Blue reticulated iris in our front yard
photo by A. Graf
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Saturday, April 01, 2006
The article below gave me a chuckle. I have no fear for how God feels on the subject, but I do wonder what he thinks. I still believe in prayer, always for the sake of the prayee, but maybe even more for the wellbeing of the prayer.
We've all heard it said how vast and immeasurable God is, how far above are his thoughts from our own. Even if we could tell him what to do, would we be better off persuading him? I love that he knows what to do. I also love that I can tell him what I want, or what I feel. I can trust him to do what is best, the perfect part of a perfect prayer being the submission itself to his will.
Finally, someone I can really trust. I didn't say understand, but that's okay for now.
We've all heard it said how vast and immeasurable God is, how far above are his thoughts from our own. Even if we could tell him what to do, would we be better off persuading him? I love that he knows what to do. I also love that I can tell him what I want, or what I feel. I can trust him to do what is best, the perfect part of a perfect prayer being the submission itself to his will.
Finally, someone I can really trust. I didn't say understand, but that's okay for now.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Does God Believe in Humans?
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer 3-30-06
NEW YORK - In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
Critics said the question of God's reaction to prayers simply can't be explored by scientific study.
The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal.
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name.
The patients, meanwhile, were split into three groups of about 600 apiece: those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility, and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility.
The researchers didn't ask patients or their families and friends to alter any plans they had for prayer, saying such a step would have been unethical and impractical.
The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who didn't take part in the study, said the results didn't surprise him.
"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. "There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."
Within the Christian tradition, God would be expected to be concerned with a person's eternal salvation, he said, and "why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they're in a research study?"
Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."
NEW YORK - In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
Critics said the question of God's reaction to prayers simply can't be explored by scientific study.
The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal.
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name.
The patients, meanwhile, were split into three groups of about 600 apiece: those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility, and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility.
The researchers didn't ask patients or their families and friends to alter any plans they had for prayer, saying such a step would have been unethical and impractical.
The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who didn't take part in the study, said the results didn't surprise him.
"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. "There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."
Within the Christian tradition, God would be expected to be concerned with a person's eternal salvation, he said, and "why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they're in a research study?"
Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
A More Pleasant Way to Die
Did that title get your attention?
My younger daughter had to write a paper on smoking. She asked me to type it for her. In it, she mentioned that cigarettes contained liquor, not licorice, and that liquor was bad for you.
I explained to her what tobacco and nicotine were and she lit up immediately, "Oh, yeah! That's what I meant. Can we change liquor to nicotine?"
I made the changes and then saw that she had written, "Over 100 people have died from smoking." After a trip to Google, we changed that to, "Over four million people die around the world every year as a result of smoking." That figure does not include deaths related to second-hand smoke.
I had two chocolate almond Dove ice cream bars today and one slice of homemade coconut pie. Though not really good for me, that was so much more pleasant than smoking a bunch of cigarettes.
My younger daughter had to write a paper on smoking. She asked me to type it for her. In it, she mentioned that cigarettes contained liquor, not licorice, and that liquor was bad for you.
I explained to her what tobacco and nicotine were and she lit up immediately, "Oh, yeah! That's what I meant. Can we change liquor to nicotine?"
I made the changes and then saw that she had written, "Over 100 people have died from smoking." After a trip to Google, we changed that to, "Over four million people die around the world every year as a result of smoking." That figure does not include deaths related to second-hand smoke.
I had two chocolate almond Dove ice cream bars today and one slice of homemade coconut pie. Though not really good for me, that was so much more pleasant than smoking a bunch of cigarettes.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
My Favorite Day of the Year
By 1:26 pm today, Spring will have officially arrived, even if in name only. This is truly my favorite day of the year. I don't know if it means that much to those of you in milder climes, but here in the Midwest it represents all that is hopeful, beautiful and good. The sky may be overcast, as it is here today, and the air may remain chilly for weeks to come, as it is today, but we know beyond all doubt that the good stuff is closer than it was before!
I am just beginning to notice the leaves of the earliest bulbs poking up from the ground in south-facing gardens. Some years I have had crocus actually blooming in late February, but not this year. Thin carpets of snow remain in the shadow footprints on the north side of bushes and houses, but otherwise the ground is mostly clear. Within the space of just one month, we will be blooming all over the place. I almost forget each year what forsythia looks like, which is one of the blessings of our climate - to have the time and space to mourn, then be rewarded with warmth, color and scent as if for the first time each spring. I love it. I love the anticipation of it almost as much as I love the actual blooms. It can only get better from here on out!
I am just beginning to notice the leaves of the earliest bulbs poking up from the ground in south-facing gardens. Some years I have had crocus actually blooming in late February, but not this year. Thin carpets of snow remain in the shadow footprints on the north side of bushes and houses, but otherwise the ground is mostly clear. Within the space of just one month, we will be blooming all over the place. I almost forget each year what forsythia looks like, which is one of the blessings of our climate - to have the time and space to mourn, then be rewarded with warmth, color and scent as if for the first time each spring. I love it. I love the anticipation of it almost as much as I love the actual blooms. It can only get better from here on out!
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
The Goods, Delivered to My Feet
I like to walk and I like to find things as I go. When we used to live on the East Side, I would often find money. The East Side was very good for loose change. The population is denser and many more people over there either go by foot or dig in their pockets for meter money, dropping it into snowbanks to be found weeks or months later by people like me, not above stooping down to pick up a dirty penny, even in the middle of the road.
One year I decided to conduct a little experiment. I began keeping track of exactly how much money I found, putting each month's cache into its own plastic film canister. I only found one piece of paper money that year, a single dollar bill in the road on Cramer Street near the engineering building on campus - I believe it was in March. Why I remember these things, I don't know. By the end of the year, I had eight dollars and fifty-eight cents, all in coins save the one dollar. Of course, my husband, in the span of the same year, found $5.00 outside our apartment building one morning and another $20.00 in front of the frame shop where he was working. Go figure.
I bring this up because this past week has been a very good one for finding things. First, I found a one-pound box of PrimeGuard phillips-head 3.5-inch exterior screws that were inadvertantly dropped and then run over by any number of vehicles in our alley right behind our house. I can use those. A few days later in the cemetary, I found a small, threaded brass finial, shaped like a chess pawn, shiny and heavy in the hand.
This morning, I found a 1 by 1.5-inch chunk of purple amethyst crystal by the sidewalk near the park. Certainly not an autochthonous gem, a child somewhere is missing her treasure.
One year I decided to conduct a little experiment. I began keeping track of exactly how much money I found, putting each month's cache into its own plastic film canister. I only found one piece of paper money that year, a single dollar bill in the road on Cramer Street near the engineering building on campus - I believe it was in March. Why I remember these things, I don't know. By the end of the year, I had eight dollars and fifty-eight cents, all in coins save the one dollar. Of course, my husband, in the span of the same year, found $5.00 outside our apartment building one morning and another $20.00 in front of the frame shop where he was working. Go figure.
I bring this up because this past week has been a very good one for finding things. First, I found a one-pound box of PrimeGuard phillips-head 3.5-inch exterior screws that were inadvertantly dropped and then run over by any number of vehicles in our alley right behind our house. I can use those. A few days later in the cemetary, I found a small, threaded brass finial, shaped like a chess pawn, shiny and heavy in the hand.
This morning, I found a 1 by 1.5-inch chunk of purple amethyst crystal by the sidewalk near the park. Certainly not an autochthonous gem, a child somewhere is missing her treasure.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
On a Gooder Note
We heard a man speak today at church about his recent visit to India. He has travelled a bit and is always impressed by how many foreigners are willing and able to speak English and, conversely, how few of us Americans speak any foreign languages.
"Most Americans only speak English, and we don't even do that very good."
Well, I believe he's right.
"Most Americans only speak English, and we don't even do that very good."
Well, I believe he's right.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Tales of Damage in the Name of Christ
There are attacks on Christ and his church reported daily, hourly, in newspapers around the globe - from super left-wing radical this and thats, Muslim extremists, liberal atheists and just plain outright haters - but some of the worst damage seems to emanate directly from those who claim to love and follow our Lord himself. Anyone who claims to be a Christian can, and frankly often does, wittingly or unwittingly, fall into this category, but the sins committed in the name of Jesus carry the extra special ability to distort and maim not only fellow humans, but the very vessel through which we hope to use to reach them, namely the church body itself.
My love for Jesus is often visibly muted in an effort to dissociate from the common representation of his church. Of course, I am no better than the lowliest of the low, this very acknowledgement requisite to membership in the family of Christ, but I am also keenly aware of the embarrassments of my extended family. I cringe at the gullibility of Christians on the radio to buy into all sorts of health scams and money-making schemes, the environmentally irresponsible and ignorant attitudes of those specifically entrusted with caring for God's marvelous creation, the judgmental posturing, homogeneous expectations and the ethno- and geo-centric narrowmindedness of the American Christian Church in general.
Christ has been lost in the shuffle, pushed aside for the latest program or protest. Love has been limited to proper social circles, sexual orientations or political beliefs. Even Christian worship has become prescribed, mass produced and dull.
I am certainly not beyond reproach and know that I am simply ranting. My own heart needs as much forgiveness as those whose generalities I rail against. I in no way believe that we can just choose whatever is comfortable for us in the Bible and live by those things and reject the dictates of our Lord that make us uncomfortable. That would be equally ignorant. Yet other than God's truths made known through nature and science all around us, we, as God's creatures, are the best advertisement he's got for the love the Christ - and we can so easily paint a very frightening, unappealing and even evil looking picture!
Where is the love of Christ? Where are the repentant hearts and minds bent on reconciliation and peace? When our Lord returns, what will he find in us, in those who claim to love and obey him?
My love for Jesus is often visibly muted in an effort to dissociate from the common representation of his church. Of course, I am no better than the lowliest of the low, this very acknowledgement requisite to membership in the family of Christ, but I am also keenly aware of the embarrassments of my extended family. I cringe at the gullibility of Christians on the radio to buy into all sorts of health scams and money-making schemes, the environmentally irresponsible and ignorant attitudes of those specifically entrusted with caring for God's marvelous creation, the judgmental posturing, homogeneous expectations and the ethno- and geo-centric narrowmindedness of the American Christian Church in general.
Christ has been lost in the shuffle, pushed aside for the latest program or protest. Love has been limited to proper social circles, sexual orientations or political beliefs. Even Christian worship has become prescribed, mass produced and dull.
I am certainly not beyond reproach and know that I am simply ranting. My own heart needs as much forgiveness as those whose generalities I rail against. I in no way believe that we can just choose whatever is comfortable for us in the Bible and live by those things and reject the dictates of our Lord that make us uncomfortable. That would be equally ignorant. Yet other than God's truths made known through nature and science all around us, we, as God's creatures, are the best advertisement he's got for the love the Christ - and we can so easily paint a very frightening, unappealing and even evil looking picture!
Where is the love of Christ? Where are the repentant hearts and minds bent on reconciliation and peace? When our Lord returns, what will he find in us, in those who claim to love and obey him?
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Oh, deer . . .
After school on Friday we all piled into the van and headed up the coast to Grandma's house in Door County. My husband chose the lakeshore route and drove until Two Rivers, where I took over. Coming up the hill out of Kewaunee, the speed limit sign told me I could push the resume button on the cruise control to get back up to 55 miles per hour. About five seconds later, still gaining speed, two large deer stepped out of the darkness onto the road directly in front of the van. I slammed on the brakes and then WHAM! - we broadsided the second deer. Dean had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, but he awoke as soon as I hit the brakes, just in time to glimpse a large brown eye in front of his face. No one inside the van was hurt.
Laura says she saw the deer fly up in the air and land in the field to our right. I managed to stop about 20 feet after impact and pulled off the road to have a look at the damages. Thankfully there were no other vehicles around. The front end was smashed up pretty nicely and the hood was pushed into a little tent shape. The passenger side headlamp housing was shattered, but the light was still working. No sign of the deer, except for it's fur sticking all over the front of the van. I got back in and we drove the rest of the way to Grandma's house without further incident, though I annoyed more than one driver by going only 40-50 miles per hour at best.
These latest photos were all taken on Saturday during this trip. We didn't find out until about 10 minutes into our 3.5 hour return drive that the radiator had been damaged and we were without heat. It was a very, very cold ride home. We fought over who would get to hold the dog for heat. I won.
Laura says she saw the deer fly up in the air and land in the field to our right. I managed to stop about 20 feet after impact and pulled off the road to have a look at the damages. Thankfully there were no other vehicles around. The front end was smashed up pretty nicely and the hood was pushed into a little tent shape. The passenger side headlamp housing was shattered, but the light was still working. No sign of the deer, except for it's fur sticking all over the front of the van. I got back in and we drove the rest of the way to Grandma's house without further incident, though I annoyed more than one driver by going only 40-50 miles per hour at best.
These latest photos were all taken on Saturday during this trip. We didn't find out until about 10 minutes into our 3.5 hour return drive that the radiator had been damaged and we were without heat. It was a very, very cold ride home. We fought over who would get to hold the dog for heat. I won.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Giant Backyard Annual Sundial
I took this photo of our backyard today around 9 am. What interests me is the line where the snow decided to melt instead of sticking to the brick walkway. Although there has not been sun since Friday, the northern (far) section of walk still has more warmth than the part of the path closest to the house, which remains in perpetual winter shade. There is a definite line where the snow is melting on only the bricks that have had the luxury of sun in recent days.
On our old concrete sidewalk, replaced about five years ago by brick, I had painted two lines showing where the sun reached over our roof on the shortest and longest days of the year at high noon. The difference between those two marks was around 50 feet. I will have to remember to draw those lines again on the upcoming summer and winter solstices, capturing a sort of seasonal clock with the sun and the roof of our house. I love this stuff.
On our old concrete sidewalk, replaced about five years ago by brick, I had painted two lines showing where the sun reached over our roof on the shortest and longest days of the year at high noon. The difference between those two marks was around 50 feet. I will have to remember to draw those lines again on the upcoming summer and winter solstices, capturing a sort of seasonal clock with the sun and the roof of our house. I love this stuff.
Monday, January 23, 2006
This weekend in my refrigerator I pulled out a buttermilk carton with a "sell by" date of November 2, 2004. I think I'm turning into my mother.
I just finished a very interesting book entitled Nice Dreads: Hair Care Basics and Inspiration for Colored Girls Who've Considered Locking Their Hair. Now that I read this book, I know I have to give up, once and for all, my strong desire for something more substantial on my head than Marsha Brady's fine, limp locks in a dull, mousy brown. I love the look of dreads, but it ain't happenin' here. The best I can do for myself is more therapy for severe hair envy syndrome.
I just finished a very interesting book entitled Nice Dreads: Hair Care Basics and Inspiration for Colored Girls Who've Considered Locking Their Hair. Now that I read this book, I know I have to give up, once and for all, my strong desire for something more substantial on my head than Marsha Brady's fine, limp locks in a dull, mousy brown. I love the look of dreads, but it ain't happenin' here. The best I can do for myself is more therapy for severe hair envy syndrome.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Rust: Reflections of it and on it
I spent a lovely afternoon today with my dad, wandering around downtown with our cameras. I apologize for so many photos of the Milwaukee River, but it was particularly captivating to me this afternoon. Let it be known that I could have posted dozens more, but I restrained myself.
There is such beauty in the common things around us if we can learn to see it. I hope that when you look at some of these very ordinary, even lowly objects or things we might consider eyesores in general, you can see them in a new way and appreciate the forms within the forms.
I nearly froze my uncovered ears off today, but it was worth it.
There is such beauty in the common things around us if we can learn to see it. I hope that when you look at some of these very ordinary, even lowly objects or things we might consider eyesores in general, you can see them in a new way and appreciate the forms within the forms.
I nearly froze my uncovered ears off today, but it was worth it.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Workmen put the finishing touches on a freshly dug grave as I walk by the large cemetery near our house this cold, gray afternoon. There must be a mile of chainlink along this road, between our home and the bank. Wire fencing to keep the dead in. Between headstones there is mainly just cropped, winter-sleeping grass, but every so often I pass under a juniper tree. They are planted along the fence here and there, in clumped lines of three or five. A lot of garbage collects here, pushing itself up against the foot of the fence. Motorists toss all sorts of crap out of their vehicles as they speed by – cans, bottles, junk food wrappers, cardboard boxes, condoms, snuff containers and cigarette wrappers, cellophane, paper and plastic grocery bags. It all finds its way onto the slim strip of grass that extends about a foot beyond the fence, next to the sidewalk. Mixed in with the detritus are small, blue pearls, clustered in the places where the shadows of juniper trees would be were there any sun. I stop to gather a handful. I rub them together in my gloved hands and breathe in their Christmassy scent.
I keep walking until I near the last group of scraggly trees, and there I stop again and add a few more juniper berries to my collection. At the corner, where the fence turns west and so do I, a funeral procession advances through the intersection, headlights glowing and little flags on each hood. I wonder if they’re going to stop at the new grave I just passed. It’s a good day for a burial: cold, but not bitter; slate-gray sky, but no rain. There are fragrant junipers near the grave.
I carry the berries home and put them in a small, white, Japanese-style teacup. I crush them a bit with my fingers and inhale again, deeply.
I keep walking until I near the last group of scraggly trees, and there I stop again and add a few more juniper berries to my collection. At the corner, where the fence turns west and so do I, a funeral procession advances through the intersection, headlights glowing and little flags on each hood. I wonder if they’re going to stop at the new grave I just passed. It’s a good day for a burial: cold, but not bitter; slate-gray sky, but no rain. There are fragrant junipers near the grave.
I carry the berries home and put them in a small, white, Japanese-style teacup. I crush them a bit with my fingers and inhale again, deeply.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Panic Attack
I had a small panic attack in bed Thursday night, surely brought on by the recent stresses of five children in the house, including two teenage girls, not to mention the fact that I thought I was about to die. I have been trying not to take any Zanax to get to sleep and I often succeed in dropping off all by myself, tired as I am these days. I am taking Celebrex daily for my hip/back problem, which has not yet been officially diagnosed. The Celebrex works, though, and I’m glad for it. Merck is once again in the news as a man died from a heart attack after a month on Vioxx and the proceedings of his widow’s lawsuit are splashed across the papers and heard on radio and tv reports almost daily. Some think that Celebrex and Bextra are similarly dangerous to the heart, though this seems to be disputed by the medical profession. My own doctor, Dr. Spiekerman, said I shouldn’t worry about being on it, especially for the short time I would be taking it – originally three weeks. I’m back on it, though, as three weeks apparently wasn’t enough time to heal whatever is causing my mystery pain. That’s a whole story in itself. I’ll save the details of the bad hip for another time.
So, Thursday night I am lying in bed, no Zanax in my system, trying to fall asleep. Success seems imminent as I am so very tired and have almost dozed off. Suddenly there is a sharp pain in my lower left leg. It is a very localized pain in the middle of the front of my leg, a bit off to the outside of that long bone that runs down to the foot. It doesn’t feel like a nerve and it doesn’t feel like a muscle acting up. It’s just a razor sharp pain of medium intensity that lasts only a few seconds. I give a jolt and am now wide-awake again. Dean feels me jerk and shifts in bed next to me. I calm down, wonder what the heck that was and try to recapture my sleep. 20 or 30 seconds later – there it is again. And again. Every 20 or 30 seconds I get this little jab in my leg. Now I remember the Celebrex and all those late night lawyer ads recommending anyone who has taken Vioxx, Celebrex or Bextra to call this 800 number and get into a class action lawsuit to defend their health rights and receive the compensation possibly due them. Geez. This doesn’t help my emotional state at all. I imagine a blood clot, just about to let go of whatever it’s holding onto, poised to jump into the stream of my circulation on its way to my heart or lungs. Which would come first, the heart or the lungs? Which one kills a person – a clot in the heart or the lungs? I thought it was the lungs. I remember one episode of that old crime show, Reasonable Doubts, with Marlee Matlin and Mark Harmon, when one of their co-workers had surgery and was recuperating in a hospital bed when suddenly she couldn’t breathe and she coded and everyone rushed in to try and figure out what was wrong and to try and save her from what turned out to be a simple little old blood clot that had broken away from her surgery site and landed in her lungs like an unwanted relative on your doorstep during Christmas festivities. I remember the look on her face, the incomprehensible terror and the gasping for breath, the rush of orderlies, the whir of emergency machinery, and then the denouement as each doctor and nurse slowly backed away from her lifeless body. She was acting, of course, but it was convincing and I cried. She wasn’t like a bit part on that show either. I was amazed they had allowed her to die like that. Maybe she had a better offer from some other show. Maybe she was pregnant in real life and wanted to stay home to raise her family. I don’t know. They cancelled the entire show some time after that and I never heard anything more. That is beside the point.
I am still lying in bed, having these evenly spaced out stabs of leg pain and imaging my own death from a Celebrex-induced heart attack or a tiny, little blood clot, knowing that my husband will sleep through the entire episode and I won’t even get to say goodbye to my children. The dog will probably be the only one aware of my demise before I’m cold under the sheets.
These thoughts aren’t helping. I get up and use the bathroom and play a few rounds of pocket Yahtzee, hoping the pain will slow down, lessen or disappear. Walking to and from the john doesn’t help, but returning to bed I notice that perhaps it is easing a bit. I make a concerted, oxymoronic effort to relax and finally do fall asleep, still Zanax free. In the morning the pain remains, off and on, though milder than the night before. It fades away by mid-morning, after the kids are on the bus and I am now home alone for the first time all week.
So, Thursday night I am lying in bed, no Zanax in my system, trying to fall asleep. Success seems imminent as I am so very tired and have almost dozed off. Suddenly there is a sharp pain in my lower left leg. It is a very localized pain in the middle of the front of my leg, a bit off to the outside of that long bone that runs down to the foot. It doesn’t feel like a nerve and it doesn’t feel like a muscle acting up. It’s just a razor sharp pain of medium intensity that lasts only a few seconds. I give a jolt and am now wide-awake again. Dean feels me jerk and shifts in bed next to me. I calm down, wonder what the heck that was and try to recapture my sleep. 20 or 30 seconds later – there it is again. And again. Every 20 or 30 seconds I get this little jab in my leg. Now I remember the Celebrex and all those late night lawyer ads recommending anyone who has taken Vioxx, Celebrex or Bextra to call this 800 number and get into a class action lawsuit to defend their health rights and receive the compensation possibly due them. Geez. This doesn’t help my emotional state at all. I imagine a blood clot, just about to let go of whatever it’s holding onto, poised to jump into the stream of my circulation on its way to my heart or lungs. Which would come first, the heart or the lungs? Which one kills a person – a clot in the heart or the lungs? I thought it was the lungs. I remember one episode of that old crime show, Reasonable Doubts, with Marlee Matlin and Mark Harmon, when one of their co-workers had surgery and was recuperating in a hospital bed when suddenly she couldn’t breathe and she coded and everyone rushed in to try and figure out what was wrong and to try and save her from what turned out to be a simple little old blood clot that had broken away from her surgery site and landed in her lungs like an unwanted relative on your doorstep during Christmas festivities. I remember the look on her face, the incomprehensible terror and the gasping for breath, the rush of orderlies, the whir of emergency machinery, and then the denouement as each doctor and nurse slowly backed away from her lifeless body. She was acting, of course, but it was convincing and I cried. She wasn’t like a bit part on that show either. I was amazed they had allowed her to die like that. Maybe she had a better offer from some other show. Maybe she was pregnant in real life and wanted to stay home to raise her family. I don’t know. They cancelled the entire show some time after that and I never heard anything more. That is beside the point.
I am still lying in bed, having these evenly spaced out stabs of leg pain and imaging my own death from a Celebrex-induced heart attack or a tiny, little blood clot, knowing that my husband will sleep through the entire episode and I won’t even get to say goodbye to my children. The dog will probably be the only one aware of my demise before I’m cold under the sheets.
These thoughts aren’t helping. I get up and use the bathroom and play a few rounds of pocket Yahtzee, hoping the pain will slow down, lessen or disappear. Walking to and from the john doesn’t help, but returning to bed I notice that perhaps it is easing a bit. I make a concerted, oxymoronic effort to relax and finally do fall asleep, still Zanax free. In the morning the pain remains, off and on, though milder than the night before. It fades away by mid-morning, after the kids are on the bus and I am now home alone for the first time all week.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Scutigeraphobia
I have never screamed in church, except for that one Sunday years ago when I was about nine. We had arrived late and were forced to take a seat in the very last row of the sanctuary, under the overhang of the choir loft. We sat, stood, sang, sat and stood with dull regularity until the quiet moment of prayer directly before the start of the sermon. I remember standing there, eyes closed and head bowed, when I felt something funny on the bare back of my right forearm. I opened my eyes and twisted my arm around to have a look; something you should never, ever do if you have the least suspicion that something might be crawling on you, which, indeed, it was. I gave a little scream – okay, maybe more of a swallowed yelp – and brushed frantically at the little centipede that had climbed up my arm from who knows where. A few heads turned to watch me do a mini tarantella in my pew. Embarrassed, I brought my electrified nerves in check and managed to stop thrashing. The prayer ended and we all sat down, though I frantically investigated in every direction before reluctantly seating myself as far to the left of my original spot as space would allow.
Thirty years later, I was sitting in a small circle during our adult education hour at church. Suddenly I saw a dark shape, like a pocket-sized Pekingese, whip out from under one of the chairs. My husband, sitting next to me, quickly and instinctively slapped out his left foot. I audibly sucked in air and sat bolt upright. Linda, whose chair was next to mine, noticed my reaction and heard me whisper, “Was that a centipede?” She reached out, put her hand on my shoulder in comfort and answered, “Yes, but he got it.” I lifted my feet up and rested them on the side of my husband’s chair for about twenty minutes afterwards, like the stereotypical housewife after glimpsing a mouse. Mice do not frighten me.
I glanced nervously at the floor before reaching down into my backpack to get my rubber stress ball. I kneaded it purposefully and concentrated on deep breathing. I had had a cup of coffee before church, which did nothing to attenuate the rush of anxiety I could feel coursing through my veins. For quite a while afterwards I could sense a vibration in my entire body, so high-pitched and nearly audible. If a dog had wandered into the room at this point, he would surely have begun to howl in pain at the sound of my nerves reaching a frequency that only his ears could hear.
I will not try to reconcile my spiritual history with the demonic sensibilities that this little beast can conjure in my soul, but I do find it peculiar that I have had more than one highly disturbing centipede encounter while in church. After all, who made the centipede? But I digress.
I can remember individual centipedes encountered over the years: the one that came around a corner as I sat on the floor of Merrill Hall waiting for my journalism class to start 20 years ago, the enormous one on a stack of books in our spare bedroom when we lived in our first apartment, the one in our bathroom last year, and the one that fell off the wall before my very eyes this past Easter Sunday morning. The knowledge that something with that many legs can still fall off of a wall did not do anything good for my already overdeveloped fear of centipedes.
I know my fear is not rational. I love most other bugs and am fascinated by them. Last year we had a pet katydid. This year we raised a praying mantis from a tiny half-inch long hatchling to a fully formed adult. I held them. I photographed them. I played with them and even named them. But centipedes? I have what must be a biological, pathological fear of these speedy, multi-ped monsters that goes beyond my own understanding.
After all, the common house centipede is a helpful, honest predator and certainly not looking to disturb me, personally, except maybe to hide under my clothing were I to lie on the basement floor, at night, in the dark. Centipedes enjoy damp, dim, and cramped places and will hunt down and kill small spiders and insects, including silverfish and cockroaches, that are also found in our homes. Centipedes, often lazily lumped in with spiders or bugs, are true arthropods and neither insects nor spiders. A house centipede, Scutigera coleoptrata, will have one pair of legs per body segment, translating to between 30 and 100 legs, depending on the species. The last pair of legs is much longer than the others and is used to lasso and hold prey while the hunter’s venom takes effect. They do not commonly bite humans, unless provoked, but they can and some quite painfully. The larger the bug, the worse the bite. The dead, slightly crumpled carcass that I found in an abandoned bucket in our basement last week had only the minimally requisite 30 legs. My relief is almost palpable.
House centipedes lay 50 to 100 or more eggs in the late spring or early summer and the young hatch with four pairs of legs. They go through several larval stages marked by an increasing number of pairs of legs until reaching maturity after five or more molts. They can live up to six years. I feel ill. Is there no safe harbor, not even church? A centipede went through the wash machine recently and I found it dead on our comforter in the evening after making our bed. It wasn’t squished, like they usually are when I make them die, so I gingerly picked it up with a tissue and held the creepy body and examined it. It had an almost likeable little face, which surprised me, seeing as how a live one can terrify me more than anything else I know of native to southeastern Wisconsin.
A 26-year old man living near Bangkok recently earned admittance into the Guinness Book of World Records after spending 28 days eating and sleeping with 1,000 centipedes inside a 12 square meter glass room. An Internet photo showed him with a ridiculously enormous centipede crawling over his chin and up onto his lips. I counted at least 40 legs on this five-inch long fright before I had to navigate away from the web page, clear my computer cache, turn off the machine entirely and take a little walk around the block with my six-year old son to remove the image from my brain. If I ever were found to have information some international enemy wanted, all they would have to do is put me in that room. I’d talk. I’d tell them whatever they wanted to know – my age, my weight, my checking account information, my social security number, highly classified American anti-terrorist machinations – just don’t bring on the centipedes.
I want to know where this fear comes from, and why some folks have it and others don’t. Nine out of ten people I ask about centipedes are completely grossed out or afraid of them. I happily married one of the few, the proud, the non-Scutigeraphobic. I call upon his anomalistic indifference to do the dirty act of killing whenever necessary, whenever he is available. If I am home alone and I spy one of these accursed apparitions on wall or floor, my terror alone gives it a better chance of survival. Poor little guys. They can’t know how frightened I am of them. They can’t know how my stomach runs for cover behind my uvula at the sight of them. Why, they’re almost heroes, considering all the good work they do around my house. My first instinct remains murderous, but entomologist Eric Grissell gives this advice instead: "In my house, I never kill these creatures, but when I see them I do what any right-thinking person would do – faint. When I wake up, they are gone."
Quote source: Grissell, Eric. Insects and Gardens. 26.
Thirty years later, I was sitting in a small circle during our adult education hour at church. Suddenly I saw a dark shape, like a pocket-sized Pekingese, whip out from under one of the chairs. My husband, sitting next to me, quickly and instinctively slapped out his left foot. I audibly sucked in air and sat bolt upright. Linda, whose chair was next to mine, noticed my reaction and heard me whisper, “Was that a centipede?” She reached out, put her hand on my shoulder in comfort and answered, “Yes, but he got it.” I lifted my feet up and rested them on the side of my husband’s chair for about twenty minutes afterwards, like the stereotypical housewife after glimpsing a mouse. Mice do not frighten me.
I glanced nervously at the floor before reaching down into my backpack to get my rubber stress ball. I kneaded it purposefully and concentrated on deep breathing. I had had a cup of coffee before church, which did nothing to attenuate the rush of anxiety I could feel coursing through my veins. For quite a while afterwards I could sense a vibration in my entire body, so high-pitched and nearly audible. If a dog had wandered into the room at this point, he would surely have begun to howl in pain at the sound of my nerves reaching a frequency that only his ears could hear.
I will not try to reconcile my spiritual history with the demonic sensibilities that this little beast can conjure in my soul, but I do find it peculiar that I have had more than one highly disturbing centipede encounter while in church. After all, who made the centipede? But I digress.
I can remember individual centipedes encountered over the years: the one that came around a corner as I sat on the floor of Merrill Hall waiting for my journalism class to start 20 years ago, the enormous one on a stack of books in our spare bedroom when we lived in our first apartment, the one in our bathroom last year, and the one that fell off the wall before my very eyes this past Easter Sunday morning. The knowledge that something with that many legs can still fall off of a wall did not do anything good for my already overdeveloped fear of centipedes.
I know my fear is not rational. I love most other bugs and am fascinated by them. Last year we had a pet katydid. This year we raised a praying mantis from a tiny half-inch long hatchling to a fully formed adult. I held them. I photographed them. I played with them and even named them. But centipedes? I have what must be a biological, pathological fear of these speedy, multi-ped monsters that goes beyond my own understanding.
After all, the common house centipede is a helpful, honest predator and certainly not looking to disturb me, personally, except maybe to hide under my clothing were I to lie on the basement floor, at night, in the dark. Centipedes enjoy damp, dim, and cramped places and will hunt down and kill small spiders and insects, including silverfish and cockroaches, that are also found in our homes. Centipedes, often lazily lumped in with spiders or bugs, are true arthropods and neither insects nor spiders. A house centipede, Scutigera coleoptrata, will have one pair of legs per body segment, translating to between 30 and 100 legs, depending on the species. The last pair of legs is much longer than the others and is used to lasso and hold prey while the hunter’s venom takes effect. They do not commonly bite humans, unless provoked, but they can and some quite painfully. The larger the bug, the worse the bite. The dead, slightly crumpled carcass that I found in an abandoned bucket in our basement last week had only the minimally requisite 30 legs. My relief is almost palpable.
House centipedes lay 50 to 100 or more eggs in the late spring or early summer and the young hatch with four pairs of legs. They go through several larval stages marked by an increasing number of pairs of legs until reaching maturity after five or more molts. They can live up to six years. I feel ill. Is there no safe harbor, not even church? A centipede went through the wash machine recently and I found it dead on our comforter in the evening after making our bed. It wasn’t squished, like they usually are when I make them die, so I gingerly picked it up with a tissue and held the creepy body and examined it. It had an almost likeable little face, which surprised me, seeing as how a live one can terrify me more than anything else I know of native to southeastern Wisconsin.
A 26-year old man living near Bangkok recently earned admittance into the Guinness Book of World Records after spending 28 days eating and sleeping with 1,000 centipedes inside a 12 square meter glass room. An Internet photo showed him with a ridiculously enormous centipede crawling over his chin and up onto his lips. I counted at least 40 legs on this five-inch long fright before I had to navigate away from the web page, clear my computer cache, turn off the machine entirely and take a little walk around the block with my six-year old son to remove the image from my brain. If I ever were found to have information some international enemy wanted, all they would have to do is put me in that room. I’d talk. I’d tell them whatever they wanted to know – my age, my weight, my checking account information, my social security number, highly classified American anti-terrorist machinations – just don’t bring on the centipedes.
I want to know where this fear comes from, and why some folks have it and others don’t. Nine out of ten people I ask about centipedes are completely grossed out or afraid of them. I happily married one of the few, the proud, the non-Scutigeraphobic. I call upon his anomalistic indifference to do the dirty act of killing whenever necessary, whenever he is available. If I am home alone and I spy one of these accursed apparitions on wall or floor, my terror alone gives it a better chance of survival. Poor little guys. They can’t know how frightened I am of them. They can’t know how my stomach runs for cover behind my uvula at the sight of them. Why, they’re almost heroes, considering all the good work they do around my house. My first instinct remains murderous, but entomologist Eric Grissell gives this advice instead: "In my house, I never kill these creatures, but when I see them I do what any right-thinking person would do – faint. When I wake up, they are gone."
Quote source: Grissell, Eric. Insects and Gardens. 26.
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