we ate, leaning back in our chairs under the shade, hiding our laughter as 21-month-old Olivia pitched a fit when the limits of her dexterity frustrated her independent spirit. She tried and failed a few times to put a bubble wand into its narrow-mouthed plastic jar of soapy fluid, then threw the wand as far as she could throw it (not very far). She didn't cry, but her anger was apparent in the scowl on her face. She cast a quick, spiteful glare at those who sat near her, then, in case no one had noticed she was angry, marched over to the sudsy wand, picked it up, and threw it again for good measure. All of us thought it was funny, but we were careful not to let her see us laugh. She's a baby and she acted like a baby. In that moment every adult there loved Olivia enough to let her express her feelings. Most of us, I believe, silently cheered her on. Yes, she'll need to learn a better way to handle her disappointments someday, but there's plenty of time for that later on.

The little ones, Olivia and three-year-old Owen, wanted to get in the swimming pool. Though the day was warm, the water was chilly, but there were still a few adults willing to get in to let the floaty-armed babies have some fun. My younger daughter, Kelli, their grandmother, stayed longest in the water, frequently having both babies in tow at once. I watched her holding on to them, keeping them safe, playing with them, instructing them, calm, unruffled, smiling. Owen will remember her that way long after he forgets that the pool got colder as the sun moved and cast it into shadow, that he cried and protested vigorously, repeatedly saying, "I'm not cold!" through blue lips and chattering teeth as his mother and grandmother pulled him flailing out of the pool. He and Olivia will remember the happy times with their grandmother when they're grown, and they'll always think of her as a safe port in a storm, the way I, as old as I am, still think of my mother's mother. Kelli is showing them in every way possible that she loves them unconditionally, and they'll feel that--they'll know that--for the rest of their lives.

The strength of my passion for genealogy and family history sometimes makes me wonder if I'm living too much in the past. On Mother's Day I felt that I was on the opposite end of the spectrum, as if I were living in the future, seeing the three generations after mine coming into their own, glimpsing the kind of good people who will carry on after I'm gone, also watching them fulfill their present roles as if they were born to them, and understanding that, yes, they were. This is exactly who they are and where they're supposed to be at this time in their lives. There really is no past, present or future when it comes to families, only a continuous cycle of life that ties all of us together with those who came before us and those who have yet to arrive. All of us--mothers and others--are eternally linked to the rest of us.

Mother's Day is a good day to remember that. Any day is a good day to remember that. There doesn't need to be a special card for it.