WEATHERING FRIGHTS

It began as a bright and clear Friday, and we hoped the sun would start to melt the 10 inches of snow that had fallen during the night. But, as soon as I got to work, I discovered that all university offices were scheduled to close early because another storm was expected. One of the professors offered me a ride home. I was delighted because I had unsuccessfully tried to ring up W.S. I suspected that he had dashed to campus to retrieve some materials before department offices were locked. As a ferocious wind propelled me from the professor’s car toward my front door, I noticed that a narrow path had been shoveled from the street to our front door.

My husband had many fine qualities but cheeriness was not one of them, so when he greeted me with a hug and said, “Am I glad to see you!” I knew something was wrong. As he backed away, I first noticed his sheepish grin, and then I saw his lopsided, stark-white, frostbitten right ear. Swollen three times its normal size, it jutted out from an otherwise reasonably well-proportioned head. “If it falls off, we can always use it for a doorstop,” he joked. “Not funny!” I screamed, as I stared at his strange protuberance.

Alarmed at my reaction, W.S. ran to the mirror and quickly agreed something should be done to remedy the problem---anything, that is, short of going to the Student Health Center. “People never come out of there alive,” he shouted, “Have you ever met an engineering major who doesn’t act like a zombie?”

Ignoring his protests, I gave the Center a call. After calmly describing the swollen ear to the woman who answered the phone, she replied, “Well don’t rub snow on it.” “Why?” I asked, “would anyone in their right mind rub snow on a frozen ear?” “I don’t know,” the voice answered, “but I heard that the last person who tried it ended up with his ear in his hand.”

“Don’t touch your ear!” I yelled at W.S. Returning to the phone, I said, “Nurse, could you please put a doctor on the line?” “I’m no nurse,” she responded indignantly, “I’m switchboard, but I’ll see who is still here.”  Finally, a man answered who informed me that there are several conflicting medical theories on how to treat frostbite. “Can he move the extremity?” he asked.

“W.S., wiggle your ears,” I shouted. “It’s okay, he’s waving at me with his right ear,” I informed the doctor. “Well, my ride is finally here lady, so I suggest you put a warm rag on your husband’s ear and call me on Monday.” At that point I wasn’t sure if “switchboard” had connected me with a doctor or the maintenance department, so I decided to get another opinion and called the local hospital.

“Whatever you do, don’t put heat on his ear,” the nurse instructed. “He should soak his auditory apparatus in a basin of tepid water, but after that just tell him to stay out of the cold.” No way was I going to tell my husband to stick his head in a bucket of tepid water. As I hung up the phone, I noticed little sparkling blisters popping up on the auditory apparatus.

Our neighbor was a graduate student in pharmacology. In desperation, I ran next door and tearfully begged him to come look at my husband’s bulging, sparkling ear. It only took one glance for him to observe---“You must have kept that sucker upwind.” He suggested we treat the ear like a bad burn.

I gently dabbed burn ointment on the swollen ear and taped a loose fitting bandage over it. I didn’t know if this treatment would help his ear, but at least we wouldn’t have to look at it for a while.  Later, when I removed the bandage, we were both relieved to see that the ear had shrunken back to normal size, and had regained a healthy pink glow---except now it looked like a shrimp in a shell.

Neither of us slept much that night because every time W.S. moved his head on his pillow, it sounded as if he were rumpling a ball of cellophane, and he’d whisper, “Did you hear that?”  Happily, in a couple of days his anatomy returned to normal as he shed his crustaceous shell and the errant ear emerged unscathed.

Chagrined, he swore to always wear earmuffs in the winter. He also vowed to never again shovel snow, take out the garbage or wash the dishes. W.S. always did know how to make the most of a bad situation.

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld, c 2006

ENLIGHTENMENT

Common sense is a “basic ability to perceive, understand and judge things that are common to nearly all people and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without the need for debate.”  Want to bet?

Years ago, when I applied for a job at the University Employment Office, I knew that jobs were at a premium. My husband, W.S. was a graduate student, and I desperately needed a job to supplement his meager salary as a graduate assistant.  My common sense told me that employment satisfaction meant, “Take what you can get and smile.” However, my good instincts betrayed me, when I flunked the office skills test, and the employment counselor didn’t flinch.

Instead, she suggested I was admirably suited for one of the higher paying jobs being offered, and she mentioned that the head of the Sociology Department was looking for an administrative assistant. Sociology is the science of social relations. How bad could that be?

Enthusiastically, I asked her to make the appointment. Whereupon she grabbed my arm, speed-dialed the phone and shouted into the receiver, “She’ll be right over.” As the door closed behind me, she mumbled, “If it doesn’t work out, there may be an opening on the cafeteria line,” but I knew this job was going to be mine. I needed the money!

When I arrived at work for the interview, the inner office door was closed. I sat at what I supposed was my desk, and found all the drawers empty except for a note which read, “If a tree falls on you in the forest, you know you’ve been standing in the same spot too long.” Then I heard a bellow from the inner office, “Come in here and bring your pad.”

Since I didn’t have a pad, I dumped my lunch into one of the drawers, quickly smoothed out the brown paper bag, grabbed a pen out of my purse, and dashed into the inner office, where I saw a red-faced troll whose baldhead rested directly on his shoulders. I stood there speechless as he slowly shifted a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other without using his hands.

“The first rule,” croaked the troll is that you don’t enter my office without knocking. Write that down!”  I wrote, “Knock” on my paper bag. He had lots of rules. “Make coffee before I arrive.” I wrote, “Perk before jerk.” “Only pile papers on the front of my desk.” I wrote, “Suffers from rear piles.” Then he told me that I was allowed only one 10-minute break and 20 minutes for lunch.  I wrote, “Fantasy Land.” At that, I had to rip the bag apart to write on the other side, since a baloney and cheese sandwich requires a rather small bag. I wrote, “Keep supplies in your desk.”

It only took one 10-minute break in the Break Lounge to get the scuttlebutt from the other secretaries in the building. I learned that my boss had skewered too many secretaries on the spit of anti-social relations, and, out of favor with the Employment Office, the Troll had been informed that I was his last chance. The word was out. No woman in her right mind would work for him!  Common sense told me that we were a perfect match!

So for a year, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t fire me, I brewed his coffee, knocked on his door, took 20 minute breaks, an hour for lunch, and watched him cringe as day after day he submitted his research to my limited typing skills.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.” Harriet Beecher Stowe)

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006

Sense And Non Sense

 All my writing life, people have asked me, ”Where do you get your ideas?” And my answer has always been, “Ideas are easy, but executing them in a new way is not!” Today’s article will give those of you who might be interested, a peek into this writer’s cockamamie thought process.

A week ago, a friend innocently said, “That doesn’t make any sense.”  I can’t remember what she was referring to, but the words started churning in my brain. After that, I started listening more carefully to what people were saying, and, “What makes sense?” became my creative priority.

For instance, it makes no sense to argue with someone who doesn’t want facts to get in the way of his opinion. This is the same person who orders chicken fingers for lunch. Think about it!

A fictional story has to make sense, but life does not. For me, it makes sense to be an optimist. Being positive makes life more fun, even though I admit that I don’t have control over most things.

Hiking in the mountains by myself gives me time for contemplation and occasionally an adventure. Yesterday, I saw two men staring intently at something over a low wall. “What do you see?” I asked. One man said, “We are looking at a mountain lion’s footprint.”

I looked over the wall and saw a hole about the size of a basketball. There were shoe prints to the left of the hole. I knew that if that hole had been what those men thought it was, the elephant sized, mountain lion would have been hopping around on one toeless paw, after devouring a couple of sneaker wearing tourists. Their discovery made as much sense as a sighting of Big Foot.

As I continued my walk, I spied a rider atop a beautiful, majestic horse on the trail ahead of me. After they disappeared from view, I noticed that the horse (it made no sense that it was the rider) left a massive mound of manure in my path. Notwithstanding the delightful alliteration, it made no sense at all for me to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I climbed some rocks to avoid the souvenir.  I knew from experience that some clueless joggers coming around the bend would soon re-arrange the terrain.

When passing fellow hikers, a hearty, “Good Morning!” (unless it’s afternoon) is acceptable behavior on the trail. Most people leave it at that, but a few folks think that a simple, “Hello,” gives them license to share life’s intimate details with absolute strangers. I don’t know these people and it makes no sense why someone would do that. This morning, my simple greeting encouraged a man from Michigan (that of course explains nothing) to tell me that his neurosurgeon wanted to remove his intestines to operate on his back.  I suggested that he find a surgeon with a better sense of direction. The exchange made no sense at all unless he thought I was a gastroenterologist, but then, I don’t even carry a hiking stick.

So now you know how my brain works. Scary! Isn’t it!

Esther Blumenfeld (“The universe never did make sense. I suspect it was built on government contracts.” Robert A. Heinlein)

Lost And Found

Three years ago, I went on a trip and when I returned home, I couldn’t find a pair of tiny, gold earrings. Losing things is not my style---misplacing things---Yes! losing things---No! So naturally, I tore my house apart looking for those little suckers and still couldn’t find them. I searched for three years.

Yesterday, I opened my jewelry box and heard two little voices saying, “Here we are. Where the heck have you been?” (No. For you purists, I wasn’t hearing voices. It’s called, poetic license).

Author, Frances Rodman (not the basketball-playing friend of Kim Jong-un) said, “Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.” Rodman, you have a screw loose! I don’t have to lose anything to appreciate what I have. Besides, Frances didn’t mention the headache, indigestion and accompanying ulcer that would accompany the stress of losing everything.

In life, tangible things are not the only items that can be misplaced. There is such a thing as misplaced anger, like when someone shoots his mouth off at the person delivering unwelcome news. An old Korean proverb says, “If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot.” That’s why Kim would rather shoot his uncle. He would have been better off listening to Mark Twain who suggested, “When angry count to four. When very angry swear.” But, maybe that doesn’t translate well into Korean.

Since anger is such a corrosive emotion, I suggest that before someone gives another person a piece of her mind, she should check to see if she has enough mind left-over when she is finished.

There is also such a thing as misplaced judgment. Again, Mark Twain gives a good example, “It’s not good sportsmanship to pick up golf balls when they are still rolling.” Metaphorically speaking, going off a trail in an unfamiliar forest is not a good idea. That’s when Albert Einstein reminds us, “Stand still. The trees and the bush behind you are not lost.”

My favorites of the misplaced are misplaced modifiers such as:

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.” (Groucho Marx).

But, before I lead you too far astray of the subject at hand, “the misplacement of tangible things,” I can offer a sure fire solution; the easiest way to find something you have misplaced is to buy a replacement.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Lost time is never found.”… Benjamin Franklin) 

Missed It By That Much!

What a day!  All I know is that it was a Friday, and TGIF notwithstanding, this particular Friday didn’t start out so well.

I crawled out of bed at 5 a.m. and got ready for my mountain hike. Got my boots all laced up and discovered that I had left my car keys in the bedroom. Not wanting to walk across the rug with dirty boots, I unlaced them, took them off and went for the keys. Returning to the mudroom, I laced up the left boot and then promptly broke the shoelace on the right boot. Luckily, I had a spare lace, but those of you hikers out there can commiserate with me over the joys of re-lacing boots…especially early in the morning.

Finally, I got into the car, fastened my seat belt, backed out of the garage and promptly knocked over my garbage can. Got out of the car, picked up the can (as well as scattered chicken bones) and finally took off for the mountains. It started to sprinkle. I told myself, “It’s not Monsoon Season yet. Must be a flock of birds.” It rained just enough to turn the dust on my car into a thin coating of mud.

When I got home, my neighbor informed me that I had a big irrigation leak at the side of my house. I turned off the water valve, and on my way into the house to call the irrigation Guru; I noticed two flyers at my front door. One was a love letter from the Water Company: “A backflow is broken in your neighborhood and the water will be turned off for 3 hours until noon.” This meant that the irrigation guy couldn’t come until after noon, because he couldn’t test the water leak at my house, since there wouldn’t be any water.  The second love letter was from the Gas Company: “The gas line in your neighborhood doesn’t have enough rotten egg smell to detect a gas leak, so be careful until we can add more rotten egg smell.”

So far, I had broken my shoelace, knocked over the garbage can, got rained on by a flock of birds, discovered a water leak, and my rotten egg smell wasn’t rotten enough, and it was only 8 a.m.

What else could go wrong?

At 9 a.m. the phone rang and my caller ID let me know that it was a friend.  I picked up the phone, said, “Well, Good Morning!” but she wasn’t on the other line. After several attempts to call her back, I finally got through on my cell phone. It turned out that a problem had developed with Century Link (her phone provider), Comcast (my phone provider) and Verizon (just because they didn’t want to miss the fun.)

At noon, the Water Company turned the community water back on. I flushed the toilet and the air in the line blew the rubber tube right off the gizmo in the toilet tank. That was uncanny!

The irrigation leak was fixed and all was finally well with my Friday. Then the mail arrived.

General Motors congratulated me that I had gotten my recalled ignition replaced, but informed me that now there is a teeny, weensy problem with the electrical power steering which will be replaced as soon as the parts arrive from Timbuktu. In the off chance that I experience a sudden loss of power steering, I was informed that “a message will be displayed on the Driver Information Center along with a chime telling you that you can now steer in the manual steering mode.” Well, I can do that!

So, do any of you superstitious folks think that my Friday was Friday the 13^th? I’m not telling! 

Esther Blumenfeld (Forgot to tell you, the battery in my watch died.)