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In the aforementioned family Christmas email, I noted casually that I had three surgeries last year – something that not very many people outside of this blog knew. I didn’t talk about them much, even during the year, in part because the operations kicked the shit out of me more than I’ve yet come to full grips with.
But the subject of surgeries is a sensitive topic for a lot of people right now, thanks to the new movie “Awake” that opened a month ago. I’ve had a total of eight surgeries in my life where I’ve been put under anesthetic, and have the scars to prove it. It takes quite a lot to freak me out, but that is one movie I WON’T be going to see.
The tagline is “Every year, one in 700 people wakes up during surgery.”
Lovely.
Apparently the American Society of Anesthesiologists sent out notices to its members in advance warning them of the expected onslaught of negative press and questions from patients. Gee, ya think?
Called anesthesia awareness, it occurs when patients wake up during surgery because they are underanesthetized. In real life, these periods are generally brief. But the patient can indeed feel pain, ranging from minor to unendurable. … Keeping a patient asleep through surgery is a delicate process. Anesthesiologists typically administer a variety of drugs, often including a paralytic that leaves the patient unable to move or speak. They must then monitor vital signs throughout the procedure to ensure that the patient is anesthetized enough, but not too much.
Oh, and if that article and the movie aren’t thought-inducing enough, here’s another that I’ve been aware of for a while.
Redheaded Women Naturally Resistant to Pain
Professor Jackson said that red-haired mice exhibit a similar ability of human female redheads to withstand higher pain thresholds compared to other mice. … “The nature of it is still being worked out, but it does appear that redheads have a significantly decreased pain threshold and require less anesthetic to block out certain pains,” he said.
Whoa-ho-hooooa, there, boys! As a redhead who has been told since childhood that I have an unnaturally high tolerance of pain, this is kinda interesting and cool and all, at least as far as we can take any “study” seriously. But let’s not be crazy and go skimping on the meds in speculation!
These are the things that my head chooses to ponder at some very inconvenient moments.
If there’s a next time (and there damned well better not be), I think I’ll dye my hair blonde before they put me under.
Shortly before Christmas I sent out a “Happy Holidays! Here’s an update on our lives…” mass letter to family and friends. Although it’s a bit of a cheezy thing to do, it was a genuine missive from our hearts, basically saying that even though we’re lazy about staying in touch the rest of the year, we really do care and think about you often.
I just found out that I accidentally sent it from an email account that is for business purposes and that I almost never use. So, easily 90% of the people will have never heard of the name in the “From” field or have any clue with the return address.
Can you say “spam-munched”?
This is precisely the kind of thing that I would’ve been fine had I remained blissfully unaware, but now that I know, it gnaws at my brain mercilessly. I’m trying to just shrug it off and not care. I mean, how arrogant can I be… what difference could it possibly make in the grand scheme of things, right?
No, really, what difference COULD it make? That’s the question that loops annoyingly.
The only way I’ve learned to stay semi-sane and deal with situations like this is to deliberately adopt the belief that everything happens for a reason.
Of course, the reason may be that I was a complete twithead.
There’s STILL turkey and stuffing and gravy in the fridge, and I’ve gained five pounds in the last week. I had to ask the kids to please put the cookies and candies back in the snack cupboard when they’re done, because if they leave them out it’s simply way too easy to have “just one”, every time I walk past.
I walk past a lot.
And hey, while I’m here and talking about food, there’s two things I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a long time…
1. WHY do people joke about how awful Christmas fruit cake is? I have never understood this – I LOVE Christmas fruit cake! Are you kidding? Don’t use it as a doorstop or boat anchor – send it to me! We’ll happily make this a home for fruit cakes! Erm, wait, that doesn’t sound quite right somehow.
2. Shortbread is sacred. Shortbread shall be made with real butter, and never that edible oil crap. Shortbread should be firm and not crumbly, but melt in your mouth. Shortbread should not require the jaw strength of a rottweiler to eat it. And whoever made lavender shortbread for the cookie exchange should be shot. Shot, I say! WTF were you thinking? Food should NEVER smell or taste like the stuff my mother puts in her underwear drawer. Blech… I have now officially found the first food that I absolutely can’t stand. But it hardly counts since it’s got actual friggin’ lavender seeds in it!
Christmas this year was very quiet, very simple, with no guests except for Jan’s boy (and he hardly qualifies as a guest anymore), but I still made far more food than we could have ever eaten in a day, never mind in one sitting. But that’s a big part of Christmas for me – it’s just not the same unless the table is fairly groaning under the load.
I know there are people who have little or nothing, and this is not to minimize that in any way. But I am happiest on holidays when I’m making a huge meal for my family.
It has something to do with abundance. For 360-odd days of each year, we live quite modestly. Even if we get a rare opportunity to live what is by our standards large, we just don’t buy unnecessary things of any significant value any other time of the year. We’re quite content and grateful every time we can pay bills without sweating too much.
But Christmas has become the one time when we seem to allow ourselves to say “screw it” to responsibility (within reason), blow off financial concerns and insecurities, and buy things that we want instead of just what we need. A table full of home-cooked food that will leave us groaning and eating leftovers for a week is part of that. Part of allowing ourselves to accept abundance, if only for a little while.
Slowly, ever so slowly, that part of Christmas comes easier and lasts longer each year.
Ach. I’m babbling and not making any sense. It must be the brandy chocolates. I hope that 2008 is a year of abundance for you and those you love. I’m sure you’ll handle it far more graciously and logically than I do.
I’m all Christmas music-ed out and ready for the snow to melt and spring to be here now, but I could listen to and watch Trace Bundy play this in June, and still love it.
The turkey is thawing, the house is clean (enough), there is a ton of presents under the tree, my family is healthy and happy and here, and I’ve got several good books and a steaming mug of latte.
Life is awesome.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
I come from a very fertile lineage, with many instances of multiple births. My maternal grandmother alone had a set of triplets and a set of twins. (Well, she didn’t have them alone… ach, you know what I meant.) For all three of my pregnancies, my doctor joked that if I wasn’t careful, sooner or later I’d hit the jackpot. And for all three, one of the first things she said after delivery was, “Nope, none hiding in there.”
I have twin nephews and they would sometimes try to prank teachers and strangers who couldn’t tell them apart, but they couldn’t get away with it in the family as we always knew who was who. I think everyone, at one time or another, has wondered what it would be like to either be a twin, or at least to have twins for children.
If *I* had a twin sister, I would immediately do whatever I had to do to set up and perform this prank. What appears to be a mirror in a public washroom is actually clear glass, with identical twins on each side. It gets a little freaky when other women (and even a guy) come in and can’t see their own reflections. You HAVE to watch the woman at about 4:20 in the time count, when she takes off her glasses 
I spent the day with my oldest friend and her four month old baby who still smelled like sleep and cuddles and when I held him sitting on the edge of the table he grinned a huge toothless grin with deep dimples and sparkling eyes and he squealed and giggled with pure delight so long and so loud that everyone within a ten table radius in the restaurant turned to look and contagiously started smiling.
Dammit, now my ovaries are twinging.
Psst, Heather, doncha miss this magic? This oh-so-soft skin and the sheer joy beaming off that adorable face? Whadda ya say we give it a go, one more time.
Stop it, stop it, stop it!! Don’t even joke about this. We have three amazing children who are now old enough to look after themselves (and even me, on occasion) and who don’t puke on me and crap in their pants and sass back when I tell them something. Well, not often, anyway. Life is awesome – this is what we’ve been waiting and working for all these years. A new baby is the last thing we….
Yeah, sure, but just feel that wispy soft hair. C’mon, play with it, shape it into a mohawk. Nuzzle your cheek against it and smell that warm cuddle smell.
Shut up, shut up, shut – the – fuck – up!!!! I’m not listening, I’m not listening, la la la la la la la…..
That’s it, just like that. Play “beep” with his nose, and watch him go cross-eyed and grin huge. C’mon, admit it, even the drool dripping from that rosy little cherub mouth isn’t turning you off.
Here, Les, take your damned brat back before I catch something from him.
A little while ago I heard somebody talking about learning to take responsibility – an issue that I feel is hugely neglected. They said something to the effect that it’s easy for a person to take credit for the good things that happen, but most don’t think about the bad things happening as being their responsibility also. They look for something or someone else to blame, even if it’s just bad luck.
And my immediate reaction was, “Whoa, you’ve got that backwards there, pal, don’t you?”
Then I thought about it because, ya know, I often have initial thoughts before I think.
While I agree with this person’s generalization that in our society we tend to take credit for good things and resist taking the blame for bad, it dawned on me that I’m quite the opposite. I’m much more comfortable (ie: it feels more instinctive and natural) taking responsibility for stuff that goes wrong than for stuff that goes right. It may be a product of the passive-aggressive culture I grew up in, I don’t know, but it seems ludicrous now that I’ve thought about it.
I believe that we allocate our personal responsibility relevant to our expectations – of ourselves, of others, of life. If you expect, or assume, that something just is, naturally and without any kind of direct influence from you, you’re not as likely to take the credit (or the blame) when it happens.
So does that mean that I expect that good things just are, spontaneously, but that bad things are a result of an action? Hmm.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to be much better at going with the flow and adopting the attitude that things happen for a reason. As always, I don’t know if that’s a truth or a delusion, but it makes life a lot easier to bear and it keeps me from padding the walls with rubber. When “bad” things happen (“bad” and “good” being grossly inadequate words to be using), I still assume a great deal of responsibility for it. But now it’s tempered with the chosen belief that something positive came out of the experience, which takes a chunk of the sting out of it and makes it easier to move on instead of being frozen in place playing the coulda/shoulda/if only game.
But when something good happens, I tend to view it as being something that just is naturally, regardless (and sometimes in spite) of me. Consequently, I don’t very often take responsibility for the good things in my life – of which there are many.
What an idiot. I spout off all the time about balance, and responsibility, and any number of armchair psychological theories, and yet I’ve been dumber than a bag of hammer handles on this, for way too many years.
I was talking with a friend about it and she suggested that it was understandable given my expectations in life. I figured, “No, I was just dense,” but the issue of expectations is a recurrent one for me, so I’ve been pondering this closely.
(from an old, unfinished, draft)
Please note that I could easily follow that title with some smartass remarks about men, but I’m trying to be good today.
Continuing the tool theme, here are some more laughs found over at Doug’s. Ones with which I have more than a personal and passing familiarity are:
- WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, “Ouch….”
- PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.
- HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
- VISE-GRIPS:Also used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
- PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.
- PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50¢ part.
- DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling “DAMMIT” at the top of your lungs. It is also the next tool that you will need.
As much as I’m allowing myself to be more girly, I’m still very much a tomboy when it comes to some things. Like… power tools!! [insert Tim Allen man-grunting here. I can't even make the noise so I damned sure can't spell it.]
My husband was amused this summer when he observed that, within a single afternoon, I went from cutting lumber on a mitre saw and hammering together a fence, to cutting fabric and sewing a summer dress.
What can I say? Life is way too interesting and fun to confine myself to one gender sterotype. For the record, our daughter knows how to change a tire and what a Robertson screwdriver is, and our sons know how to cook and (kinda) sew and do their own laundry, too.
Anyway, powertools… oh, yeah, baby. I’m not quite as ga-ga about them as guys tend to be, but I do appreciate and enjoy things that plug in, spin around really fast, and make short work of something that I’m trying to accomplish, all while employing mechanics that even my feeble girl mind can easily grasp.
Unlike computers, which are just evil, evil beasts.
(What? You were thinking there might be some dirty joke on the horizon there, weren’t you? Tsk.)
A guy I don’t even know emailed me a huge video file today about a table saw. If only everyone understood about Snopes and YouTube, my inbox would be a happier place. Still, it’s a pretty damned cool saw! In fact, thinking about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if a mother or wife came up with the idea for it – since we tend to go grey fast watching our husbands and sons play work with cool power toys tools.
42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot, but this is one that I think may be spot on.
From Doug, my all-time favourite resource for this kind of thing.
