Thanksglibbing

To my mind, Halloween has always represented the top of a slide; a long slide, the big metal kind that burns your legs in summer, but not so badly that you don’t mount the ladder a second, and even a third, time. And, it doesn’t go straight down. There are twists and turns, and bumps and dips. All in all, it’s a pretty raucous ride.

Thanksgiving used to represent one of the bumps, a high-point on the path towards the next bump of Christmas, on the way to the New Year’s sand pit that leaves tiny black flecks on the backs of your calves and the palms of your hands.

Nowadays, though, I would characterize Thanksgiving as more of a twist, a turn requiring careful navigation before resuming the descent.

My reticence about the holiday became clear to me a couple of years ago as I read posts on a social website to which I subscribed. There were several prompts along the line of “How Will You Spend Your Thanksgiving?”, and “Share Your Favorite Thanksgiving Memory”. As I scanned menus I wouldn’t choose from and ticked off strangers’ guest lists, complete with anecdotes, I began to feel sad. It became clear, relatively quickly, that my plan to post a virtual cornucopia of familial dysfunction would elicit a reaction similar to that experienced by a person unable to quash a particularly loud belch after finishing an elegant meal. Not that I have ever been in that exact situation, mind you. My embarrassing belch came disguised as a yawn, which I shielded prettily with one hand, in hopes that our English teacher wouldn’t mistake a night of late-night TV for impolite disinterest. The offending sound was as much a surprise to me as it was to the quarterback of our high school football team, who sat in the next row and two desks closer to the front of the room. His was the only face to turn in my direction.

“Excuse you!”, he bellowed through his laugh which soon became a chorus.

I responded with a weak smile, refusing to acquiesce to an overwhelming desire to escape the room. My intention here, though, is not to write about teenage angst.

My mother was a product of the times in which she lived. The decade of the sixties is widely associated with peace, love, and rock and roll. But due to a burgeoning space program, the sixties also ushered in canned vegetables, enveloped spice packs, and crystallized orange drink. Grocery stores remodeled to make room for the “Freezer Section”, and my mother was all over it.

She made an exception, though, at holiday time. Thanksgiving dinners were prepared fresh, with only the finest ingredients, and usually featured the same dishes year after year. One holiday she decided her Coke Salad was boring, and introduced instead a pale, orange concoction featuring apricots. Realizing our dinner wouldn’t include plump, juicy cherries confined by coke-flavored cottage cheese, I loudly bemoaned her decision. My sisters echoed my sentiment and the cherries were back in place the following year. What I didn’t realize until recently, though, is that while the center of our table might have been held by a large pine-cone, threaded with multi-colored strips of construction paper, my mother was truly our Thanksgiving centerpiece.

This year, Thanksgiving will find my sister, Candi, hosting her husband’s family at their beach-side condominium. It sounds like a lovely way to spend the holiday, but I wasn’t invited. After assisting with accommodations for the in-laws, my father called seeking reassurance that his three remaining daughters could provide a holiday at “home”. Two weeks later, he called again.

Several telephone calls later resulted in our “family dinner” being held in Cleveland, Georgia, a picturesque mountain town about an hour and a half outside of Atlanta. My sister, Holly, is excited to serve turkey she raised from a chick. I visited the unfortunate fowl a couple of weeks ago. At that point she hadn’t decided which of the several strikingly unattractive birds would make the sacrifice. That’s okay…I didn’t really want to know.

All three of my children have chosen to settle near the town of their birth, necessitating a seventy-five mile drive to my house for Thanksgiving. My daughter will work until four in the afternoon, pushing our dinner late into the evening. They will settle for a store-bought turkey, smoked the day before, and my impressions of the earlier celebration. They will bring friends. My house will be packed to over-flowing, and laughter will fill every corner of every room.

But, I’ll still miss the cherries…

Sins of the Father…

My son, Shane, loves Social Studies class. I know this because his Social Studies lessons are the only ones he regurgitates without provocation. He regularly regales me with facts and figures such as the gross national product of Haiti, and the length and breadth of waterways throughout Italy. This is why I know that his seventh grade Social Studies class is studying the Middle East, and that the country we now know as Iraq used to be called Mesopotamia. I don’t know why they changed the name. “Mesopotamia” is a lovely word, unlike the harshly clipped “Iraq”, or as some people regrettably refer to it, “Eyerack”. But, I digress…

Last Tuesday, as we ticked off subjects on his study checklist, Shane mentioned they were having a guest speaker in Social Studies on Friday. That’s what they call it now. When I was in school, and someone from the “outside” came in to talk, we called it an “assembly”. I always looked forward to assemblies. The verbiage is different, but the excitement inherent in an hour of school being filled by someone other than a teacher remains the same. The conversation ended, he repacked his backpack, and I never gave it another thought.

Until Thursday…Thursday morning I received an email with the subject line “Your Immediate Attention is Needed” from a board member of our athletic association. Supposing the message had to do with my son’s football league, I clicked without hesitation. The first words I read stringently assured me that her son would not be attending school the next day. I was understandably intrigued.

What followed was an email sent by a pastor in her church, complete with official letterhead, which began with the words; “I need to ask you to pray earnestly to stop the spread of discrimination against Christians and violation of “Separation of Church and State”. The pastor went on to explain that the middle school had invited an Islamic speaker to address the seventh grade class as part of a comparative religion study, but had failed to invite a Christian speaker. He expressed his views of this action, calling it “wrong on just so many levels”, and invoked the First Amendment a second time. He urged prayer, being careful not to suppose what action God would have his reader take, making instead a personal plea. He went on to suggest that parents “strongly consider withholding your student from this presentation”, and closed with an invocation to “charge the gates of hell like a mighty army”. The violence inherent in the last sentence shook me. Hoping I had mistaken the context, I read it twice. Realizing I hadn’t, saddened me.

I sat, unseeing, for several minutes after reading the email, while thoughts pinged, wildly, about my brain. I marveled that this email had been forwarded to me at all. Anyone who really knows me would not have included my address in the CC line. I wondered if the pastor had purposely misrepresented the facts, or was truly ignorant of the actual context of the class. Admittedly, I wouldn’t be privy to the details were it not for my son’s love of the subject. And, who is he to harangue anyone regarding the First Amendment, anyway? Why just last week, all students were encouraged to attend a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event held in the school gymnasium!

Sadness quickly became outrage that somehow evoked a memory. Two dark-haired girls rode side-by-side in an aged go-cart that often spoiled the peace of a sunny Sunday afternoon. They rode with abandon and joy-etched faces. I might not have given them a second glance had it not been for their headgear. Instead of a helmet, each girl wore the equivalent of a white, mesh muffin cup on the crown of her head. The clash of cultures was striking; hard core Islamic fundamentalism meets good old American know-how.

And another, more recent Sunday, when the air was cooler, allowing notes played on a distant sitar to float on its buoyancy. Occasionally a mournful male voice accompanied the strings, giving me pause as I weeded the garden. Laughter filled the breaks between songs, urging me to join the party. And, I almost did. I considered walking the few blocks between my house and theirs, if for no other reason than to observe their joy. I had no doubt I would be welcomed by my neighbors. But, I didn’t. The light was fading, and there were so many weeds left to pick…

My son did attend school on Friday, but not before he and I had a talk about what to expect. And I resent that what might have been a discussion about a unique opportunity for understanding, was, instead, a crash course in how to deal with ignorance and hate-mongering.

The day passed, mostly without incident. The local news featured a piece on the uproar, interviewing a protesting parent whose daughter bore the brunt of her father’s “fifteen minutes of fame”. Her plight became the focus of Shane’s re-telling; as he expressed the pity he felt when other children taunted her, and his relief that I hadn’t felt the need to express my opinions in a similar manner. I think he put it best, when during our morning discussion he expressed his dismay at the controversy.

“They’ve done this for seven years, Mom, and we’re not studying religions, we’re studying the Middle East! Islam is the main religion on the Middle East, not Christianity. It wouldn’t make sense to have a Christian speaker!” He has a habit of propping his forehead in the palm of his hand when feeling exasperated and he did so now. A curtain of hair that usually hides one eye now fell over still pudgy fingers.

He raised a solemn face and said quietly, “People just need to quit being scared. We’re just trying to learn. Maybe if they learned they wouldn’t be so scared anymore.”

Out of the mouths of babes…

The Other Side of the Bleachers

My son started playing football at six years old, and after just a few weeks of practice his Dad, Roger, and I were hooked. Fortunately for us, Shane liked it too, and football became a family affair.

This past August marked the beginning of our seventh season. After serving as Head Coach for two years, and assisting for a third, Roger opted for what he imagined to be a less hands-on position this year, by volunteering to act as Commissioner for the seventh and eighth grade teams. I had done my time early on, serving as Team Mom for three seasons before opting for an “early retirement”. The break was a welcome one, allowing for more time spent writing while the boys were playing in the dirt.

This year, two weeks into the new season, we found our team without a volunteer to act as Team Mom. There are a number of reasons why this is a liability, but to illustrate without belaboring the point, I’ll employ the image of launching a canoe without benefit of oars. And as large, brown boxes of brightly colored spandex were unloaded in my garage, I felt a touch of spray upon my face, and the familiar warmth of well-worn wood sliding into my reluctant hands.

Last night was Halloween, and I had governance of twenty-three boys, all dressed as football players. Our team made the first round of play-offs, appropriately ending a season of unprecedented rain-outs on what amounted to a mud-pit bracketed by goalposts. They made an impressive showing, losing by only two points to a team that had suffered just one loss through two seasons. Leaving the field wet, muddy, tired, and defeated, the boys were greeted by a rainbow of umbrellas held by wet-footed parents eager to retreat to the relative warmth of their vehicles while racking their brains for plausible arguments against trick-or-treating. Post-game speeches given by rain-soaked coaches were barely audible above drumming canopies and “shishing” rain gear. Cheerleaders held trays of soggy cupcakes, and clocks ticked inside every prepubescent head as the witching hour waned carrying the threat of unmanned Halloween costumes. Within minutes the boys collected a pillowcase, seeded with candy earlier in the week, and struck out, undaunted, in search of more mischief while soggy, preoccupied parents slogged through the mud behind them.

My official duties aren’t finished. I have gifts to order and a party to plan. There has been some talk of an All-Star tournament that will require my organizational skills. But as I eased into my office chair this morning, it was with the knowledge that the worst is over. Most of the mistakes that could be made have either been fixed or avoided entirely; and the boys had a good season, ending the year on a positive, if not winning, note. As I heaved a satisfied sigh into my coffee mug, my inbox blinked.

I clicked before I noticed the email was from “The Parent”. You know the one; the negative parent, the parent who can’t find the time to attend a game, but always finds time to complain about the outcome; the mother who, despite her absence, assures everyone within earshot that her son didn’t get his league-mandated allotment of playing time; the parent who prefers to spend her time critiquing the work of others rather than volunteering to help. An educated eye can spot this person at the beginning of the season. It’s all in the facial expression, the set of her mouth and the turn of her nose, as though she walks ensconced by a noxiously odoriferous cloud no one else seems to notice.

I read the note and decided, without hesitation, to ignore it. I mean, what can she do? Fire me? But her ingratitude did inspire me to put down some words of hard-earned wisdom, a kind of “Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In My First Year As Team Mom”, if you will. This is my swan-song. I’ve tossed my muddied shoes, and advise the next person filling them to invest in a good pair of galoshes. Were I asked to compose a handbook for parents of children playing recreational sports, it would be just this simple:

HANDBOOK FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN PLAYING RECREATIONAL SPORTS by Stacye Carroll

1. Observe the adults who are working with, and for, your child with the knowledge that each of them is a volunteer. And remember that the amount of time you see them sacrificing is but a small part of the actual time spent.

2. You may assume that every volunteer working with your child does so with the best of intentions. They do not undergo rigorous background checks and mind-numbing training sessions with the purpose of undermining your child’s efforts.

3. No one enjoys asking another person for money, but quality sports programs require a large amount of funding. If your child has expressed an interest in playing youth sports, it is your responsibility to determine the costs involved and whether or not your family can afford to participate. This should be done prior to signing up.

4. Many programs mandate a specific minimum number of plays, per child. Coaches spend a considerable amount of time trying to satisfy this requirement regardless of your child’s ability. If you doubt this, please reread bullet point number two.

5. By the time your child has played a specific sport for a number of years, both you and he should be aware of his skill-set. Be reasonable about your child’s ability to play proficiently. Put another way, some children play sports with an eye towards competing on a higher level, while others play for fun. Be mindful as to which description fits your child, and allow him the freedom to be what he is, instead of what you would have him be.

6. Your athletic ability, or lack thereof, does not necessarily transfer, genetically, to your child. Please reread bullet point number five.

7. If you don’t have anything positive to say, keep your mouth shut. I borrowed this advice from my mother, and have found it serves me well in almost any situation, but is particularly effective when it comes to the emotions evoked by our love for our children. And, in case you missed it, the key word in that last sentence is “love”. Love your children, don’t brow beat them. They are truly doing the best they can do today, which isn’t necessarily as good as they did yesterday, and may be better than they will do tomorrow. Through it all, what they need from you, their parent, is love.

8. Go back and reread bullet points one and two again. If you still feel like your child isn’t being well-served, then it’s time to take a stand, as in stand up and volunteer. Your perspective will change, along with your viewpoint, as you view things from the other side of the bleachers.

What Did You Call Me?

Some will judge me sexist when I assert my belief that women, in particular, are called on to wear many hats, shoulder numerous titles, and play many roles. We are women first, of course. But depending upon our personality or the sway of our many moods, we may also be described as a sweetheart, a smart-ass, or a bitch. Many of us are mothers, and if we work outside the home, we are dubbed “working mothers”. In defense of my earlier statement, I can’t recall ever hearing the title “working father”.

Were we required to string our titles out behind our names; mine would never fit on a standardized form. You know the kind that provides tiny squares in which to write the letters? But, if possible, it would look something like this:

Stacye Carroll, Woman, Mother, Writer, Kennel Operator, Head Chef, Head Housekeeper, Head Laundress, Personal Shopper, Party Planner, Interior Decorator, Floral Designer, Chief Accountant, Groundskeeper, IT Director, Working Mother, Operations Manager, Hospice Volunteer, Team Manager, Chicken Farmer.

Yes, you read that right. Recently, I added a title. Last week I became a chicken farmer, adding two more words to an already overloaded string of descriptive jargon that in no way describes the person I really am. But today, I am a chicken farmer.

I now own ten chickens, brought to me by a friend who has successfully raised chickens in her suburban backyard for over a year now. Several months ago, she added turkeys to the mix, and she has already slaughtered several of them. Turkeys are aggressive and really, really stupid. This is not a good combination in humans or farm animals. I don’t intend to try my hand at turkeys.

But chickens…chickens are a whole different thing.

It all began when my friend brought me a carton of eggs laid by her suburban chickens. The eggs inside were smaller than those I purchase at the grocery store; and blue, the softest shade of baby blue. They were laid by Araucana chickens. She brought me two Araucana chicks..

She also brought me Red Stars, which haven’t a spot of red on them, and two Wyandottes, which are a black-and-white breed favored by artists using various mediums. Wyandottes are also uniquely American, my friend was proud to point out.

She told me, after I’d accepted my brood, that there may be a rooster or two in the mix. My horror must have shown, as she bent forward from the waist, placing her hand on my forearm as she assured me she would take the roosters back.

“Just bring them to me. We’ll eat them.”

Another friend, upon hearing of this exchange, reminded me of a passage in “Gone With The Wind” wherein Scarlet holds up the eating of rooster meat as a sure sign of the depths to which she had fallen. I just prefer not to think about it, and pray I have been blessed with ten broody hens.

My goal is eggs, enough eggs to feed my family and provide an occasional dozen to my closest friends. Observing and tasting the eggs my friend gave us made it very clear that the eggs we purchase at the local grocery store have been tampered with, and the end result is not an improvement. For one thing, the shells are thinner. It takes a couple of really good cracks against the edge of the bowl to break a “home-grown” egg. The yolks of the eggs my friend gave us were much larger and a bright, bright yellow. And they actually had a taste; a rich, mellow taste like grocery store eggs, only magnified.

I already buy organic, whenever possible. I never buy the grossly gigantic chickens most grocery stores offer, opting instead for locally grown, steroid- and antibiotic-free meat. Raising chickens for eggs is an extension of this decision.

But there is another aspect of this decision that motivates me. I recently read that as we age, we may spend our time in one of two ways; we can brood over past decisions, missed opportunities, and lost youth, or we can take on new adventures and continue to grow. I’ve never been a farmer before. I’ve never even considered being a farmer before, not even when I lived in a farmhouse across the street from a cow pasture! At the time, I was too busy raising children to consider cultivating farm animals. And, while I can’t say my life is any less busy than it was then, it is more my own. More of my time lies at my discretion, and for now, some of it will be spent farming chickens.

When I first began working as a hospice volunteer, I almost always found a way to insert that information into a conversation with everyone I knew, or met, or shared a queue with. I did take pride in my decision, as well as the work, but I think the constant mention of the fact had more to do with making it a reality inside my own head. I find myself doing the same thing now, with much different results.

The revelation that I work in hospice, is usually met with one of several different levels of disbelief. Some people can not fathom the idea, and really prefer not to hear any more about it. Some people find their morbid curiosity piqued and bubble over with questions about death, and a few get it, and express their appreciation accordingly.

I expected a similar sort of disbelief from those I tell about my decision to raise chickens, but so far, have received the opposite reaction. Everyone seems to have either raised chickens or know someone who has, and is eager to have someone to discuss it with. I have received countless tidbits of valuable information and many helpful tips. One friend assured me of the wisdom of my decision by telling me about his mother, who never fed her chickens anything but kitchen scraps, making the eggs she fed her family virtually free! Another suggested I keep the chickens in a mobile pen that can be moved from place to place about the yard. While, yet another, encouraged me to build a coop above ground, making it more difficult for predators to reach my flock.

For now, I house ten chickens inside an over-sized dog crate sitting in front of an unfettered window in my spare room. I visit twice a day, first thing in the morning and just after I get home from work. Last week I purchased a new feeder, a watering contraption, and a bale of hay. I went to a local convenience store to purchase newspapers. As I laid them on the counter, the proprietor suggested I check the date. When I explained it didn’t matter because I was only using them to line a chicken crate, he pushed the papers back at me asking, “Why you spend money?” He hurried to a back room and returned with a large bundle of newspapers secured with a length of twine.

“Here!” He dropped them on the counter. “I have bird, too. You don’t buy papers. If I have them, you have them.” He spoke with a force that brokered no argument.

We are a fraternity.

On the Cusp

She’s been here before.

She knows the arc,

the curve that hugs her hips.

From this place she sees it all.

The places she could go,

the person she could be,

and all the reasons she won’t and can’t be.

Age and experience.

Time and distance.

On the cusp of crazy.

Cloudy, With a Chance of Tears

A wall of water sits behind her eyes,

and she damns it.

Living True

Somehow I’d forgotten the particular shade of blue that is sky. That blue that defies duplication. The blue that speaks the word “yonder”, by inviting eyes to see further.

Today, I saw it, and knew the wonder.

I’ve missed the caress of wind in my hair. The feeling of freedom. A space in time whose only accompaniment is the dull roar of the engine in front of me, competing with wind whipping through an open window.

Today, I felt it, and appreciated the gift.

It’s been a while since I’ve really looked into a loved one’s eyes as she spoke, or shared air, or a fork. I’ve missed the abandon of shucking my shoes under the table before resting my heels on the booth beside her. “That’s a lovely shade of blue on your toenails, honey. It looks just like you.”

Today I took the time.

Today I saw sky, and felt wind. I memorized the eyes of a friend, and held my daughter close for no reason. I stretched out, barefooted, in a booth at a restaurant and laughed loudly, with abandon.

Today, I knew the gifts of those who truly live.

Comes With Eggroll

When I was a kid, Chinese food was Chop Suey, served warm and fresh from a can. I remember dodging lots of water chestnuts in an effort to uncover tiny shreds of meat that justified use of the word “chicken” on the label. The best part of the whole meal was the topping of “noodles” which were not actually noodles at all, but tiny strips of crunchy pastry. Years later, my grandmother would introduce me to another, even tastier, use for Chinese noodles. After melting equal parts of chocolate and butterscotch chips in a double-boiler, she stirred in a package of noodles and dropped the mess by heaping spoonfuls on waxed paper. The finished product was called a “haystack” which quickly became a mainstay of childhood Christmases…but I digress.

While in college, my friends and I discovered this great little place in a strip-mall where four or five of us would meet for lunch. The “special” was a combination plate which offered a choice of two entrees, rice, soup, and eggroll. Everyone ordered something different and we shared. The price was reasonable, and there was so much food that we easily got by on just one meal a day.

As the mother of growing boys during the 1990’s, I welcomed the advent of the Chinese buffet. Not only could my sons eat until they were full for one low price, but the proprietors played to their audience by almost always filling a tray or two with traditional American favorites, such as pizza or french fries.

Saturdays usually began with a weekly visit to a local flea market that spanned an entire city block. My friend Hallie usually accompanied us and, fortunately, she too enjoyed Chinese food. After stowing our finds in the trunk of my car, we headed all the way across town for China Star Buffet. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to hear that this was the highlight of the trip for the kids.

The place was cavernous in more ways than one, as muted lighting camouflaged stains on the garishly colored, indoor-outdoor carpeting padding the seating area. My children’s behinds never even grazed the top of the tattered, vinyl-covered booth before heading for the brightly-lit, tiled buffet area at a controlled gallop. A row of six stainless steel buffet tables reflected light from exposed bulbs. in a manner that I suppose was meant to compliment the colorful display of food. The kids always made for the pizza first, before attacking the pan of beer-battered chicken, meant to be covered with sticky sweet-and-sour sauce. The last two buffets featured piles of freshly cut fruit and a full salad bar. My children’s feet never touched the tiles surrounding them.

Hallie and I also worked together, and often lunched at a more upscale establishment featuring an awning supported by four huge, gilded columns sprouting from the backs of statuesque lions. The food at Peking was considerably better than that enjoyed at China Star Buffet, which sat just around the corner. I’m sure it was this proximity that provoked Peking to install a lunch buffet. Theirs, however, was much smaller and featured only the food Americans think of as Chinese which one would never actually find in a restaurant in China. There was not a slice of pizza in sight.

When my oldest son, Josh, decided he liked his girlfriend enough to introduce her to his parents he requested we meet at Hong Kong Buffet; China Star Buffet being out of the question, as I had by now returned to Atlanta. Hong Kong Buffet had, apparently, purchased carpeting from the same manufacturer as China Star Buffet, and it was interesting to finally see what it looked like under sufficient lighting to confirm that it was indeed possible to remove stains made by toddlers flinging foods soaked in red sauces.

Josh’s girlfriend, Heather, and I returned to our assigned booth at the same time with similar looking plates of which the largest portion was covered by a gooey, cheesy, crab concoction. Well, I say crab. In truth, the chef had made no effort to hide the tell-tale, dye-reddened edges of faux crab he had sautéed with onions and butter, before swaddling the mix in an unnamed, but sinfully delicious, white cheese sauce. We shoveled the greasy mess into our mouths simultaneously, groaned at the same time, and shared a smile.

Shane and Roger, carrying platefuls of saucy meats and pastry encased cheese, soon joined us. Several mouthfuls later, we realized that Josh was missing. Scanning the stainless steel maze of buffets, I found him standing amidst a group of large African-American women holding empty plates while looking hungrily towards the swinging door that led to the kitchen; or as I thought of it at the time, Mecca. I could see the resolve on my son’s face as he tightened his grip on a single, thick, white, ceramic plate while staring into an empty, steaming bin where crab-legs used to be. He was first in line, and he would not be moved.

A swath of yellow light assaulted the colorful carpeting as the kitchen door swung wide, revealing a small, dark-haired woman of oriental descent who bent one knee just as the door began to arc back in her direction. The door stopped, and she gave it a little kick before entering the dining room. carrying a steaming metal dish in the direction of the buffets. Several of the women surrounding my son began to stir; their plates balanced precariously on multi-colored talons above their carefully coiffed, swiveling heads. Joshua’s eyes remained trained on the steaming hole before him.

The dark-haired serving girl cut her eyes in the direction of the milling crowd surrounding the space where crab-legs used to be, and shooting an apologetic smile in their direction, made for an adjacent buffet. Several of the women leaned in her direction, as though fearful she had taken a wrong turn, or planned a covert dump in a different pan. As she began to scoop greasy, green onion fronds mixed with bits of beef through the steam, they settled back into position, training their eyes once again on the nautically-inspired steel door.

Several minutes later, as I wiped oily remnants of crab casserole from the corners of my mouth with a napkin that definitely wasn’t cloth but wasn’t exactly paper, Josh returned to the table, slightly out of breath.

“Here…”, he growled, shoving a plated mound of steaming, orange crab legs between two sweating glasses of sweet tea. Before we could thank him, he was gone again.

I turned to see him pull a plate from the buffet and hand it to a large, blonde woman sporting a Dallas Cowboy’s jersey. Grabbing another, he meandered through the buffet maze, stopping occasionally to spoon food onto his plate. When he returned, several of his precious crab legs had been reduced to orange-colored shards.

Sighing heavily, Josh sunk into the booth beside his girlfriend and in the same motion lifted a bundle of swaddled cutlery.

Leaning in her direction he stage whispered, “Watch that door!”, motioning with his fork towards the swinging door to Mecca. “I’ll have to get up there fast if we’re going to get anymore.”

*******

Sometimes even twelve-year-old boys are needy. Take last weekend…

It wasn’t anything he said. He went about his normal routine, but something in his demeanor told me Shane needed one-on-one time; the kind you find under an immense, sparkling chandelier in a Chinese buffet. This one was called Asia Buffet and featured hand-rolled sushi and made-to-order stir fry.

“Hey?” I called out from the next room.

Shane gathered his limbs, which he had sprawled across a recliner while watching a football game.

“Yeah?”

“You hungry?”

The question warranted standing, as he answered. “Yeah!”

“Chinese buffet?”

“Cool! Let me get my shoes!”

And, I realized then that many of my family’s most pleasant memories come with eggroll.

Change of Heart: A Healthcare Dilemma

I have long been a proponent of socialized medicine, believing that access to healthcare should rank high on a list of unalienable rights. Lately, though, I’ve begun to rethink my position.

I listened, recently, to a piece on public radio in which the presenter took a calculator into an operating suite, tallying each piece of equipment used in the treatment of a woman suffering from arthrosclerosis. For instance, a small length of rubber tubing cost $65.00. The physician attempted to use, and eventually discarded, several of them before finding one he felt fit properly. He explained his need to be able to do this in order to provide the best care to his patients. Similarly, he inserted and retracted several $2000.00 stints, before settling on the one he felt would provide the best blood flow to the affected artery. Unlike the rubber tubing though, the stints were not discarded, but rather returned to the manufacturer. The patient was charged only for the one left in place. The company instituted this policy as a means of safeguarding the success rate of their product in the hope that by removing cost as a factor, physicians would feel free to act as the one featured in the piece.

Losses incurred are reflected in the cost of the millimeters-long plastic sheath, but don’t account for the total price. Another factor in the price is its infancy. As new technology is approved for use, there is no pricing structure to use for comparison. Should an innovator build a better mouse trap, he can compare his product to the thousands of mouse traps that came before, and settle on a price that will make him competitive in the mouse trap market. When an innovator builds a trap never before imagined to catch a creature never before trapped, there is no such barometer. So, after figuring costs of research and development, materials, and labor, exclusivity is also assigned a premium, and will remain a factor until another innovator comes along with a similar idea.

And, as the world leader in medical technology, the United States is chockfull of ideas. Between 1996 and 2006, twelve Nobel prizes were awarded to American scientists, three went to foreign-born scientists working in the US, and only seven were awarded to those working outside the United States. As of 2006, four of the six most important medical innovations were developed in the US, and the other two were perfected and made commercially available by American companies. And who pays for all this brilliance? That’s right, we do.

Admittedly, I have never before considered the burden carried by United States citizens in helping to develop and distribute much needed medical technology to the entire world. After doing some research, however, I feel it as a point of pride. The US exports all manner of goods and services to other parts of the world. For instance, you can find a McDonald’s in most international city of any size. I don’t necessarily see this as a good thing, and neither will those experiencing a Big Mac for the first time once they realize that their burger comes with a side of morbid obesity.

The American penchant for exporting western religions has always bothered me. My understanding of biblical text forbids making a judgment against the beliefs of others. One may think them misguided, one may even pray for the souls they feel are surely headed for eternal damnation, but the effort to indoctrinate a culture in “The Way” seems outrageously pompous at best, and sinfully intrusive at worst.

In comparison, the exportation of medical innovation is a practice I support with a feeling of benevolent pride, and considering the alternative, I’m willing to pay a little more for healthcare.

Lawsuits filed by lawyers, aptly named “ambulance chasers”, hired by people who see financial gain in an unfortunate outcome, also drive up the cost of American healthcare. Legislators have tried, sometimes successfully, to cap these costs, but as long our citizenry demands the right to exorbitant financial compensation for mistakes which are often unpreventable, health professionals and hospitals must figure equally exorbitant insurance costs into their bottom line which is then passed on to all patients regardless of litigious proclivity.

And now we have arrived at what I believe to be the true source of inequity in the American healthcare system; insurance companies.

When I was a young woman it worked like this. Insurance was offered by employers who paid some, but not all, of the premium for their employees who received a card they could then flash at healthcare providers who graciously swung wide the doors to the system. Patients presented with symptoms, doctors performed examinations and ordered testing, which was scheduled by office staff. Often insurance information, too, was forwarded, making the visit to the testing facility as simple as waiting nervously to hear your shouted name. Deductibles were reasonable and mitered out over the course of the calendar year, usually not really coming into play unless a hospital visit was required. Prescriptions carried co-pays, but the amount was much less. I remember paying six-dollar co-pays for a number of years, and being scandalized when the company increased the amount to ten dollars. And there was no question as to whether or not the pharmacist would fill your prescription. The doctor wrote the order, the pharmacist filled it, the patient paid the co-pay, and insurance picked up the rest. End of story.

It seems as though the advent of HMOs, and PPOs, and various other tri-lettered options changed everything. The doctor who had cared for my family for years, was no longer authorized by my new insurance company, forcing me to choose from a list of practitioners who had subscribed to the new, “improved” plan. And should the man I now thought of as my “Primary Care Practitioner” feel the need for consultation with another doctor, the list would be consulted again. Gone were the days of depending on the physician’s knowledge of his colleagues, or the experiences of friends and family. Insurance companies now dictated our choice of practitioner. And very quickly, they extended their reach into the pharmacy.

A friend visited her local pharmacy to pick up a prescription she had taken for years to treat acid reflux disease. Upon her arrival, the pharmacist explained that the insurance company had denied her claim, ordering, instead, that she have further testing. After consulting their list of participating providers she waited two very uncomfortable weeks to have the procedure, and several days afterward for the insurance company to pronounce she no longer needed prescription medication. They suggested she use an over-the-counter antacid, which she did with no relief for a number of months until, desperate, she returned to her pre-approved physician’s office. He prescribed the medication that had worked for her in the past, and after several telephone consultations between physician, pharmacist, and the insurance company, she was allowed to purchase the pills.

In another instance, a physician ordered a test for a patient for whom diagnosis had proven elusive. When the patient called to schedule the test, she was advised that her insurance company had refused to cover the procedure, deeming it “unnecessary”. When she attempted to schedule anyway, with plans of funding the visit herself, she was denied. When told this story, I didn’t believe it. I reckoned there to be other factors, not presented by the patient, which figured into the insurance company’s decision. In an effort to help both of us understand, I accompanied her to her next visit, only to find her situation exactly as she told it. The insurance company to whom she paid a percentage of her income every two weeks in the belief that they would provide care, had now denied her. And the testing facility, so tied to the purse-strings of the insurers, didn’t dare participate in her attempt to bypass them.

One answer to the travesty that is healthcare dictated by MBAs? Healthcare savings accounts. If insurers, who line their pockets with record-setting profits taken from our paychecks every two weeks are the problem, then the answer is to bank their premium in an account used solely for the purpose of paying for healthcare. When I count back over the years, all the premiums paid to insurance companies I was fortunate enough not to call on, I am sickened by the number I might have seen on my healthcare savings account balance sheet. And, imagine a world in which pre-printed lists were not requisite to healthcare choices!

As Americans, we want it all. We want all the latest technology and the most brilliant innovations. But, we don’t want to pay for it. We reserve the right to hold accountable another human being, who though highly educated, is surely as fallible as any other human being. And, we want him to pay, and pay dearly! We want complete and total access to all that medicine has to offer, but we want someone else to foot the bill, and we are willing to give up a small percentage of our income if necessary, just in case. Just in case, though, doesn’t actually come very often for most people.

As President Obama proposed his option to our current healthcare morass, cries of “Take back our healthcare!” rang out from all sides. But, how can you take something back that isn’t even yours to begin with?

By paying for it, yourself.

Day One H1N1

Languidly rising to the surface, I feel the lateness of the hour. Lying face down, I struggle to open eyes compressed by cotton-covered down and turn to face the only window in the room for confirmation. Daylight…

I wouldn’t have thought lawn-mowing a typical Tuesday morning activity. But there it is; a sound usually reserved for the occasional late Saturday morning. On Tuesday, though, it feels out of place. The slits of my eyes lower as I consider the sound. From my supine position in the back of the house, it’s impossible to discern the direction of the offense, and before I decide to care, sleep comes.

Snores, my own, rouse me several times until I make the effort to turn, and sleep comes again.

I reach for the telephone to quiet it.

“Oh, are you still sleeping? I’m sorry…” I’m sure there was more, but it’s gone now.

As a person for who sleep is an elusive luxury, the ability to turn, tuck, and snore is something to be relished. It only hurts when I move…

The telephone rings again. Desperate to quiet the clamor, I reach towards an empty cradle. The ringing continues. I turn in my stupor. Groaning, I roll towards the empty side of the bed over a hard object which grinds against my hip, turning my groan into a grimace. Though muffled, the ringing continues. Rolling back the way I had come, I pull the phone from my hip and press “talk”.

“You’re still in bed? You’ve been in bed all day!” There must have been more, but I can’t recall.

I look at the clock for the first time all day; 3:15. I marvel at the ache in my joints, as my own voice begins chiding me silently. “You haven’t taken your herbs. Of course, you’re achy; you haven’t taken your herbs.” I sit with that.

Ingesting medication requires eating. Eating requires standing, and walking, and using my hands. I shoo the sheets from my legs, will myself into an upright position, and shuffle the miles to the kitchen. A lone, brown, boiled egg sits inside a white, glass bowl. I peel it over the trashcan amidst whimpering dogs, hoping to take advantage of my weakened condition. As I eat food some people shun because of its smell, I neither smell nor taste as I pat myself on the back for my choice. Protein, the building block of life…

I turn on the television, and my finger instinctually dials up “The Guiding Light”. Raised by a mother who began her television day with “The Secret Storm”, the CBS soap opera schedule soon became part of our DNA, and 3:00 means “The Guiding Light”.

They’re shooting it differently. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something is different. The faces are all the same but the setting is different. I don’t like it. The scene changes and a female newcomer, who can’t have been a part of the show for more than ten years, begins talking to a man I think I remember.

“Is that Harley?”, I wonder.

I always liked Harley. I think I read recently that she is leaving the show. Could this be her replacement? I focus on their faces to the point of deafness. Their conversation escapes me as their relevance becomes clear.

“No wonder. I never liked her.” My silent discourse continues, and as the credits roll I point the remote.

Swallowing a handful of pills I return to my cocoon of blankets. Shane will be home in twenty minutes.

His rubber-soled footfalls wake me. I wonder that he didn’t stop at my room as the door to his slams, only to open within seconds. He approaches stealthily, checking for signs of sleep.

“Hey, Mom…”, he stage whispers.

“Hey.”, I croak. “Stay away.”

“Okay…”, he pats the mound of my blanketed hip.

His presence makes me a mother, holding sleep at bay. I think to encourage homework, but can’t afford the effort, hoping instead that his father will remember.

A second set of foot-falls echoes down the hall. Drawers are opened and closed.

“Should I feed the dogs?” The words travel some distance before reaching me.

“Yes, please.” I’m grateful for his thoughtfulness.

Twelve paws dance chaotically as two males voices attempt to corral one animal into each room with a bowl of kibble.

I awaken to a quiet house.

My phone is chirping, and I think, again, how much I love the sound of that alert. Who doesn’t like the sound of birds chirping?

“Yeah?” He feigns indifference.

“I saw you called.”, I say with a voice I shouldn’t be using.

“When you didn’t call back, I figured you were at work or really sick. When you didn’t even text, I knew you were sick.”

“Yeah…”

“Did you go to the doctor?”, he asks as though the trip should be anticipated.

“No. I’ve been sleeping.”

“Well, you need a z-pack. Okay, okay, now look…” And he was off.

I almost forget how much it hurt to smile.

Hanging up, I sit at the computer for several minutes, wondering if sweating would be of any value. The telephone rings again.

“Stacye?” I work for this voice.

“Yes?”, I croak.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not good.”, I manage.

“Okay…I meant to call earlier today, but…”, he leaves the rest unsaid, knowing I can fill in the blank.

“Do you have a fever?”, he asks authoritatively.

“Yes.”, I answer with shame.

“Tamiflu. You need Tamiflu. And, my witchdoctor wife is plying everyone with elderberry. Get some elderberry.”, he orders.

“Okay…”, I reach for a pencil, afraid that this conversation, too, will evade memory.

“It’s H1N1.”, he pronounces. “And you are contagious twenty-four hours before, and twenty-four hours after, you know…so you can’t come back to work tomorrow.”

“Okay…” Uncaring, I envision crawling back into bed.

Who needs a doctor when you have a boss with a witchdoctor wife?