“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”
Posted October 15, 2021 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: Accra, big belly, cat litter, doctor, infection, mosquito bite, Peace Corps Ghana, shot day, skeleton
Today is cool at 63˚ though it is supposed to get a bit warmer. The forecast is partly cloudy, but the sky is covered in clouds. The breeze is slight. I think it is a sweatshirt day.
I made a list of stuff I want to get done, and I’ve already crossed off one of the biggest tasks: bringing the bags of litter to the car. Gwen, being diabetic, uses the cat box to the extreme. I clean it every day and empty it far sooner than I used to. The used litter bags are heavy. I almost fell down the stairs the last time I carried some to the car. This time I used my cart. It was filled and so very heavy I could only take it one step at a time down the stairs. I pushed it near the car where it sits until I can load the car later.
Today is shot day. I’m getting flu, pneumonia and shingles. They are my first pneumonia and shingles shots. The flu I skipped last year. I was in the house all flu season.
When I was a kid, we only went to the doctor if something was wrong or when we needed shots. The doctor’s office was right beside the driveway to the school parking lot and was in a big old house. His office was on the first floor. I remember sitting and waiting on a bench and looking around the hall outside the doctor’s office. There was a tall stairway with wooden stairs and a carved newel post. I remember how shiny the wood looked. The doctor’s office was at the front of the house. I remember he had a complete skeleton hanging off a hook. His desk was huge as was the doctor. He had one of those giant bellies men sometimes get. I remember he wore a vest and a doctor’s white coat, a coat so small I figured he could never button it across his belly. When I was around 10, I went to see him after I had fallen down the stairs. It was the morning after the fall. He wasn’t gentle. He cleaned the cut by scrubbing it with a gauze pad. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I was thrilled when I didn’t get stitches as the cut was already infected so the doctor slathered something on the cut, covered it with gauze and sent me on my way.
In Ghana, I had scratched an itchy mosquito bite on the top of my foot until it bled. It got infected. I went to the Peace Corps doctor in Accra. He was a good guy. He gave me two options: he could cut it and drain it or he could put antiseptic on it under a gauze pad. He told me the gauze pad would take 5 or 6 days until the cut was healed. Draining it would only mean a few days until it healed. I had him drain the infection. It hurt. Afterwards, he told me it would take 5 or 6 days until it was healed enough. I was a bit surprised as he had told me a few days. He admitted he lied figuring that was the only way I’d have it cut and drained. He was right.
P.S. I went to the deck a bit ago, and there was my stolen African statue just lying there. It didn’t even have bite marks. I hope Nala brings back the tagine next.
Doin’ the Chameleon: From the Film Zelig
Posted October 14, 2021 by katryCategories: Video
Okay, don’t judge today’s music. I listened to more lizard songs than I knew existed.
“Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache.”
Posted October 14, 2021 by katryCategories: Musings
The morning is cloudy and still a bit night chilly. Yesterday was a delight. Today is predicted to be sunny and even warmer than yesterday. Earlier, the sun poked out for a bit, and I saw sky blue between the trees. I’m hoping they’ll be back as I need to go out and do a few errands. I’m going to Agway for mums and canned food for Jack. Gwen’s special food came yesterday. It was gone this morning. I hope Jack didn’t eat it. His dish of food is up high where it is safe from Gwen who can’t jump.
I can’t find my English muffins. I thought they were safe from the felonious Nala. I’ll have to check the yard for the tell tale wrapping. She is brazen. Nothing is safe.
The two dogs are eating each other on the couch. Nala has Henry’s neck, and Henry has Nala’s lower jaw. They keep bumping into me. I shoo them off, and they come back.
When I was a kid, I never thought of my life as humdrum. It had a pattern. Every weekday was school, but I never groused. That would have been useless. Years and years of school were still ahead of me. After school, the afternoons were mine. I rode my bike or took a hike into the woods below my house. We buried our turtle there under a special tree. The turtle had come from Woolworth’s and lasted years in his bowl on the counter, a plastic oval bowl with an island and a palm tree. That turtle loved flies with a little life and moving in the water. Much later, the woods were bulldozed to make room for senior apartments. My grandmother lived in one. My father always called it wrinkle city. The turtle had been buried in a small metal tin. Wherever they dumped the dirt, they must have dumped the tin.
A lizard used to live in my house in Ghana. The ceilings were really high, and in the living room there were two small square windows at the top of the front wall. The lizard lived in one of them. I didn’t care. The lizard was welcome, but my cat had a different idea. Whenever the lizard was close enough, my cat tried to catch it, but the lizard saved itself by scurrying up the wall. I think I had a soft spot for the lizard because when I first got to Ghana, I saw the lizards and was amazed. Seeing those green lizards was my first African moment. One day I saw the lizard under a chair. I grabbed it thinking I was a mighty hunter. I was going to put the lizard outside to save its life, but I was too late. When I lifted the lizard, it was missing its upper body including its head. I tossed it outside. I passed the title of mighty hunter to my cat.
