Lobsters, tears, steroids, redos—the tale of distraction

“The life of the body is the soul;
the life of the soul is God.”
St. Anthony of Padua

(Saint-Sulpice, Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2018)

I don’t cry…often.

Well, there are some commercials that can get me to shed a tear or two.

The Toyota commercial that ran during Christmas with the mom
going off the bring her husband home while the son was busy enlisting the
help of all his friends in the neighborhood to make a row
of snowmen, lining the road up to their house, all saluting his returning veteran dad…

The camera pans to the dad who sees the saluting snowmen.
The mom pulls into the driveway where the snowmen are saluting alongside a saluting son.
The dad gets out of the car, stops to salute his son before engulfing him in his arms…

See…
tears as I type.

That is the kind of commercial that “gets me”

Other than that, I’m pretty stoic.

I cry usually when I am totally and utterly exasperated or when I’m really really sick.

Let us recall my little predicament from last week.

Last week I had a root canal that went awry….not away but awry.

Over the weekend, the endodontist called in a different antibiotic after the
original prescription appeared not to be working.

Clindamycin.

I took the first pill Saturday.
That evening after showering, I noticed I was itching on my abdomen and noticed a
red blotchiness.
Hummmm.

I took the next dose right before bed.

By morning’s first light, I looked like a freshly boiled lobster being pulled hot from the pot.

From head to toe, front to back… I was a giant red itchy rash.
And my root canal tooth…well it was throbbing so badly that I started scouring
the house for a pair of pliers.

We went to breakfast with our son and daughter-n-law and the Mayor.
I didn’t feel much like eating but I’ll never miss being with the Mayor.
My face was red as a beet but given our location, my daughter-n-law slyly noted
folks will just think you’ve had a facial peel.

Calls to the endodontist, the clindamycin was quickly discontinued.
Up the Motrin, use the pain meds, and get some Benadryl to counter the drug reaction.

I don’t usually take Benadryl but I took one and then dozed off during the
poor play calling against the Saints.

Which from what I hear was best.

I tried writing my post for the following day but it was as if I had been drugged…
I couldn’t type out one word without it being a mishmash of letters.

I dozed some more.

My daughter-n-law text asking how I felt.
I sent back a scathing text of woe…but somehow I sent it to the endodontist instead of my
daughter-n-law…

Oooops

Profuse apologies followed but at least he understood, in no uncertain terms,
that I was in a bad way.

I dozed again.

The Saints lost, the Patriots won, I was red, itching and had a throbbing head.
Sunday was tough.

So back to the notion of crying.

This morning I felt so bad, I had had so many meds that were meant to help…
feeling so so bad such that I almost passed out, twice.

I fell onto the bed and broke down in tears.
Tears of frustration and hurting, tears of feeling bad and tears of knowing
how busy our lives are soon to be while thinking that I need to be 100%.

Typical mom thinking.

My husband is not used to this.

I am the little rock.
I am the chief caregiver.
I am the take charge and ‘it’s time to get rolling’ member of the family.

And so…he did what most husbands do when given such a predicament, he panicked.

“We’re going to the ER” he exclaimed.

Yet his better option appeared to simply pace the floor back and forth in front of me—
which in turn was making me a nervous wreck.

Crying and husbands, a true difficulty.

I told him I’d just call the doctor when the office opened.

I called both my doctor and then the endodontist.

My doctor could see me at 10:45
The other at 2 PM

When the nurse called me back, with one look, she said what we always say down here
in the South when things are bad…
“Bless your heart”

The doctor walked in…”Oh my gosh!! Bless your heart!!! You ARE a red mess!”

I could only muster a feeble “help me…”

She countered with a resounding “You need a good slug of steroids.”

She proceeded with two shots–steroids and B-12— as my B-12 levels were way low
according to last week’s labs.
Then there was a prescription for oral steroids.

Next, it was off to the endodontist’s office.

He proceeded to do a redo root canal.
Working basically backward…undoing what he did then
redoing it all over again.

As I type, the novocaine is still lingering.
The throbbing remains at bay.
The steroids have kicked in.
The red is slowly dissipating as the itching is lessening.
There is indeed a small ray of sunshine…

No, literally the sun is shining… we haven’t seen it in a while.
So that’s a good thing.

But this tale is really just a tale of distraction.
A distraction from the pressing matters that need addressing.

Issues like some young boys from a Catholic school who have become the
latest fodder for all things social media and wrongful reporting.

Issues like the obvious hypnotizing from the new Marxist left of the general populace.

Issues like showing any support for the current sitting president equating to hate.

Issues like a fetus being considered not a human being.

Issues like the billboard that I recently caught while buzzing down the interstate at warp speed
that read:
“IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED.
(Call xxx-xxx-xxxx for more information)

But that’s it right?
That’s the bottom line.

God Created.

End of sentence.

And so now the question remains, what shall we do with the stewardship we have been
given over that creating?

That is the real question and the real issue…

So as soon as things clear up on this end, we’ll get back to what’s really the issue at hand.

God Created.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
1 Colossians 1:16

shutdowns and reactions

Human life, then, we may see as the preparing for the life of Heaven.
It means, on the one hand, complete self-conquest.
The soul must conquer the body and bring it into full obedience to God’s law;
and the soul must itself come into full submission to God.
It has, from God’s Church, the truths it needs to know about God and man and its own destiny:
from the same source, it has the law that will govern it in the right use of itself and in the
right relation of love and duty to others.
But, as has been seen, given that man is to live a life above his nature,
he needs those gifts above his nature which we call the Supernatural Life.
Frank Sheed
from A Map of Life: A Simple Study of the Catholic Faith

(The Mayor is busy / Julie Cook / 2019)

You thought this post was going to be all political, didn’t you?

You thought I was going to throw my two cents into the ring, didn’t you?

Well, I will tell you that despite a government shut down, The Mayor is not slowing down.

We traveled over to spend the weekend with the Mayor.

She wasn’t worried about any shutdowns.
See that’s the glory of kids—they don’t much care what the adults are doing just
as long as their little worlds are flowing.

The minute “the flow” stops, that’s when children become slightly unhinged.

Little children are good like that…they stay oblivious to adults acting like
sophomoric idiots while allowing the lives of countless individuals to hang in the balance.

They don’t care who’s a Democrat or who’s a Republican…
they just know that they are center stage and that’s pretty much how life flows…
anything else is minutia.

So despite big announcements, Dreamers, Walls, and shutdowns or a stubborn President and an
idiot Speaker of the House, the Mayor was busy.

Busy learning to eventually walk on her own.
Busy learning how to make sounds become words.
Busy getting really tired after being so busy that she falls asleep mid play…

(The Mayor asleep on her chief aide’s lap in Woobville / Julie Cook / 2019)

So Thursday morning I went to have a yearly mammogram.
Following that, the endodontist called me explaining they’d had a cancellation and
could fit me 4 day’s prior to my regularly scheduled possible root canal evaluation.

Perfect I thought–knock out the physical traumas all in one day.

As much as I hate having such, I’ve had my fair share of root canals and just
went the suck it up option and to go with the flow.

The tooth had reared its ugly head right around Thanksgiving.
The dentist thought maybe just a crown would help as there was more filling than tooth.

We did the crown.

I went two weeks with a temporary just to see if the sensitivity and pain would ease off.
If they did, the crown would be cemented into place.
If not, off to the endodontist I would go.

Well–things seemed to get better.
So cementing the crown it would be.

Until two days later when the tooth revved up again like nothing had ever changed.

The dentist scheduled my trip to the endodontist.

Of which I went to on Thursday, early.

The root canal was a near 2-hour event.
I was leaned back so far I could have been standing on my head.
I thought my poor neck would give way.

When he was finally finished, he scheduled my coming back for a permanent patch.

Well after 5 hours when the novocaine finally wore off, my mouth and tooth hurt but I chocked that
up to shots and trauma.

I took a pain pill.

Well, the pain and throbbing got progressively worse…
so much so that I had to call the endodontist when I was up with The Mayor–
requesting an antibiotic or a pair of pliers….whichever he felt would be best.

He went with the antibiotic.
It should have been the pliers.

As I type this…I am yawning almost uncontrollably…
and spelling everything very wrong…even for me…maybe it’s the Benadryl.

I don’t normally take Benadryl but I thought it could help with the
overtly severe rash and itching…never mind the throbbing tooth.

What?

Rash?
Itching?
Throbbing??

Seems the endodontist called in clindamycin… seems as if I’m allergic to clindamycin.

My torso, back, face, ears, neck all look as if I have visited a nudist beach and fell asleep laying out.
Things look burned that have never seen the sun.
Sandpaper like skin…red and itchy.
Not a pretty mind’s eye picture I know no matter how you look at it…
But I’ve never seen anything like this.

I may have had clindamycin once before…years ago for a sinus infection and I might recall
my arm itching–calling the doctor and having to change up meds…
Looking at my red self, that seems to be coming to my memory now.

I wish I’d quit yawing and would quit typing gibberish.

I text back the endodontist this morning explaining that I did not sleep because my tooth
has not stopped throbbing and I am now a giant walking, red as a berry, rash.
Did I mention a throbbing tooth?

Good thing Don talked me into using Grammarly on my computer…
otherwise, you might think I have been drugged. Thank you Don.

Well, I have actually.

I thought a couple of Benedryl could stop the rash.

I told the doctor if he didn’t squeeze me in tomorrow, I was getting my pliers—I’m still
debating so I’ll let you know…

Now I better go make some tea to wake me up.

At least the Mayor took her aides out to supper last night, even if I couldn’t chew.

(The Mayor at dinner out / Julie Cook / 2019)

I’ll use the pliers on my tooth while using a hammer to knock in a little sense into our
elected children adult officals.

to be kind

“Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush,
anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on,
so that children have very little time for their parents.
Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the
disruption of peace of the world.”
Mother Teresa

“It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us.
It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain
of someone unloved in our own home.
Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.”
Mother Teresa

(the wee one letting her feelings be known during a shopping outing / Abby Cook / 2018)

I would wager that most of us would agree that it’s pretty easy to be kind to a baby
or for that matter, a small child.

That is unless you’re some kind of depraved individual but those are sad thoughts for another day.

Babies just seem to have a way of drawing us in…into their little worlds.
They do so with their large inquisitive eyes, their sweet and heartwarming smiles
and their openly unconditional acceptance.

You have a bad hair day — a baby doesn’t care.
You have visible scars — a baby doesn’t care.
You have internal scars — a baby doesn’t care.
You have issues, a baby simply doesn’t care.

They smile, they coo, they draw us in…

And suddenly we have no cares.

We don’t care about much of anything but for this exchange of warmth and kindness.
We are lost in the kindness.
It just feels good.
No cares, no worries…just basking in an exchange of endorphin pumping feel good
between two individuals.

That is of course until said baby or small child decides they are displeased with life’s
current circumstance.
All of which could be due to hunger, teething, a soiled diaper, colic,
too hot, too cold, too tired…you name it.

And it is at these very moments that our own capacity for kindness seems to quickly
dissipate as our nerves take over and kindness takes a back burner.

So we ask ourselves…does kindness come naturally?

I’m no psychologist or anthropologist or neurologist.
I don’t study people’s brains or actions or reactions.

Rather I am just a wife married for 35 years, a mom to a 30-year-old, and now a grandmother
to a 5-month-old. Plus I was a high school teacher for 31 years…
so I kind of know people and I often know myself…be that for good or bad.

Kindness seems to be more of a reciprocating response.

Now granted there are certain folks out there who just seem to be more innately
kind than others.
Think Melanie versus Scarlett.

And yet I’ve observed some really gruff individuals lose some of that bristled gruffness rather
quickly when met with pure kindness.

In our day’s quote, Mother Teresa observes that we often tend to be more gracious,
more kind to strangers much more readily than we do to those actually closest to us.

An odd human condition.

She notes that perhaps it is easier to be kind and gracious to those we don’t know rather
then those who actually deserve our kindness the most….those who are closest to us
in our lives. Yet it is those individuals who we often look over, take for granted or
just assume they care despite our brusqueness, attitudes, selfishness, curtness,
rudeness, and self-absorption.

I know this to be true.
I recall now in hindsight my days as an adolescent and I feel the constant need to offer up
my apologies to Mother.

I also know that during 35 years of marriage, I’ve had a lot to learn in the way of kindness.

Two imperfect people are joined in the union of marriage…to have and to hold…to
love, honor and respect, to live with until death does them part…
all the while, the perfect union and marriage is being lived by two very imperfect people…
a bit of a blind leading the blind.

I know that I tend to be a bit hard-headed and stubborn. I blame an Irish heritage.
I know that I tend to be the one who is always more right than wrong despite my
husband not yet figuring this out.

And yet I also know that I can be more Scarlett than Melanie…
wanting things my way…
I can be selfish, snappy, short-tempered, overwhelmed and moody.

And I also know that my husband has a high frustration level,
very little patience and is a 69-year-old by-product of a very abusive alcoholic father
who left deep lasting scars.
Add in the fact that my husband is nearly deaf so he can misinterpret, misunderstand
or miss everything I say…talk about over the top frustrating.

And so often in this life of ours, kindness has sadly taken a backseat.

And yet kindness seems to be a glue.
It is a binding agent.
It can bind two imperfect people together placing them under the blanket, or yoke if you will,
of the One who casts the perfect light of hope and healing over our human brokenness.

And yet we know this act of kindness must often be learned as well as worked on.
It is something I have learned that is a grace that more often than not
must be prayed for, cared for and nurtured.
It is a grace that God will and can work in our hearts.

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost;
he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
Saint Basil

There are no accidents

“In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences”
Pope John Paul II

(a two legged okra? / Julie Cook / 2017)

Tuesday I spent the day doing something that needed doing.
It needed doing ages ago.

I pulled out two step ladders along with a box of dusting clothes and proceeded
to take everything off my bookshelves—

These bookshelves were builtin cabinetry, on either side of the fireplace,
and it was the thing about the house that I loved most when we moved in
20 years ago…
Because I always wanted a place to properly put my books.
And did I mention my book collection, within that twenty year time, has
only grown.

But it wasn’t just books that had since found homes on the shelves.
Maybe it’s the art teacher in me but these where mini display shelves of
design and creativity….they held my “treasures” from trips,
they held memories.

However to the causal observer, I feared, they held chaos.
Hopefully organized chaos, but chaos none the less.
And as I age, I think I’m finally understanding…less is more.

I took down every last book, picture, knick knack, souvenir, treasure…
emptying all shelves as if preparing to pack up, box up and move…
which mind you I do consider constantly as I hear the ocean often call
my name..but then I’ll hear the mountains call out as well…
so to keep things quiet…
I just ignore them and stay put….

I climbed up and down, balancing precariously on the cabinet edge, in order to get
everything moved, off and down.

I next proceeded to dust.

Finally I had a clean slate.

I spent the remainder of the day sorting.

What should be boxed for Goodwill.
What should be boxed and stored.
What should be moved elsewhere.
What should be allowed to stay.

We had brought back 9 very old decoy ducks that had been Martha’s.
Beautifully old decoys of various species, sizes, shapes, ages and colors…
with one being a giant rustic fish and one being a giant sitting turkey hen.
All now having come home to roost with the 4 I already had.
My flock of 4 sits on the fireplace—
what would I now do with Martha’s flock of 9???

It all started for me when I inherited my grandmother’s very old wood carved decoy
of a male canvas back duck named Henry…Henry is now nearing 100.
In her last years of life, as the dementia set in, Mimi named the decoy Henry
and he sat at the foot of the bed as if it were a pet…and I believe
in Mimi’s mind, Henry was real and was indeed her pet….

Eventually I decided to strategically place the decoys up on my shelves—
sitting a couple on top of books, while others were flanked by a few books.
I threw in few antique plates, a framed photo or two…
Poked and placed until I got something that I think to be tastefully presentable…
rather than stuffed to the gills full.

But all of this rearranging is not the point of this post.
Nor are the ducks or books or dust or junk…

As I was sorting through the wealth of books that I’ve acquired over the years–
with the bulk being based on Christianity, the Saints, Monasticism, Prayer,
the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, European history and lots of Art history…
one little book literally fell out amongst the hoard…
resting at my feet on the floor.

Most of my books are hardback, some are large and lovely, some are old and rare..
but this little paperback book simply seemed to fall out of nowhere….

It’s a book I remember ordering years ago.

There Are No Accidents
In All Things Trust God
by Fr Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R
with John Bishop

I remember that I never finished reading the book for whatever reason,
which I do remember starting while I was still teaching.
Time then was never on my side…not that it is now,
but these days I try to be more diligent with both my time and reading.

The book is based on an interview with Fr. Benedict..
as he was known by his first name and not his last.
He was a Franciscan monk, teacher and retreat leader who died in 2014.

He was also a monk who was hit by a car while crossing the street at the
busy Orlando Airport in 2004.
His survival was very questionable.
He was an older gentleman who sustained some very serious injuries.
Both broken bones and severe head trauma.

There were surgeries, long stints in ICU, ventilators, physical therapy….
He never walked again without assistance nor could he raise his right arm
but yet he survived and he persevered.
For he had a mission.
And that was to continue sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The doctors warned that if he lived, he’d never talk again,
never think again as he most likely would be severely brain damaged.
They also said he wouldn’t walk let alone dance…
but he was ok with not dancing
because he never liked to dance anyway.

I’m beginning the book anew.

For I too believe there are no accidents—
for behind every accident, every incident, be they minor or devastating…
it is there our Omnipotent God resides…

There are blessings to be wrestled over but we do not like nor do we
want to wrestle.

And therein lies our challenge…
our challenge to comprehend, to sort and to accept.

We stand as a lost child feeling overwhelmed and frozen by fear, pain
sorrow, horror, devastation, disbelief, greif.
Our thoughts, our faith, our being… rocked all to the foundation,
as we are left to rile with unbridled anger.

Because this God of ours is not reacting…
this God of ours is not playing the role…
this God of our is not doing things the way we would have Him do…
and therefore we decide we don’t need, don’t want, don’t like this God
as we assume ourselves to be the better god….

And there rests our trouble….

“There are no accidents.
Evil things occur because of bad will or stupidity or fatigue,
yet whatever the cause, God will bring good out of it if we let Him”
Fr Benedict

“even when we do not choose evil, we choose the good so half heartedly
and with so many qualifications that mediocrity becomes our canonized statis quo.”
Fr Benedict