A Cure for What Ailed Me

I was taken aback recently when I read the following newspaper advertisement:

Twas the night before Christmas [okay, I was taken aback about a month ago...] and all through the town, not a creature was stirring, except for a firefighter, a nurse, a doctor, a plant manager, and office worker...some of them struggling to stay awake throughout the night shift...

Supporting those of you who stay awake for the rest of us

NUVIGIL is a prescription medicine used to improve wakefulness in adults who experience excessive sleepiness (ES) due to shift work disorder (SWD). Ask your doctor about ES due to SWD and if NUVIGIL could be right for you.

Several things add to my taken abackedness:

1) The condition of being really, really sleepy now has its own acronym?!?

2) While I can understand the brand name, NUVIGIL (when I stop pronouncing it "noovih-gill" and start saying "new vigil"), I'm puzzled as to why the generic name for this world-saving substance is ARMODAFINIL...sounds like a cross between an armadillo and a flower. Unless maybe instead of "armo DAF ih nill" it's supposed to be "armo da final"...like preparing a student for a very important test.

3) For nine years, I worked from 11:00 at night to 7:30 in the morning. (Not doing anything nearly as important or exciting as fighting fires, tending the sick, or managing -uh- plants; no, no, no...I was proofreading prospectuses for mutual funds.) All that time, I thought my being really, really sleepy was due to a) not getting a good day's sleep; and b) the extremely boring (EB) nature of my duties (MD). As it turns out, it was a medical condition! I was suffering from SWD! I could have joined the ranks of women everywhere who blame their innate crabbiness on PMS and declared, "Hey! It's not my fault I keep falling asleep and writing nonsensical marginal notes like 'bold, no sugar;' I've got SWD!"

4) The fine print is rather worrisome: NUVIGIL may cause serious side effects including a serious rash or a serious allergic reaction that may affect parts of your body such as your liver or blood cells, and may result in hospitalization and be life-threatening.

Seriously? But hey, baby, you'll be awake!

If you develop a skin rash, hives, sores in your mouth, blisters, swelling, peeling, or yellowing of the skin or eyes, trouble swallowing or breathing, dark urine, or fever, stop taking NUVIGIL and call your doctor right away or get emergency help.

Gee...ya think?!? "My eyes are yellow and peeling, and I can't really breathe, but gimme those pills so I can stay awake for what is apparently my imminent death."

Do not drive a car or do other dangerous activities until you and your doctor know how NUVIGIL affects you.

Translation: We're marketing this as a way to do battle with ES due to SWD, but until you pop these pills in your mouth and swallow them, it's only a best guess as to what it will do to you. That'll be $49.99, please.

And now you know why it's called Practicing Medicine (PM).

Crashing Through Writer's Block

Come on, Mister Creative, sit down and write
Make the world chuckle and don't take all night
Do it in prose, do it in rhyme
Do it in doo-doo; just do it in time!

The good news is, it won't have to make sense
You're long past the time when you tore down that fence
Create a laugh, a snicker, a groan

Tell of a prank to perform on the phone

No need to inspire much wonder or awe

Just pass on the tale of your latest faux pas

Or make something up from when you were a youth

It's okay to lie; this is Almost the Truth

The 12 Days After Christmas

On the first day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Seven days to take down the tree

On the second day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Warmed broccoli casserole
And six days to take down the tree

On the third day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Left-over ham
Warmed broccoli casserole
And five days to take down the tree

On the fourth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Spoiled eggnog
Left-over ham
Warmed broccoli casserole
And four days to take down the tree

On the fifth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And three days to take down the tree

On the sixth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And two days to take down the tree

On the seventh day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And one day to take down the tree

On the eighth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the ninth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Nine nasty notes
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the tenth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Ten disgusted sighs
Nine nasty notes
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Moldy broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the eleventh day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eleven ‘Lord, have mercy’s
Ten disgusted sighs
Nine nasty notes
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Moldy broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the twelfth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Twelve home-baked cookies
Eleven love notes
Ten mended socks
Nine happy hugs
Eight sexy kisses
Seven stunning smiles
Six little giggles
Time to myself
Four Dr. Peppers
Beef on a bun
Sweet potato fries
And a ‘Thank you, dear, for taking down the tree’

My 2012 Headline Wish List

Not likely to happen, but it would warm every cockle my heart has to see these headlines sometime this year...

Firefly and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Return to Television

Ocean's Fourteen in Post-Production, Ready for Late-Summer Release

Kardashians Fade Into Obscurity

Delta Announces $50 Flights to NYC

Minnesota's First Winter With No Snowfalls Over 3 Inches

Valley Park Neighborhood Oddly Quiet on July 4th

Publisher's Clearinghouse Prize Patrol Visits Local Blogger

The House and Senate Work Together and Actually Accomplish Something Positive

...namely...

Political Advertising Outlawed

Now, only outlaws will run political ads...wait...what's new about that?

Almost the Nativity

(For those who arrived late, this is a reprint from 2009.)

I view the Bible as being 100% truthful and reliable...however...it doesn't always report 100% of what actually happened. At times, it uses figures of speech and poetic language and just plain leaves some things out. For example, what really happened between Luke 1:26-56 and Matthew 2:18?

Following the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would give birth to the Messiah, and Mary's hasty, three-month visit with her kinswoman, Elizabeth, she returned to Nazareth and her betrothed, Joseph.

"Joseph?" Mary inquired, as she entered the carpenter's shop.

"Is that the voice of my turtle dove?" laughed Joseph as he picked Mary up and swung her around in joy.

"Careful, you glorified lumberjack." Joseph was a little confused about needing to be careful, so Mary continued: "I've got some wonderful news, oh hubby-to-be! I am expecting a child."

"That's a wonderful, positive attitude, my basket of flower petals. I, too, expect that our God will be gracious and grant to us the blessing of being parents." (Joseph was not the sharpest chisel in the toolbox.)

"You don't understand, my muscular ox. I am, even now, at this very minute, expecting a child."

Joseph tilted his head to one side, squinted, and slowly said, "Yea, verily...me, too."

Mary slipped her hands up Joseph's arms and cupped his face. "Let me speak plainly, oh He Who Is Strong of Arm and Thick of Skull. I'm preggers."

The light dawned excruciatingly slowly in the carpenter's mind: "Heyyyyy...what were you doing for the last three months, anyway? I thought you were visiting your cousin Elizabeth. Is there something in the water up there?"

"Joseph," Mary calmly interjected, "I am not pregnant by the effort of any man. God has placed this child within me."

"Riiiiiiiight."

MY FIRST TIME: Episode Four: You can't get there from here

Synopsis: The author and his Beloved, as part of their first-ever, short-term, cross-cultural missions experience, arrived in Panama City, Panama, a day later than the rest of their group.

The first thing to hit me when the sliding glass doors opened -- the doors that separated the stiff, official, will-they-let-me-in-the-country-or-not customs area of the airport from the throng of brown faces looking for someone other than me -- the first thing to hit me was the smell. Not that it was an unpleasant odor, just...different. Certainly pungent. Decidedly piercing. Altogether unavoidable.

The second aspect of Panama to impress itself on me was the heat. This was February. I had left 26-degree Indiana and now walked into 95-degree Panama. Again...not unpleasant, except for the whole tennis-shoes-melting-into-the-concrete phenomenon.

The gringo missionary we would be working with knew the representative of the sponsoring organization that had organized the trip and who was with us (because he stayed behind in Miami, remember?), so we had no difficulty being found. Frankly, even though we had never seen the missionary before, it wasn't hard to pick out the only six-foot, four-inch, redheaded Irishman on that side of the Rio Grande.

We wended our way through the crowds to a large taxi/small cargo truck, which took us to the bus terminal in town, where we booked passage for our six-hour bus ride to a town named David (pronounced, Dah-VEED).

Methinks the actual distance from Panama City to David is about 120 miles, but we spent the first three-and-a-half hours of our trip zig-zagging through the narrow, congested, always-in-a-state-of-disrepair streets of Panama City...stopping for every souvenir cart (no doubt owned by a cousin of the bus driver's wife's shoe salesman's nephew) and stray dog (the other white meat).

To give you an idea of just how exciting it was riding in this fairly-full, vintage bus with an assortment of animals, produce, cranky kids, and large, belching hombres, let me pass on three words: No...Air...Conditioning.

"Hey, Mommy's Daddy!"

I became a grampa Sunday morning.

Well, to tell you the True Truth, I've been considering myself the father of a child who has a child since I first saw the ultrasound picture and could tell how absolutely cool my grandson was:

But just yesterday morning (as James Taylor invades my brain), they let me KNOW you were [here]. Seems that the plans they made [got left behind].

It's true, the little goober came a few weeks early, but all is well and right and good and fine...except for a personal question of my own:

What do I want SkittleKid to call me when he starts talking in a few weeks?

(Yes, it will happen that soon. His mom, AngelFace, is An Educator and will settle for nothing less than a precocious prodigy...reading The Brothers Karamazov at the age of three.)

I've heard plenty of possibilities:

Grandfather - Way too stuffy for a wannabe hippie like me; makes me think of Shirley Temple pouting and crying in a snowstorm

Grandpa - Impossible to pronounce, which is probably what led to the invention of...

Granpa - which no one actually says; it always comes out...

Grampa - which is fine for what it is: the masculine form of Gramma; but I guess I want something less derivative

Gramps - This would be great if I chewed tobaccee, walked with a hitch in my gitalong, and was named Walter Brennan

Peepaw - Kind of cute in a it's-a-shame-Dewey-has-to-wear-Depends-at-such-a-young-age kind of way

I know it will depend on what SkittleKid's tongue can actually navigate, but I wouldn't mind Papa Dewey...except now that I say that out loud, it sort of sounds like you're instructing someone to quickly swallow some kind of illegal pill.

Oh well, whatever he ends up calling me, I'll love it because I love him. And that's the whole, complete, actual, factual, true truth.