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| October, 2007 - Grandma's Next Injury, Bellydance, My Next Job | November 02, 2009, 07:10:25 PM | Blood Will Tell
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
My mother-in-law is all the Mama I’ve got left now, as I’ve said to her a few times.
What time is it –
<<stares bleary-eyed at the clock upper right screen, girl, yer memory’s toast…>>
Aaaagh, after 1 a.m.
Just got home from the hospital. Grandma (mom-in-law) fell again.
This is nothing new — I’ve probably told y’all before, she makes an almost weekly event out of a spectacular fall. Only the grace of God and cast-iron dairy-loving bones have saved her from the sadly too-common scenario re: the elderly and their decline to death after fracturing a pelvis…
Anyway, last week she fell and cut her head, managed to give herself a fancy black eye and a terribly squeam-making bloody temple. She hasn’t been one to hurt her head in her falls; usually if she has anything besides terribly sore muscles it’s been a bruised hip, thigh, forearm, etc.
Tonight she did it again but did it up proper this time. Grandpa called, said Grandma had darn near scalped herself, and he couldn’t handle Grandma alone. Moving her when she’s fallen, if it’s one of those times when she cannot provide any effort herself, is like trying to move a 200-pound sack of Jell-O.
I bet he tried me first but I’d left my phone at home. He reached Hubby’s phone as we sat over a very late diner dinner — so we paid the bill for our half-eaten meal, and burned rubber out of there.
Got to their house, trundled Grandma and her forehead-wide bone-deep blood-fountaining injury to the van in her wheelchair, and took off.
I think the Spouse secretly wants to be an ambulance driver. 25 years ago one of our children was born after a wild ride with him out to that hospital. He flipped on the hazard blinkers and took off the same way tonight.
Totally ignored the Sheriff’s Deputy he whizzed past… When the perturbed officer drove up alongside us, out the window flew his arm, signaling the cop to come with us to the hospital, and forth went his football-field bellow: "My mother fell and gashed her head open. I’m taking her to the hospital."
Then off he went, rolling through stop signs and stoplights, at least 10 and sometimes 30 or 40 miles an hour over the speed limit.
And the deputy meekly followed along in our wake.
Meanwhile little round-dumpling Grandma is in the middle row of van seats with me, trying desperately to keep sitting upright. No such luck of course, even with me there to try to support her. By the time we reached the ambulance bay at Emergency, she was hanging half off the seat, poor heart, and I was all over blood.
What luck I was wearing a blood red outfit tonight.
We roared up to the entrance — Hubby runs in, out he comes with our church-mate Cynthia, who works as an ER aide. We see her more often, bringing Grandma there, than we do at church!
The deputy meanwhile had followed in — perhaps his presence explained the quick return of Cynthia with the wheelchair, ’cause all too often I’ve seen battered bloody people sitting around the waiting area for the paperwork process.
Either that, of they simply don’t allow bleeding people to stagger around like they used to, due to today’s list of bloodbourne pathogens.
Got Ma settled in, with Dad, in an ER exam room; gritted my teeth through the intake nurse asking all the same lame questions they have to ask when you come in. (Why the hell they cannot simply send to Medical Records 50 feet down the hallway for some of that info I dunno…)
I imagine they’ll have her for hours and hours, into tomorrow evening maybe — they’ll likely want a CAT scan.
And if they pull the usual lunacy of not listening to the family members present, they will probably try to sedate claustrophobic Grandma with whatever that drug was that drove her psychotic last time.
Heh. Good luck getting a decent scan, people.
I told Grandma that she should get a price list for popular procedures out of that plastic surgeon when s/he comes to sew up her forehead. Not for herself — for me and my wrinkles.
So — I have all the towels we threw into the van, and my clothes, and Grandma’s nightgown, etc., in a cold wash right now.
Off to bed I’ll be going — by the time I get done it might be 2:30 a.m. — and I need to be up by 5 a.m. because I’m an election commissioner and we need to be at the polls at 5:30.
I might get a real life one day.
Having the Stomach For It
Saturday, October 13th, 2007
Belly got Heat
Belly got Power
It’s the only reason
Men buy flowers!
I’ve taken up my fascinating belly dancing again, after a summer break. A class is only an hour long, but the whole time is spent, between warmup and cooldown, on the dance moves. One single class produces a noticeable tightening/toning of even my middle-aged middle.
Yes, of course, I could do the same movements at home alone… but you know I won’t. I need the discipline of a class.
Even the simple fact that one’s arms should never, ever flop, lax, makes for a workout. And thinking all the time of something graceful and pretty to do with the hands is a killer for me. After some time I hope it will become second nature and I’ll do it without thinking.
Of course, IMO, it beats straightforward aerobics all to heck, because you don’t usually get to wear sequins, bells, feathers and beads in an aerobics class. Unless maybe Richard Simmons leads it.
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One thing I enjoy about it, or at least about my particular class format, is the total acceptance of the body we are taught.
Not that we don’t need to try to be healthy and fit. And certainly not meaning we have to be 100% natural — some of us have had breast augmentation! But there’s a heavy emphasis on living in your own body, being happy in your own skin, developing flexibility and awareness about what your body can do. I like that.
And if I had any worry about the blinding glare of my fishbelly white belly, well, if I did dress up in a "nice" costume for purposes of performance, it would at least have the netting, like one of my instructors did in this video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfl0WmPrfm0
Limit the neon glow of it, you know?
Meanwhile, in the ratty fun costumes I put together for class use, colors battle and odd sparkly things clash and jingle, and the belly is right out there for all to see. Que sera sera.
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The dancing lessons I took as a child quickly bored me. I had no real interest in drill teams or dance squads or cheerleading, as my sisters did. I was more weightlifting and track.
But there was something about the emphasis on the… innocently sensual? That is, innocent in the sense that you’re not up there performing virtual sexual intercourse, as with some forms of dance! Rather, you’re more like being thrilled with your own femininity and joyfully inviting everyone else to enjoy it too.
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Monday night is "Happy Shimmies" night. That’s the name of my dance class/group. What a workout that class is! I am always wrung out when I leave (in a good way).
If I’ve had a hard day, when I walk into the health club I’m a bit slow and heavy in my steps. If I’ve had a good day, I might be a bit perkier and with a more bouncy athletic step.
When I leave the place, though, after an hour of drops and pops and isolating muscles I didn’t know I had — I glide. The back is straight, the head is high on an elegantly-held neck, the shoulders are back, The Girls are in Battleship Position, the hips have a sort of sway, rippling the filmy skirts I usually wear to dance.
When I got there in the evening, ladies from the Body Pump class (immediately previous to the belly dance classes, same studio) were leaving. The instructor and her friend made admiring noises about all us bellydancers coming in after them.
That particular instructor has been on TV exercise shows, and always leads the crowd in a warm-up before big charity walks and runs. I’ve been led by her at these events, and have always thoroughly admired her intensity and dedication to spreading the fitness bug.
She’s so fit, her hair has muscles. And yet there she was, displaying interest in a decidedly softer-looking bunch and their seemingly less strenuous workout. I’m not sure if that was just a display of "comrades in fitness" thinking, or if she really truly has an admiration for the intensely feminine discipline of belly dancing. Probably the latter — you wouldn’t think belly dancing would do a lot for your thighs! It’s the soft-kneed, butt-tucked stance. You don’t realize how often, how much, you go through life with your knees pretty much locked, your legs perfectly straight, until you have to spend over an hour keeping the knees just a tiny bit bent. Ouch!
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Belly dancing, depending upon the verve with which you approach it and the steadiness with which you rehearse on your own, will tone up every muscle you’ve got. Fingers, toes, abs, neck, whatever.
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I speak American English and a little Old French, ‘Cajun, you know.
I have no idea what the lyrics are in the music I hear at that belly dancing class.
I’ve heard a lot of "Krishna". Let us hope the singer was being nice to Krishna.
There is one English song, lots of dark minor tones and bongo drums, "black is the color of my true love’s heart", the lady moans…
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Unfortunately, I have to participate in this class in front of mirror walls on two sides. That’s OK… I long ago have gotten used to how funny I look. At least that helps me keep up the perpetual smile one is supposed to maintain in performance!
Speaking of "funny", I wonder if the instructors would allow me to work out a sort of comedy dance? Standard moves, of course, and needing just as much rehearsal etc. as "real" choreography — but taking advantage of the happy silly appearance of a squatty little grandmother daring to enjoy herself so…
Buddy, Can You Spare A Job, Part II
Saturday, October 6th, 2007
Well, I just had the shortest job, ever.
Accepted a position as a trainee with a very very small, private, family-owned company, to be taught how to use a console that looks like an Original Star Trek (LP/vinyl) record player. I was to trace the zigzag inkmarks on circular charts that would come to me from natural gas pipeline gauges, thus providing the companies involved with info. re: flow rates, etc.
(This could probably be done by machines altogether. Boss lady mentioned a few times how she’d written the Excell program for the monthly statements herself, so I felt like asking her why she didn’t buckle down and write a computer program to read the charts.
I’m not sure why there is still the human element so intertwined. I wasn’t arguing, though — it was a job.)
A little less than my optimum pay range, but then there were other perks and plans for re-evaluation and raises later on after I was trained. The lady I was coming in to replace was to train me.
This woman is the close friend and savior-of-the-owner. Within a few weeks’ time a couple years back, Owner had gone thru the turmoil of sudden widowhood, almost losing her business in the inheritance wrangle with the stepsons.
And Hurricane Katrina hit, wiping out some sources of the company’s business, followed one month later by Hurricane Rita, which wiped out more.
And somewhere in the mix the trainer-lady had also lost her husband after a long illness.
So the business owner and her daughter had their business saved from destruction by fellow widow Trainer Lady jumping in and joining them in the long slog of 18-hour days it took to save the business and help their clients survive. (Even now, two years on, Trainer Lady usually gets to work one or even two hours early, and occasionally works on a weekend, with no extra compensation.)
And I’m supposed to be dropped into that dynamic and survive? Eh, didn’t bother me, I am a cocky thing. I went, jumped right in. Seemed to fit in OK.
(Or maybe not. The days seemed filled with employees dashing hilarious emails back and forth to each others’ offices, and oooh-ing and aahh-ing over each others’ catalog purchases as they were delivered. How hilarious that I, a participant in various ‘Net-forums and a bloggish person, stood back all business-like while the others Internetted themselves into a giggle-fest.
And I appreciated any humor they shared with me, and I thought their new shoes / new dress / orders of fresh produce were lovely — I did not exude any surprise or disapproval, because I might have been surprised but I certainly did not disapprove. Small family businesses are like that, I guess.)
(And what was it with the constant references to race race race color color color around there? I was informed before I was ever hired that the only other serious candidate was a Black girl. What that had to do with anything I don’t know. If the Boss Lady’s reasons for choosing me over her were legit, then she might have shared them with me without any reference to race at all.
They seemed like such nice people. I found out that they give to at least one race-related charity, while I was there — but these little ladies went all nervine when Black people walked in, and almost daily there was some sort of "I’m not prejudiced, but…" type comment in the conversational mix. Not to mention that they made sure I knew where the handgun was kept.)
Yesterday afternoon the boss lady asks the trainer lady to do an evaluation on me. I was not aware that there would be a (supposedly) two-week evaluation. I wonder if the people at the State-connected office where Boss Lady found me knew that? Standard around here is a 90-day probationary period, or at least 30.
So — after 13 days, only perhaps 5 of them real working days having much of my particular techical/artistic task involved (cyclical nature of the information arriving) — and the work I did get to do, I wasn’t allowed to do without trainer lady hovering and clucking and twitching the whole while I was in her files and using her machine — stating verbally all the while that she did not mean to hang over my shoulder —
I was informed that I had not picked up all the nuances of the position. The complaint seemed to amount to (a) me not touching the exact same paperwork in the exact same order as Trainer Lady, and (b)… um… well, there really wasn’t anything else. That was it.
A list I had never been shown listed all the duties I had been doing, with little checkmarks of disapproval from the trainer lady because, apparently, I would put my hands on Date Stamper A before I touched Index File Card B.
I assumed that meant I was to be "let go". (Did not bother me a bit, not one twinge of regret. I felt I’d been freed. That must be some kind of sign…)
But then owner lady and trainer lady got to discussing things, and it began to dawn upon them that they’d have insufficient coverage in the office without me, as trainer lady runs off on holiday next week and again next month.
Hee hee hee. I almost did it — I almost shook hands all around and said, "See ya!" But, no, I offered to stick around at least another week to help out.
I had been turning down interview requests from other companies since I started there. (Of course, that’s how you make some of these recruiters take an interest in you, go take another job. It’s like making it rain by washing your car or scheduling a picnic.)
So, now, in my final week, I will openly take all such calls that may come in and go ahead and schedule interviews during my lunch hour, after work, the next week, etc.
Let us hope said calls do continue to come in!
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