About 10 years ago I woke up with vertigo. As soon as my eyelids creaked open and I saw the ceiling fan spinning crazily over my head, I felt so dizzy I knew was about to lose what was left of lthe previous night's dinner. The bathroom was mere steps away, yet rising to an upright position and making it there was like being thrust in a tilting, whirling, state fair fun house and I just did get there - falling to my knees for obvious reasons.
For the next month I struggled. At first I literally could not walk across a room. Earle took over carpooling the children and got his first and only traffic ticket. I started visiting doctors: virus, they said, labrynthitis, they said,, patience they said. Slowly my balance returned, but as it did, bit by bit I lost the hearing in my right ear.Back to specialists. Hmm, they said. Tests, they said. Permanent hearing loss, they said. Brain tumor? they asked.
The MRI was terrifying - not the test itself - where I was stuffed, head first, into a banging throbbing cylinder, but the knowledge that the technician in the very next room might know the cause of my problems and that it might not be good. The young ENT called me as soon as he got word. "All clear" he reported. My breath, which had left me as soon as the words brain tumor had been spoken, came roaring back.
Once the Pandora's box of what my hearing loss COULD have been, I was able to accept the almost total loss of hearing in one ear. It felt I had just stepped out of the pool and I could not quite get the water out. I couldn't hear a conversation to my right - and triangulating sound was impossible - I never knew where noise was coming from! But I had my balance, my my MRI was clear and life was good!
Friends found it a challenge to talk to me as they could never remember which ear was my 'good' ear. So one afternoon, after picking up my boys from school, we headed to the South Square Mall. I found the Piercing Hut and had the pimpled teenager working the kiosk added a second piercing to my working ear. It seemed a practical solution to cuing my friends in on how best to communicate with me. But this piercing marked most clearly the change in my outlook. Acceptance.
Not long after this piercing, my hearing came back, well, most of it anyway. I was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease, which could come back at any time. I've been symptom free for 10 years with the exception of occasionally feeling off balance, but to this day I try to wear a 3rd earring everyday. It is a physical daily reminder of how to live my life.With supreme gratitude and acceptance of things I cannot control.
In my cube at work, I have these lines written by Maya Angelou - I love it and it cheers me everyday when I settled down to work:
I'm the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain't I lucky I can still breathe in.
So this Thanksgiving, I am joyful. I am thankful for what I do have! My God, my family, my friends, my health! I look in the mirror to put on my earrings and there it is every day-the third earring. A constant reminder of the blessings in my life. And a reminder to regularly examine all the good and especially today to spend this precious holiday marveling at all the wonderful things in the world. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Why I don't cook.
I am quite sure people look at me and say "boy, I bet she can cook". I am well rounded 50 year old woman, figuratively and literally. I love good food and I am not shy about telling you so. I am from the country where all there is to do is cook for potlucks and funerals.
I visit with my mom in the country 8 nights a month to help out. The other 22 or 23 I live in the Triangle, work full time, have a house full of college students and dogs and never slow down.
So picture me, in my childhood home, happily cooking a scrumptious meal for my mom and I to share on a chilly autumn night.
Well delete that picture right on out of the camera.
Cause I really can't cook.
My secret is, I get bored.
And food burns.
Ask my husband, who unless we are tucked into one of our favorite restaurants, can be found with a "Kitchen Bitch" apron strapped on and cooking for dear life. Cause I can't.
I try....and I get bored. and I go to swap out laundry or get the mail. And it burns.
I deny it. But it's true.
Let's deconstruct this evening at my mom's. Dinner in 31 easy steps.
1. Drive 7 miles to Piggly Wiggly for simple vegetable beef soup ingredients.
2. Drive home, narrowingly missing possum who darted off the road at the last minute (probably heard I was cooking.)
3. Chop onion (check.)
4. Brown ground beef. (check)
5. Open copious cans of veggies and tomaotes, add to pot. (check)
6 Drain ground beef and onions. Add to pot. (check).
7.Bring to boil (check)
8.Cut heat back to simmer (check)
Here is where things go terribly wrong. I have failed to realize I am using an aluminum pot. I have also failed to realize that this range does not immediately drop it's temp.
9. I fetch a book.
10. I start to read, sitting 3 feet from soup pot.
11. After a bit I glance up at the soup pot. Oddly it is still bubbling furiously. TOO LATE!
12. Remove pot from eye.
13. Ignore burning smell.
14. Scoop out scorched veggies.
15. Taste. Assure myself it only tastes funny because it is so hot.
16. Apologize to my mother.
17. Serve.
Here is another bad bit. My mother is the kindest, most thoughtful woman in the world. She never criticizes. She says gently "it's not bad."
This is the kiss of death. I know it is awful.
We choke it down.
18. Clean fying pan (check.)
19 Empty pot of leftover soup to save for tomorrow.
20. Splash soup all over new pink T-shirt.
21. Drop everything, run to the washing machine, strip off shirt, thrust in machine. Go back in the kitchen because the Tide is quite obviously stored in the kitchen under the sink and behind all cleaning products. Kneel and remove cleaning products, snag Tide, run back to washing machine where tomato based soup is marinating my pink shirt. Pour in a huge, overflowing scoop while standing in front of curtainless windows.
Run to find suitcase with clean shirt.
22. Scrub pot, the bottom of which looks like it has been cooked out of for 3 years by a band of hobos over a wood fire.23. Scrub pot some more.
24. Throw scrub water outside because I am afraid to pour down drain.
25. Rinse and scub until the new copper scrubber looks like it was used for the Gulf Oil Spill cleanup.
26. Scrub and scrub and scrub.
27. Breathe deep. Pot is clean.
28. Head to fridge and thank the Lord that Miss Janie made us a gorgeous lemon meringue pie.
29. Cut a slice for mom.
30. Cut a slice for me.
31. Enjoy.
So take a lesson from that possum. If you hear I'm cooking, run away. But if you want to share a wonderful meal with me....well...let's eat out!
I visit with my mom in the country 8 nights a month to help out. The other 22 or 23 I live in the Triangle, work full time, have a house full of college students and dogs and never slow down.
So picture me, in my childhood home, happily cooking a scrumptious meal for my mom and I to share on a chilly autumn night.
Well delete that picture right on out of the camera.
Cause I really can't cook.
My secret is, I get bored.
And food burns.
Ask my husband, who unless we are tucked into one of our favorite restaurants, can be found with a "Kitchen Bitch" apron strapped on and cooking for dear life. Cause I can't.
I try....and I get bored. and I go to swap out laundry or get the mail. And it burns.
I deny it. But it's true.
Let's deconstruct this evening at my mom's. Dinner in 31 easy steps.
1. Drive 7 miles to Piggly Wiggly for simple vegetable beef soup ingredients.
2. Drive home, narrowingly missing possum who darted off the road at the last minute (probably heard I was cooking.)
3. Chop onion (check.)
4. Brown ground beef. (check)
5. Open copious cans of veggies and tomaotes, add to pot. (check)
6 Drain ground beef and onions. Add to pot. (check).
7.Bring to boil (check)
8.Cut heat back to simmer (check)
Here is where things go terribly wrong. I have failed to realize I am using an aluminum pot. I have also failed to realize that this range does not immediately drop it's temp.
9. I fetch a book.
10. I start to read, sitting 3 feet from soup pot.
11. After a bit I glance up at the soup pot. Oddly it is still bubbling furiously. TOO LATE!
12. Remove pot from eye.
13. Ignore burning smell.
14. Scoop out scorched veggies.
15. Taste. Assure myself it only tastes funny because it is so hot.
16. Apologize to my mother.
17. Serve.
Here is another bad bit. My mother is the kindest, most thoughtful woman in the world. She never criticizes. She says gently "it's not bad."
This is the kiss of death. I know it is awful.
We choke it down.
18. Clean fying pan (check.)
19 Empty pot of leftover soup to save for tomorrow.
20. Splash soup all over new pink T-shirt.
21. Drop everything, run to the washing machine, strip off shirt, thrust in machine. Go back in the kitchen because the Tide is quite obviously stored in the kitchen under the sink and behind all cleaning products. Kneel and remove cleaning products, snag Tide, run back to washing machine where tomato based soup is marinating my pink shirt. Pour in a huge, overflowing scoop while standing in front of curtainless windows.
Run to find suitcase with clean shirt.
22. Scrub pot, the bottom of which looks like it has been cooked out of for 3 years by a band of hobos over a wood fire.23. Scrub pot some more.
24. Throw scrub water outside because I am afraid to pour down drain.
25. Rinse and scub until the new copper scrubber looks like it was used for the Gulf Oil Spill cleanup.
26. Scrub and scrub and scrub.
27. Breathe deep. Pot is clean.
28. Head to fridge and thank the Lord that Miss Janie made us a gorgeous lemon meringue pie.
29. Cut a slice for mom.
30. Cut a slice for me.
31. Enjoy.
So take a lesson from that possum. If you hear I'm cooking, run away. But if you want to share a wonderful meal with me....well...let's eat out!
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