Just save it, would you?

Just when I think TV shows can’t get any more stupid, network executives surprise me with offerings such as “Undercover Boss.” The premise was interesting enough – the CEO of a major company goes undercover as an entry-level within his own operation, ostensibly to discover the things that are going wrong with his company, and the things his company is doing right.

I watched the first episode for want of anything better on TV. And I watched the second episode. The second episode was almost a verbatim copy of the first, only the company was different and the front-line employees were different. At the end of both shows, the CEO “revealed” his true identity to the few employees he worked alongside, and awarded them with various surprises. One of the employees was a young man wanting to be a chef. So the CEO awarded him a $5,000 scholarship.

Five thousand dollars. The CEO of Whitecastle Hamburgers couldn’t afford more than a $5,000 scholarship? It was a token gift of appreciation that I found insulting to entry-level workers everywhere. This CEO is spouting off concerns that employees don’t see a future for themselves at the company, and yet all he can find in his deep, vast pockets is $5,000?

You know how sometimes you don’t know what to say to someone, and you end up saying the wrong thing? Like, two years after you accidently back over your neighbor’s cat in the driveway, you see them coming out their door and you holler, “Hey, sorry about that one thing awhile back”? That’s what this scholarship offer was. “Sorry about all the hours we make you work in stressful conditions for crappy pay and no benefits.” (I wonder how much extra cost would truly need to be added to a McBurger in order to partially fund health insurance for the employees? Would you be willing to spend an extra 50c?)

If you can’t offer someone enough to acknowledge their humanity, their dignity, sometimes it’s better to offer nothing at all.

You're Fired.

My medical history is kind of scary. Not to me. To me, it’s kind of boring. I’ve had enough occasion to talk about it with family, friends, and in speeches for this or that so now, frankly, the story bores me.

But looking at a list of my medical history on paper, yeah, I can see how that would be overwhelming for a normal family doctor. Thus, most of my medical problems that aren’t flu-, cold-, or prescription refill-related have gone through my oncologist.

My oncologist has changed a couple of times in the past ten years, but for five years or so, it has been the same guy. We never really saw eye-to-eye on most stuff, but we tolerated each other. As if in a bad relationship, I was too aware of the risk I ran if I decided to look for greener pastures.

He didn’t push me on the stuff most important to me, and I yielded on the stuff I could tell I was going to lose on anyway. It wasn’t a symbiotic relationship by any means, but I made do. All of a sudden, he has decided he no longer wants to be my “point man” for medical issues. He only wants to deal with Aplastic Anemia issues. Not even issues directly related to the Aplastic Anemia or the bone marrow transplant fallout.

Well, that’s lovely, I say. What do I tell the regular doctors who see my history, see that I’ve got an ongoing upset stomach for the past month, and they freak, telling me to talk to my oncologist? I am a medical orphan. After feeling powerless and frustrated for several days, I came to a conclusion. Actually, the oncologist’s office helped me come to this conclusion when they called me with blood test results, and proceeded to read the results to me backwards – X value meant my prescription should be lowered, when in real-life medicine, X value means my prescription should be increased.

I took back the power. I harnessed my inner Donald Trump and told the nurse to please tell my oncologist that I will no longer be in need of his services. As he obviously only wants to deal with my blood disorder, a disorder that I’ve technically been cured of for the past NINE YEARS, I’ll look him up if there’s ever a blood problem. But in the meantime, he can cut me from his patient roster.

I thought I’d feel like I was tempting fate to fire him. I mean, Murphy’s Law, right? In reality, I feel in control again. I no longer have to sit in an office once a year with a room full of bald old people staring at me, wondering how sick I am, what with my full head of hair. Am I waiting for a diagnosis? Am I at the beginning of my treatment? Wow, that poor girl doesn’t have a clue what’s coming.

They don’t see the bald patches at my scalp, the thin spots above my ears. They don’t see the scars, real and emotional. I’ve been there, and I’ve had the blessed fortune to come back from there. I hope all the bald old people in the office have the occasion to one day fire the oncologist.

All in.

I love watching the Olympics. All that skill, dedication, exhilaration...seemingly normal people doing extraordinary things. But it's the "seemingly" part of the athletes that tends to get overlooked.

These young people dedicate every waking moment to the sport they love, for better or for worse, like when your sport involves hurling yourself down an icy shute while balancing precariously on a toboggan.

I could never be an Olympic athlete. Yes, I own a mirror and can plainly see that my lack of muscle definition would probably ban me from being a spectator let alone a competitor. But I couldn't forsake all other things in my life in the pursuit of one thing. I don't find that healthy. So do I find it admirable?

Life is about hope. About chances. About redemption. These are common themes throughout the Olympic stories as well. Bode Miller blows his chances at Torino, and seeks redemption at the Vancouver Olympics. That means Bode Miller has dedicated the past four years, FOUR YEARS, striving mindfully (mindlessly?) toward a state that will be achieved, or denied, in thirty seconds. Thirty seconds. Not to be a complete skeptic, but his achievement or denial of redemption/his dream might be forgotten by the majority of the public in the ensuing thirty seconds.

So what makes "it" worth it? I really want to know. I want to know what the elusive "it" is that will make me lay my head on my pillow each night and say, "I did good."

Usefulness

I work in a medical setting, poring through patient charts day after day after day after day after...where was I.

Sometimes the transcriptions for the chart notes gets outsourced to other countries, such as India. This can make for some entertaining malapropisms.

One caught my eye this week. The doctor surely meant to say, "The patient has outlived the influence of their genetic history." The transcription report that I read said:

Patient has outlived their genetic usefulness.

That made me think. Is there a point where we outlive our usefulness? Does it matter?

Love in all the wrong places

Last night, I went on yet another first-and-last date. This one actually scared the crap out of me, and I'm pretty lucky to be sitting here writing about it, and not recouperating from injuries on the hospital, or worse, adding to the nitrogen content of a cemetery's soil.

I'm going to abridge this as, judging by my mom's reaction to the entire story, it's not something that should be posted for public digestion. So why am I posting at all. I can't believe that I am the only person stupid enough to find myself in situations such as this, and if another girl (or guy, for that matter) can learn something from me, then this awful experience was worthwhile.

Long story short, a dinner date gets extended into a date to go see a movie, and I allow near-stranger into my car. My car. Oh well, I figure, we're going to the mall to see a movie, right? No, he wants to go to his cousin's house to watch movies that the cousin rented. I made sure the cousin and cousin's girlfriend would be there. Okay, can't be too bad, right? Only later did I remember that the murdered girl in the "Foxy Knoxy" murder had another girl present, too, and that didn't turn out too well for her.

We get to the cousin's house, and let's just say I should have turned around on my heels and left. I didn't. Why not? What the hell was I thinking?

I know exactly what I was thinking. I got stuck in between two societal norms: Be unfailingly polite, and be true to yourself. Sometimes, like last night, those two go head-to-head. Why was I so quick to sacrifice myself in the name of politeness, then?

My upbringing actually played a role in my wrong decisions. (When I say "wrong decisions", please don't let your mind go there, because that's not the case. The "wrong decisions" are all about hanging out with and spending time with people that are just absolute scum of the earth and were very, very disrespectful toward me.)

I in no way, shape, or form am blaming this on my parents or my brother. But my brother, being who he is, has sort of desensitized me to things that would normally be red flags to other people. There's a big, serious difference, however: for all the outside accoutrements that made my brother and his posse appear dangerous and menacing, there were always good souls in these people. Probably better souls than my own, as if I had a dollar left, I would keep it for myself, and my brother and the people he associates with would rush to give it to someone who needed it more than they did. I think I stuck around so long and allowed myself to be pulled into increasingly dangerous situations with this date because I was waiting for the revelation of the good, true soul that I've been taught to assume is in every human being.

As I pulled into my driveway at the end of the night, I almost started to cry. I've come too far. Too, too far. Society tells us we are nothing if we have no one to share life with. Everyone, myself included, assumes that "someone" to share life with is a romantic connection, husband, wife, etc. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to find the perfect someone, and when that someone is the wrong someone, we feel like failures in the eyes of our friends, family, and society.

I actually did find someone last night to spend the rest of my life with. This person is smart, cute, funny as hell, entertaining, original, and full of hope and optimism for the future.

And I was right here the whole time.

A foreigner in a sea of white hair

Last night my parents and I went to see a great musical revue called "In the Mood." It was a celebration of all things big band, and a buffet of nostalgia for the 40s.

Still somewhat pining for my days in high school jazz band, I enjoyed the evening immensely - even if it was sponsored by Brookdale Living Communities, known for their spectacular Alzheimer's care units. Music is an undeniable connection to our past lives. Its ability to transport us back in time is quite amazing. That being said, could the Brookdale Alzheimer's community sponsor a more dangerous event? Perhaps a monster truck rally, letting Aunt Bessie have one last go-round with the car keys?

At intermission, the lights came up, revealing a sea of white. White hair, interspersed with no hair. I felt like an interloper, a guest at a fraternity party where I was never extended an invitation to join. My dad reached into his pocket and pulled out a stick of gum, only to be promptly chastised by an usher for bringing food into the auditorium. Gum isn't food. And for pete's sake, my dad doesn't exactly look like the type to stick his gum underneath the seat when he finished with it.

The show resumed, and segued into a sing-along, some song about rolling a barrel over your girlfriend. The entire audience sang along. I couldn't even pretend to know the words - who in my generation has ever rolled a barrel over anything?

I was brought back to my first day in Catholic high school. The entire class stood at the beginning of the class time. I stood too, and faced the flag. While I began reciting "I pledge allegiance, to the flag..." I realized that that was not what the rest of the class was saying.

"...hallowed be thy name...thy kingdom come, thy will be done..."

I mumbled along until they got to the one part I knew.

"...OUR DAILY BREAD..." (I've always been a fan of carbohydrates.)

I mumbled my way through the rest of it, and made a mental note to ask Mom what they were reciting.

The classtime came to an end, as did the group sing-along.

As we left the theater, Mom asked, "So, did you enjoy it? What did you think?"

"That brought back so many memories I never had."

Usually the parking lot is a mess to get out of. Cars lined up from every side street, trying to converge onto the main highway into town. As we left the lot relatively unobstructed, we watched the older crowd amble toward their vehicles.

'Being young and fast on your feet is worth something,' I thought to myself. 'We got out of here a lot quicker than everyone else.'

We hit the highway in record time, which was good. I was probably the only person in the entire audience who had to go to work in the morning.

Maybe there is something to be said for being old after all.

Symmetries of Life

I'm not a huge fan of my grandmother. In my defense, I do feel compassion for her: I feel the same compassion I feel for all human beings, like the homeless people panhandling. I make a point to make eye contact and smile, showing that I recognize their humanness. I never give away my money, but that's because frugality trumps humanity every time. It's a scientifically proven fact. Look it up.

Grandma is a little dingy in the head. This is not something that can be attributed to old age. She has always been a little dingy. We had drop pendant lighting installed in our living room when I was younger (and thus, she was younger, negating the rationalization that she's in the "it must be dementia" demographic). The lights dropped down from a runner that was installed into the electricity wired through the ceiling.

"Those are so pretty!" Grandma said, complimenting my dad on his handwork. "How interesting! How do you get them to light?"

Instead of explaining the complexity of indoor electricity to my Grandma, Dad responded:
"Batteries."

Grandma nodded knowingly. "Oh, I see. Very pretty!"

Grandma is now 91. The other day, she demanded to know where my Mom had put her box of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies.

"I left them underneath my bed! By my shoes! Now I can't find them."

Mom was left wondering why someone would store their cookies by their shoes. I was left wondering why she has a box of Girl Scout cookies, an annual treat normally sold in April, underneath her bed in January.

Mom told me this story at dinner last night. After dinner, I had Trumie in one arm, my water bottle in another, and my car keys in my hand. I wanted to take home a handful of dark chocolates from the candy dish on the counter. No pockets. Dog, water bottle, no free hands...I set the dog on the counter and got my handful of candy. I bent down and stuffed them around my ankle inside of my sock.

Mom looked at me questioningly.

"It's not a long drive home," I said. "They won't melt."

"No, it's not that," she said. "I was just wondering why it is you think you're so different from your grandmother."