The little old woman who lived in a middle school.

Being a school nurse to several hundred middle-schoolers, I sometimes feel like “the little old woman who lived in a shoe; she had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.”  Sometimes they grace my office with horrific things like hangnails, and chapped lips, and trampoline injuries from three days ago.  Other times there are more significant issues to be dealt with, parents to be contacted, an occasional ambulance.  Or an arm around the shoulder to dry a tear (hormones flow freely) or a high five on a test score.  It’s just all part of being the person in the building in charge of the bandaids and Tylenol.  (The DEA, however, frowns upon stocking Valium for faculty and staff.)

So I do appreciate Moses’ leadership in the Old Testament.  He had to have

Pass the salt, please

I suppose Bob and I are at that age where we should be skimping on the sodium.  I’ve cooked low fat for so many years, no problem that.  But cooking low salt?? Man, that’s just plain HARD!  I know, whine, whine.  I guess we could just live on celery…

…until I found out that celery is a culprit for gout.  Then there’s all the fuss about sugar. 

My daughters try to tell us that flavor in food is actually not a bad thing.  Now, c’mon, in our defense we do have flavor, but really there’s just nothing quite like salt.  After all, there is one whole

Who turned off the light?

Bob keeps turning the lights off.  I can always tell if he’s been through a room after me when I walk back in and the room is now dark.  He’s even turned off the light with me still in the room, (conditioned response—“oops, sorry, honey!”)

Ostensibly, this is to save power, which means to save money, and my husband definitely loves to save money.  Not that he’s not generous, some might say to a fault, but when it comes to getting the monthly bills, yeah, our house is pretty dark.  One of our girls bought him this gift one year:

Where’s the broom and dust pan?

I think I used to somewhat deceive myself that once my three children flew the coup, my house would be a more organized residence.

 What a joke.

 The reality I have had to face a long time ago (and Bob has patiently and lovingly embraced this with my other idiosyncrasies) is that I am a “messy girl”.  Now, add our big, black dog to that mix, and my fur-covered carpet and floors just underscore that truth.

By contrast, everywhere my folks go, improves.  Amazingly.  They are both from the builder generation, and are themselves two of the most disciplined and selfless people you could hope to find. 

Umbrella or sun hat??

I have one daughter living on the Scandinavian coast.  Weather report: cold, cloudy, wet. 

I have another living in Southern Cal.  Weather report: hot, sunny, dry. 

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.  Sounds like a fairly consistent gig for the weather man.

Incoming!

The college’s bell tower had not yet rung 6AM, and the sun was still coming up over the wheat that was drying out from the recent rains, which had at least brought in cooler weather.  So sipping hot tea on my patio while donning a sweatshirt in southern Missouri in mid-June was a real treat.  Birds singing, an occasional rooster (even though we live in town), and my big black dog was not panting yet.  Not bad at all for a summer Monday morning!

Until a bird decided to critique yesterday’s sermon notes:

He Is, so what what does that make me….and you??

Dante in a graphic novel??

I’ve mentioned before that Bob and I take on a somewhat Rockwellian look as he reads to me while I crochet in my great-grandmother’s rocking chair.  At this writing, we’re still on Ayn Rand’s famous American novel, Atlas Shrugged, but are somewhat bogged down in the author’s voluminous rant via the character John Galt.  I finally opted out when my more intellectual half offered to read the rest of that chapter on his own and pick me back up when the plot resumes…

Bob has also read the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid.  Why, you may ask?  Not sure.  I’ve enjoyed some Virgil and Augustine, but I also tend toward Calvin and Hobbes.  (In all honesty, Bob is well rounded 

Hindsight is not always 20/20

Somebody once said that hindsight is 20/20.  I don’t think so.  I think we can still be blind as a bat without some well-fitted spectacles in the form of serious contemplative wisdom. I don’t know much (at all) about physics—that’s my brother the Purdue engineer’s department.  But I’ve heard there’s something out there called Chaos Theory.  I like that term.  I sometimes feel I’m the embodiment of it.  No need to take classes on that one, just come read my autobiography, which I haven’t written yet since I’m still living it.  As I’ve said before, my life seemingly doesn’t come in “seasons”; it prefers to come in “spasms”. 

Of which I will spare you the details…

Inventory

A good friend of mine told me about the local Red Cross blood drive that was happening here in town.  I hadn’t donated blood in a L-O-N-G time, and since someone dear to me in my family had just had a transfusion, it was obviously still in my frontal lobe.  That, plus I was on summer vacation, plus I have one of the rarest blood types (B negative), so no excuses.  Drink some extra water, grab a protein bar, and I’m off.

There’s a family story about my mom back when we were kids.  She had the rarest type of blood, AB negative.  That’s always fun, since if you’re in a car wreck or some such awful thing, and you need a lifesaving transfusion, you might be in a world of hurt.