Ruminations From a Cluttered Mind

Sometimes I look back at certain, critical junctures of my life and find myself growing thoughtful. Once upon a time, I passed through one door and swung shut another. What if I had reversed that scenario? What if my criteria for making life-altering decisions had been ordered differently? What if the most life-altering choices in life weren't settled in my glorious-but-oblivious youth? I think this phenomenon, this mental rewriting of the road not taken, occurs when you realize your current opportunties have substantially dwindled and the sky's not the limit anymore. I do believe the term for this is "midlife crisis." I absolutely fail to see how the purchase of a flashy sports car could possibly alleviate the situation. Instead, I choose to watch lots of old TV and eat salad. I could eat junk food, but there's no reason to let myself go or anything. Besides, the way I cream n'sugar my coffee, I get my fix for sweets daily by 10 a.m.

My husband was telling me a story he heard from a policeman who came by the gas station last night. Husband encourages reliable folks, like truckers, railroad workers, and police officers, to hang around at night so he's not alone with scary people who happen by. He does this by plying them with lots of free coffee. Anyway, the story is, this police officer had to try and pull over a drunk driver, a teen, who was behind the wheel of a stolen combine. How do you pull over a combine? It's really big, like a tank. You can't shoot out the tires. You can't lay down spike strips. Your squad's going to run out of gas before the combine does. I guess what happened is the police just tracked the kid until he finally pulled over to relieve himself. Kind of sounds like fodder for an episode of Cops.

This is totally sophomoric, but it did get a smile out of me. Husband thought it was pretty funny, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZQebW6cI44&feature=related

Today, one of my residents came into my office, angry, accusing my staff of stealing her towels. She did the same thing last week, and I found them for her in laundry, waiting to be delivered. I tried laundry again today but did not find the towels. I sent another nurse to her apartment to locate the towels. For approximately seven minutes (but who's counting?), I heard dear resident recount the indignity of my staff scavenging her apartment for her towels. How was she to bathe? How was she to dry stuff? Ah, look, here is our nurse with your four sets of bath towels from your apartment. They're all here, clean, just hiding away in a cupboard, most likely. Problem solved, right? Unfortunately, dear resident no longer recognized the towels as hers. They are now imposter towels. I asked kind nurse to please return the towels to the apartment. "You do that, and I'll throw them into the hall!" vows resident.

The most consoling thing about caring for people with dementia is also the most consoling thing about caring for little babies. Either way, if they decide you've done them wrong, they won't remember in an hour and you have a chance to try it again.

It snowed today. In honor of the occasion, I present a fitting quote from poet e.e. cummings:

The snow doesn't give a soft, white damn whom it touches.