Turn off the light and go to bed.

How many times have we heard that shouted at us? It's a part of the night time routine. So I turn off my computer and all the lights in the condo and go to bed. The wierd blip in my routine is that John is still up. He sits in his rocker chuckling softly to something on the internet. I can see his head surrounded by the bluish electronic glow. Other than that, it's completely dark. Since he doesn't see the screen he rarely turns it on. So it's the tiny lights showing power supply or such that illuminate him meaning its very dark in here. Even though I know John is blind, that he always has a black field of vision, it just doesn't connect with me sometimes.
Another disconnect is when I am standing someplace and he is walking towards me. Sometimes I remember to speak so he knows I'm there. Other times I stand there dumbstruck as he walks right into me. Not something I mind doing, but I'm sure he'd rather not get the unexpected thump.
I find strangers do this a lot. John and I get on the elevator freezing the person already in there. Then suddenly they'll scramble wildly trying to stay out of his way. A simple "hello there" would fix the problem, but they seem incapable of speaking out. We call it the deer in the headlights stance. Not just elevators, but everywhere. By the way, how many times have you gotten on an elevator alone and used the opportunity to tug a snuggie out of your posterior? Or picked at that ticklish place in your nose? Or farted happily knowing you were finally in a place where you could do that and no one will know? Not so for blind people. Anything and everything they do is on display. People stare with no sense of wrong doing. Most blind people I know hate being stared at. They'd rather you go ahead and ask what's on your mind, or better yet just engage them in conversation.
Some people switch into hyper gear protective mode around us. They block traffic with their arms, they hold doors as if John were royalty. Running ahead to open the next door also. They stop cars and block people from walking. They wave their arms at cars, push obstacles like shopping carts aside and so on. All of this is done without making a sound. I find it rather confusing, John just accepts it and tries not to crash into the door that is carefully held open for him.
He has come to accept minor miracles in his life. There is a swimming pool at the condo where he lives. No matter how many people are out there he always gets a chaise lounge. It's always in the same place. I asked him once if he knew how that happens. He says no, it just magically appears. I've watched the magic now and it is a life guard or a neighbor who will snatch up a lounger and place it in the same spot where he is sure to find it. Sometimes asking another sunbather to give up their lounger. All this is done, again, without a word. It's like his underwear, he doesn't know how to buy it, it magically appears in the mail. Yes America I am admitting that his Mother buys his undies. Although I got him some boxers before surgery. One has skulls on it, one has tiny spidermen all over it, my personal fave has a large spiderman flying across the crotch with a baloon that says "My spidey sense is tingling". I had him wear that one right after surgery. Made me smile. He's a hoot and wears anything I give him.
We were in Rehoboth Beach once for the 4th of July. John dresses like Captain America. He's decked out in red / white / blue shorts, shirt and a tall hat with blinking stars on it. He parades up and down the boardwalk collecting comments from strangers. One man approached us and said "I told my wife if I go blind she better never dress me up like that". He wasn't serious, he was one of the off beats as I call them. I am collecting off beat comments into a journal. In Florida and elder gentlemen advised me not to walk him out too far into the waves and then desert him there. Off Beat. Well meant, but off beat.
So good night Mary Ellen, good night myJohn, turn off the lights and go to bed.

We interrupt this broadcast........

I wanted to title this one fingerprints but I hated to break the continuity. So... There are fingerprints all over my computer screen. They've been there for about a year and sometimes make reading difficult. Today I read t i g h t as t r g h t simply because a fingerprint added something to that i. I considered, for the thousandth time, wiping them off. I just can't do it though. They are Gwyndolyn's fingerprints from our favorite website. She loved Elmo's site. We would pick out hats to put on Elmo and then pick out which adornments the hat would get. She would point to the images she wanted and in doing so leave a wet print. I don't have to call up the site to tell you where the blue hat was, or the duckies quacking on the brim because I can look at my screen and see their faint reminder. Fingerprints on the screen, fingerprints on my heart.
She's growing up and changing now, a whole different child than the one who sat on my lap and played peek a boo with Elmo. I doubt she even remembers doing it. I keep this little photo album in my head. Cause I'm a 21st century kind of gal, my photo album includes movie clips. In my head, she'll always be 18 months to 3 years. Such a sweet child, I miss her lots. Come April I expect to be with her again. Yippie!

Super Glue and your body

I saw a television program recently in which a doctor closed an incision with super glue. Seems it makes sweet little scars and holds the skin together until it sort of wears off. Makes perfect sense to me. The tube has a warning label that says if you super glue your fingers together wash them with warm soapy water and roll the stuck part into a tube that you can roll off your skin. Well yippie ki yo ki yeah. What happens if you super glue yourself to some inanimate object. Not like you can roll something like say a dresser between your fingers. Hypothetical here but how in the world do you unstick yourself other than just pulling it off and leaving skin behind?
I found myself in this unenviable position recently. Trying to finish up scads of little jobs that never get done. I super glued the ribbon back on the Christmas decoration for my Mom. I glued the soles of my shoes back unto the body of the shoe. I repaired eye glasses, glued tiny wooden toys and a couple of cracked dishes got fixed. I glued the tear in the lamp shade and even tried short cuts to a small quilt block by using super glue. I glued broken picture frames and silk flowers onto frames and oh yeah, I glued myself to the table. I didn't realize I'd done so until I tried to walk away. Head, legs and trunk of my body moved out smartly. Right hand stayed in one spot.
I got a lot done yesterday. We're packing for a short trip to see my nephew Zak, his wife Rachel and their four babies. I am a reasonably intelligent person. I just don't understand how things like this keep happening to me. I glued myself to a table. sigh. The good news is I don't need stitches. Shoot, I managed to get out of it without even bleeding. My finger's are fine, my palm looks kinda dirty from the stuff that's still on there. But it will wear off, just like I did it deliberate. I'm just practicing to be a surgeon. I'll super glue your ouchies easily because I've got personal experience.

Warlords and Chocolates

I was in Washington DC recently riding the subway around and around. I love the subway and will spend time just riding from one end of the line to the next. My favorite subway stop is called Foggy Bottom. I don't get off there, but the name intrigues me. So.... on to my thought process.
I am obsessed with Africa. Especially the part of Africa (a moving wasteland) where babies are starving to death. Year's ago I saw this photograph by Kevin Carter and I've never been able to shake it from my thoughts. Neither could he as he committed suicide after this. Warning, warning, warning, Will Robinson, it's a horrific picture and will change your life forever. One cannot look at it without being altered on some cellular level. Daily I think about what is going on over there and how we can stop it. How we can't ignore it, how we must, must, must answer the cry of these innocents. America is a nation with great passions and compassions. We have poured money into the money pit of Africa for years. Billions of dollars have been poured into it's gaping maw and yet the babies starve. The definition of insanity is executing the same set of circumstances over and over again and expecting different results. Are we kidding ourselves here? Africa is hungry and we think we know why. It's the warlords who intercept the red cross and other aid organizations. They who keep the food for themselves and charge the villagers enormous prices for it. They who build up power and wealth literally on the skeleton's of their children. So far, we've been helpless to turn this around. I've often thought we should put together a think tank of some of our brightest and best thinkers. We know what doesn't work. Let them figure out what will.
Into this mess I get on the subway train and a young woman sit's near with a small girl and an infant strapped to her chest. The little girl is dressed in lime green and pink which sounds atrocious but looked good on her. I stared at the family and let my mind drift. If a warlord climbed into the car with us, raised a machete and started towards the woman. If I had a gun, I would kill him. If I didn't have a gun I would jump up and put my body between him and the children in hopes that it would buy some time for others in the car to jump on him. In short, I would sacrifice my life so the children could live. Now, lets go back to Africa.
Suppose I managed to orchestrate a plan in which I included a box of Russel Stover Chocolates with each shipment of rice and milk I sent to the villages. We know the warlords take charge of the food stuff's and dole it out at their leisure, and the villager's ability to pay. The difference today is the chocolate. Do you think they'll share it with the babies? Not a chance, rich smooth chocolate is going right to their own bellies. So let's poison the mix. Instead of creamy nougat you get creamy arsenic. I don't know which would work best, but I'm thinking it should be slow acting. Give them time to go home and relax before dying. That way they can't alarm the other warlords in the area. Not that they would. So I have now committed mass murder. I will be punished for this obviously. Will I sacrifice myself for the multitude with the same conviction as I did on the train? In the interests of saving the innocents, I've killed thousands and thousands of brutal men who are killing the children daily. Is it a sin? Of course it is, but is it any worse a sin than killing the man on the subway train who waved a machette in front of the woman and her children? Do you think God keeps a tally sheet in heaven and when the score is oh say...... 20...... you go to hell. I believe the death of the one man is as onus as the death of many. Does it matter that your intentions were good? I don't know. I suppose soldiers the world over struggle with this one. I could not sit and watch the machete man kill them. That would be a sin. But could I kill him to stop him? Knowing it's a sin? Yes, I believe I could do that. Could I kill the warlords in Africa? No of course not. I am an ordinary woman living in Kansas fer crying out loud. But if the means were available to me, it would sure make me think long and hard.
I tried to post that photo at the end here, but the blogger rules aren't letting me do it. I'm not sorry for showing it to you. I think everyone should know this is still going on today. If you want, google Kevin Carter and you can learn more about the photo and the man.

We interrupt this program.....

Aunt Tolli say's I exaggerate in my blogs about her and Alice. I think she's defending her actions at Hoover Dam by accusing me of fancying up the story. Either way I'm delighted she read about herself online. It was at the occasion of her 80th birthday and she cornered me by the buffet line. Shaking her finger at me she managed to keep a straight face for at least 30 second.

Baron Von Munchausen said: I pity anyone who doubts my veracity.

I think I agree.

mushrooms and toadstools

It's been a while since I wrote anything in here. I have a lot of catching up to do as it's been a very busy month. But I want to tell you about Davina's neices, Faith & Grace. These beautiful babies were born about the same time Popi-Da was exiting this earthly plane. He would have been pleased with the timing. They are beautiful little girls now, 3 years old. Their parents, Travis and Heather, are young enough to keep up with them. Truth is when you first meet them you wonder how in the world these kids can hold anything together. But it doesn't take you long to figure out they know more about marriage and parenting than some people ever learn. I'm off on a tangent here so shall return to the story.

Spring time in the Midwest means mushroom hunting time. From the prized Morel's that everyone looks for to the more common fungi that flavors stew pots. Mushroom hunting is a typical topic in a lot of families. This one being no exception. My particular fave is those who harness pigs to sniff out the morel's. Seems pigs are as fond of them as humans. I'm sure Grace & Faith had heard their share of mushroom stories. In fact, based on what happened next I'd guarantee it.

The girls were spending the day at the babysitter's house. She also has a young girl about the same age. While in the fenced in back yard there must have been some discussion about how to find them. I'm told the baby sitter's daughter pointed out some mushrooms on the other side of the fence from them. 3 year old arms are thin enough to reach through a chain link fence and the girls harvested some for themselves. We don't know how much they actually ate. What we do know is that they weren't mushrooms, they were toadstools and that everyone got pretty sick that day.

To her credit the baby sitter took everyone to the hospital and no one was seriously ill. The twins spent the night in the hospital and were released the next day. All adults concerned were flustered (including those only aware of the events by phone calls). The girls seemed to enjoy the extra attention once they got past the blood tests. I've been told that toadstools can be poisonous. I'm sure that's why they all had to be checked.

Everyone is fine now with a brand new story to add to their memory chests. We keep thinking "someday this will all be funny" but it's going to take a while for the poor baby sitter to get over.

guitar man

MyJohn collects guitars. Serious guitars. Boutique guitars as he calls them. That means one of a kind, special made, above the rest. Definately not mass produced. We've been organizing his condo into a more rational layout. Rational layout defined by me, of course. The guitars have been pulled out from all corners and stacked neatly on a shelf. They're easier for him to get too and play and they aren't underfoot this way. Each one is different according to John. I get the visuals, the "rootbeer strat" and the "cherry burst strat" looks different despite them both being strat's. That's Stratacaster to those of you guitar challenged. What excites John is that they sound differently. He says. I think it takes a discerning ear frankly. A g note played on one sounds the same as a g note played on the other. Right? But oh these guitars make him happy. Each time we arrange a guitar on the shelf it is removed from it's case and played for a while. John's fingers fly up and down the neck picking out notes. Sometimes he slides them along the string for a raspy sound, other times he flicks the string to create harmonic's. All of the time he grins blissfully. The last one he brought out for organizing is a double necked guitar. It's body is a shiny black with glitter shot all through it. John's grin reached new dimensions as he sat down to play this one. I took several pictures of him with it and was pleased with the way the glitter reflected. For his part, John could have been out in a field all alone or on a concert stage. Playing that guitar made him very happy. It was fun to watch.
The congenitally blind people I know don't have much facial expression. They rarely smile and when they do it is often contrived and gruesome. I think smiling is somewhat universal though so when John is happy he does smile. He's got dimples. I think that's cute. I kind of think he's cute, but could be prejudiced. He's myJohn. I sure am glad of that.