Still More Aphorisms

Where there's a will there's a way.
The proof is in the pudding.
There's no time like the present.
The truth is stranger than fiction.

I can't believe I say this stuff but I do.

Dogzilla-burgher

Dogzilla will not be trimming his facial hair until after the Superbowl.

Here We Go

I guess it was '95 when the Steelers went to the Superbowl the last time. I had only lived in Pittsburgh a short time and was fresh from my organic-girl, quaker days in Berkeley. The whole thing basically went right by me. I lifted my nose from a medical textbook once in while and wondered what all the screaming was about but that's about it. One of my slightly more atuned Menonite friends noticed enough to complain indignantly that night after night for two straight weeks the lead story on the evening news was guess what: The Steelers are still going to the Superbowl. Shades of Francisco Franco is still dead. Now that I'm older and a good bit more weary I take pleasure in the reassuring glee of the nightly news. I am glad for the reprieve. The lead story will soon enough be about shootings, hit-and-runs, arsons, missing and abandonned children. And, this being Pittsburgh the occassional porch collapse.

Meat & Potatoes vs. Wine & Cheese

Despite my best efforts I have been following the Steelers this year. There are plenty of fan websites and whatnot where you can read the stats and download the fight songs including a couple of polkas. There's even a blog I stumbled across. But, what I want to know is why don't we have cheerleaders? The Colts had cheerleaders. The Broncos had them, too.

Now the Steelers couldn't have just any cheerleaders. Pretty girls are a dime a dozen after all and when you've got the Steelers to watch, who needs eye candy? Ours would need to know how to fix halushka, keep the crowd loud and if the defense lets the ball through get out on the field and stop it... Here's my vision:

Dada, dada..... Introducing the Pittsburgh Pierogies!!!!!!!!!!! Here comes a crew of women d'un age uncertain and weighing at least one standard Pittsburgh unit (ie: about 180 pounds). Except that is, for the really, really skinny one. A few would make reasonable contestants in the newest reality TV show called: "Get That Woman Some Teeth!" Forget the silly little costumes. The Perogies wear army boots with cutoffs and that traditional Pittsburgh favorite: a tank top. They celebrate touchdowns with synchronized arm flab routines. Anybody fumbles and they're gettin' a whoopin'. You got hurt? She's putting a bandage on it and shoving you back out there with a hardy "Quit yer cryin'."

Look out Seattle!

More Aphorisms

Slow and steady wins the race.
Be careful what you wish for.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That last one bites me on the hiney almost daily.

Read This

Not THIS. Read this: "Yeah, I said it" by Wanda Sykes. It is super funny. She uses a lot of naughty words though so if you have sensative eyes you should read something else. If you are a republican you can read it but don't come whining to me.

Indianapolis

With the dramatic Steelers win yesterday I was reminded of my recent visit to Indianapolis. (I can't believe I follow football but it's hard not to notice when My Beloved is running around the house shouting "Yeah!".) We passed through Indianapolis New Year's Eve and stopped for dinner. When we saw the sign advertising burritos "as big as your head" we just had to stop. Fortunately La Bamba offers a scaled down version of which My Beloved and I (and Dogzilla) ate two. While we sat in the car we noticed an interesting fact. Don's Guns across the street had a sign out offering guns for rent. I hope not too many Colts fans know about this.

How to Keep Going

A while back I had a free moment and read part of a New Yorker (October 31, 2005) and ran across something that made me pull out a pen and circle it. It was this:

"You have to assume good faith, even on the part of people with whom you disagree... If you don't assume good faith, it makes matters personal, and it makes it harder to reach a good result and, in my experience, it normally isn't even true. People do act in good faith. The best clue to what a person thinks is what he says."

This was a statement made by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer as quoted by Jeffrey Toobin in his article "Breyer's Big Idea."

Medically Induced Coma

Between the surviving miner in West Virginia and Sharon it seems like every other story on the news is about somebody in a medically induced coma. This term is entering the vernacular so to say and soon I expect to have a patient say to me: "Doc, ya know I've been under a lotta stress lately an I wonder if you could put me in one-a those medic-ly induced coma thing-ys just until stuff settles down."

Well, I haven't posted for about a week now because I've been in my own kind of medically induced coma thingy. Mine doesn't involve any interesting sedative unfortunately. Mine is more of a side effect. The instant I walked in here from my Christmas vacation I felt like I needed a vacation. I realized of course that it's not a vacation I need, but a new life. All day I am completely absorbed in an avalanche of other peoples' problems. Each problem needs 100% of my top quality attention, not that kind of attention I give to one thing while I'm doing two others. The problems don't always require high-end brain power but my whole self has to be there focused and listening. Throw in a few interruptions of the "before you get started" kind. (Guess what. Once I've closed the door to the exam room, I've started.) Throw in an earnest and talented medical student who deserves feedback and a quality learning experience. (Me, again.) Throw in a patient population of frail elderly folks who would blow away in a stiff wind. Then, throw in a complete absence of physicians in this community willing to treat pain. Set all that against a back drop of extreme social injustice, obscene bureaucracy and no net under my tight rope and you've got one little old Me in my own medically induced blog coma.

Grandma Would Be Proud

As a kid I spent a lot of time at the kitchen table with my grandma going through old photos. Every time we sat and looked at them she would get upset with herself for not having written anything on the back of them when she first got them developed. We spent hours and hours trying to figure out who was who, when the picture was taken and where. I got so that I could tell her brothers apart better when they were in their 30's than in the present day. Ever since I took my first camera to summer camp she was after me to label my photos and for the most part I have done so. Labeled them and put them in albums. Now that the whole photo thing is digital I am trying to keep up my good habits. My Beloved and I just returned yesterday in the wee hours from a trip "home" and I have the pictures essentially ready to view. Click on this if you would like to look at my "albums." Happy New Year.