Forays out and an Old Story

Forays out:
Jim's early morning appointment for his Chemo meant that we were in heavy traffic on many partially plowed streets - in the city, mind you. It took us 35 minutes to cross from Connecticutt Avenue to Wisconsin Ave over Bradley Blvd - a ride that usually takes 5 minutes. The drive in heavy traffic on the slushy unplowed street was nerve wracking.

The doctors office was packed. Some patients making up for missing treatments yesterday and others, like us, making sure treatments were not delayed by the coming snow.

The laptop is such a boon for long waits like today. Work can go on anywhere. And always there are the people.

A memorable image: a tall, slender, older blonde woman, a quite attractive French woman, standing at the receptionist counter wearing a floor length blue mink coat with a matching blue mink head band. Elegant and mythic from head to toe. I really wanted to take her picture but that would have been just too tacky. And since I was wearing my fraying and fading green Millenium Turtle sweat shirt I did not want to call any attention to myself. In fact, I wished for a cloak of invisibility.

Sitting next to a man in the chemo lab I noticed that he was exceptionally nervous and fidgety. We struck up a convesation and he told me that, "I am just afraid of needles and being in a room where everyone is getting an IV makes me really upset." I waited.
"You see, I was bitten by a dog when I was eight years old. The dog ran away and they could not test it - I had to have the treatment for rabies. 24 shots, one a day for 24 days. In my stomach. I was just eight years old. I can still see that doctor coming toward me with the needle in his hand." His story is real testimonty to the power of childhood memory. I could relate. I still carry the frights of an early experience with a bully-dentist every time I show up for a dental appointment.

Jim and I were glad to get home before the snow started. This snow - is getting old.

Old Story:



When Cathryn Wellner posted this on the Storytell Listserve today I howled over this video version of a very old folktale. I told it to one of my senior groups last month. The gist of the tale is: A man shows up at a border crossing with a heavily loaded donkey every day for ten years and the guard can never uncover anything - but he knows the guy is smuggling something. After he retires he runs into the donkey-driver in the market. "What was it. I know you were smuggling something. What?"
The man laughs. "Donkeys."

Had to pass it on.

Today I feel like hearing a funny old story because we are hearing an old story on TV that is not so funny. More Snow.