rude

When I was growing up, my parents taught me how to be polite. How to say please and thank you. How to sit up straight at a dining room table, keeping my elbows off it and my napkin in my lap. How to properly answer a phone and take a message. How to address those who were older than me. It seems this is a lost art.

Working in an medical office environment, I deal with a lot of different people. Old and young, rich and poor, all different ethnicities. And so many of them absolutely rude. Whether it is rolling their eyes when they are asked for their insurance card or throwing paperwork back at me when asked to fill it out. Now I realize that paperwork is a pain in the ass. I know that you have been coming here for a million years. But what you don't seem to realize is, I have a job to do. I have been asked by my employer, your doctor, to take care of certain things at the desk, so he doesn't have to. So things get billed properly through your insurance. So we have the correct information to send to your primary doctors. So you ultimately get the correct and prompt treatment.

It's what you came here for and it's what I am being paid to provide. So when you come through the front door at nine o'clock in the morning, looking for a fight, it makes my life very difficult.

I think most of us would agree that the health care system in our country leaves a lot to be desired. Insurance companies keep raising rates, which cause doctors to have to do the same. Technology gets introduced to help move the process along and hopefully make things easier on all ends, but that costs money too. You may have to provide information you think is not necessary, but that's not what your insurance company says. We have to play by their rules in order to see you. There is always someone further up the ladder calling the shots. But we are all just trying to do our jobs to the best of our ability.

So the next time you feel like you have to roll your eyes or make some crappy remark, take a second and think about who you are talking to. Just some poor woman who is trying to do her job and earn a living so she can go to her doctor and fill out forms and show her insurance card. We are all just trying to get through our day. It seems to me if we can be a little more civil to each other it would make the day go that much better.

focus

When my kids were in school, we spent lots of nights in the high school auditorium for band and choir concerts. One of the first choir concerst I remember going to was when my oldest daughter was 6th grade. They had the middle school choirs singing, but they also brought in the high school groups. I think it was to show the parents that if the kids stick with this, it gets better. A LOT better. The songs the concert choir sang brought tears to my eyes. They were wonderful. I could not wait for my kids to be in it.

Now I realize that a school concert is not like going to the philharmonic. You don't have to pay to see it. You don't have to get dressed up and drive downtown to the concert hall. But shouldn't you at least have a similar amount of respect for the performers? It never ceases to amaze me how rude some people were at those concerts. Letting their younger children make a lot of noise and run up and down the aisles. Parents carrying on conversations with each other. This always occurred just when my childs group was taking the stage.

Now fast forward a few years. My kids are all out of public school. But my sisters kids are working their way through. Concert night. Same deal. Only now you have people in the audience with their smartphones and electronic games. Tell me, what kind of society have we become when we can't unplug from our toys for an hour? What kind of children are we raising who can't sit quietly for an hour? It seems that if there isn't a constant barrage of noise and entertainment being thrust at them, they immediately go into meltdown stage.

I have come to a place in my life where those lingering moments of quiet are so lovely. And neccessary! Don't get me wrong, if I leave the house without my iPhone, I feel naked. But there are times when it needs to be put away and I need to be able to focus on something else. Like a group of kids who have a desire to sing. Or play the oboe. I wonder sometimes how much longer that will be the case. As this generation grows up, will they be able to sit still long enough to enjoy a concert in a music hall? Or worse, will there be anyone there playing?

ailments

I have developed acid reflux. I never had a problem eating anything. Now I do. I guess I get the spicy foods and acidy foods. But sometimes it's something seemingly bland. Even though I take medicine for it, I still find myself sitting up in bed at night for a while. My father had the same problem. So maybe it's partly genetic. But it's also age. My joints ache. My eye sight and hearing aren't what they used to be. My skin is dry in places and scaly in others. And I have heartburn. I don't stress about it. I could make better choices about what I eat or what time I'm eating and that would no doubt help the situation. But for the most part, I continue on the same path I have been for most of my adult life.

It's hard to give up the things that we are familiar with, whether that is a food or a habit. Those things that we associate with our youth, we try to hold on to for as long as we can. When you are young, it feels like it will last forever. Time has no real meaning because there is so much of it ahead of you. But the older you get, the more time you see behind you instead of in front of you, the more you grasp at those things that draw you back to your youth. Some of us let go of these things easier than others. Most of us think we will know when we have to give something up and we will be able to make that choice. But the truth is that we won't. We are able to fool ourselves into thinking that we still know what is best for us. I still see well enough to drive. I can still climb a ladder to clean out the gutters or reach something from a shelf in the garage. I can still eat pizza and chicken wings at seven o'clock at night and not feel the repercussion from it.

It would be helpful if we were able to realize this and make the necessary changes. It would take a lot of pressure off our children who end up having to do the dirty work. But it's such a control issue and for the most part, we as humans, don't like to give up control. Especially of our own lives. And yet most of us eventually get to a place where we have no control. Where someone else has stepped in to make the decisions. And we can choose to go willingly or we can drag our feet and bitch and moan the whole way. I think the challenge is to go willingly without a loss of dignity. There is a fine balance there, that takes understanding and patience on both sides. Something that is hard to achieve, no doubt, but is the most gratifying if you can do it. Having seen examples in my own family of people who have not done this well, I endeavor to try and be more gracious about it when my time comes. In the meantime, I endeavor to continue to eat pizza. I'll just try to do it earlier in the day. And when I don't, I thank God for Prilosec!

Success!

Success at last! After a week of being taunted by a very clever mouse, he has been dispatched! Thanks to the husband who carefully set traps around in my car. I tried but snapped the crap out of my fingers and gave up the thought of ever having a nice quiet ride into work ever again.

Now come the hard questions. Did it hurt when he died? Does he have a family waiting for him? Why was he so cute? Aren't they supposed to be vile and disgusting? It makes it easier to kill them when they are. Why am I feeling badly about killing a mouse? I'm going to make a big jump here, bear with me. I think it's empathy. We can argue until the cows come home about whether the mouse had feelings. Some would say that animals can't feel, that humans are the only creatures intelligent enough to feel. But I disagree. My best friend growing up had a yellow lab named Sarah. We would catch her looking at herself in the mirror in my friends bedroom and when we called her on it, she would crinkle up her ears and drop her head and you could see embarrassment on her face. I have friends whose cats ignore them when they've been gone for a few days. They are mad that they were left alone. I watched a video segment about a young leopard who makes her first kill. It was a baboon. When the cat takes the dead baboon up into a tree it realizes that there is a day old baby clinging to it's dead mother. Instead of killing the baby too, the leopard picks the baby up and starts to lick it and cuddle up with it. With cameras everywhere and YouTube showing all the videos that people take, you don't have to look far for examples in nature of empathy.

Unfortunately, they are getting harder to find in society. Heinz Kohut said, empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person. I can put myself into the "life" of the mouse in my car. But how many times do I put myself into the lives of the people around me? I could argue that the mouse is easy to be empathetic towards. For one, he's a mouse. So he'll never disappoint me. And so often the people around me can. But what kind of relationship is it if there isn't some disappointment. Some sadness. That all leads to growth and in turn better relationships. The one with the mouse is static. Especially since the mouse is dead. So I take that thought away from this whole ordeal. To try to be more connected to the people around me and less so to the things that can't react back to me.

RIP Ethan"the mouse" Hunt.

Eek, a mouse!

So I'm driving in my car the other day and at a stop light I look down and I see these little black things on the floor. My first thought is that I must have eaten an everything bagel in the car at some point and gotten poppy seeds on the floor. Logical, right?

Roll forward to Monday. I am eating toast in the car on the way to work.

I know, you are sensing a pattern here. I have never been a morning person. I have no problem laying in bed until noon. It doesn't hurt that we have a really, really great bed. I have the alarm set for 6:50 am and then a second one set for 7:00 am. I hit the first one. I let the second one go as it is tuned to the radio and not an annoying buzzer noise. I listen to the headlines, the traffic and the weather, then I turn it off and turn on the TV. Good Morning America. I pick up my phone and check email, Facebook and Twitter. I check The Daily Puppy. I check the national news and play a quick game of Word Warp or Words with Friends. Usually by this time it is 7:30. I roll over and re-fluff my pillow. Look out the window and wonder why I wasn't born into an incredibly rich family, where a maid would be approaching my room right now, to pull back the curtains, bring me a tray with tea and fresh croissants and OJ and then go run my bath. I ponder this for another 10 minutes and then I curse myself for again waiting so long to get up. So now I'm late, plus I have to pee like crazy. After my morning ablutions, I slap on my makeup, get dressed, run downstairs and throw some bread in the toaster. Grab something for lunch and then jump in the car and head to work. It's not the best system, but I kind of have it down so it's what I go with.

So Wednesday I notice, on the paper towel that I had carried my toast on when I got into the car and had left on my passenger seat, no longer has toast crumbs on it. It has mouse turds on it. One corner is chewed on and there is a pee stain. I guess I should be grateful that he peed on the paper towel and not on the leather seats. But regardless, I have a mouse in my car. And is it in my car all the time? Or does he sneak in at night while the car is in the garage, eat my toast crumbs and then leave in the morning? It is what I wanted to believe.

So out come the traps. The are "humane" traps that don't cut the thing in half when the mouse springs it. I load them with peanut butter and put 2 of them in my car.

Thursday morning goes like this: see above paragraph for morning ritual, coat on and plastic bag in hand to pick up deceased mouse(s). I cautiously approach my car and open the door. Trap is where I left it, no mouse. I check the second trap and find the same. When I pick them up I notice that there is not a lick of peanut butter on either one. Crap. I mean, yes crap. There is more mouse crap in the car, too.

Thursday night: Husband has purchased old-fashioned wooden mousetraps with snappy metal spring on them. I lather them up with peanut butter and put them in the car, almost snapping off my fingers several times before I get them set.

Friday morning goes like this: see above.....caution has gone out the window at this point. I open the car door. Unsprung trap. No dead mouse. And not a speck of peanut butter! What the hell kind of mouse is this? I picture some Mission Impossible type set up with the mouse repelling down from above the trap using all kinds of equipment to allow it to know how much downward pressure it is applying to the trap. This is a friggin' genius mouse!

So now we arrive at Friday night. Traps are set again. This time I have really crammed them with peanut butter, so that little rodent bastard will have to really work to get it all off. I have also set them at the lightest possible setting. This mouse will have to be made of air to not set this trap off! So now I wait.

However, if this doesn't work, is anyone interested in buying a slightly used VW Beetle? It's pretty clean, except for some poppy seeds on the floor.

Shoplifting

So, apparently there is a difference between being robbed and being shoplifted from. It's true. I found out the hard way. A couple of years ago I was asked to call the police because we were being "robbed". So I did. After a few minutes on the phone with a very nice police officer, a swat team descended on our building, busting through the front door, guns drawn. Everyone was on the floor. They swept the building in search of the offenders. Long story short, it was very scary and pretty chaotic. Come to find out, if you say you are being robbed the police assume there are weapons involved. If, on the other hand, someone walks into your store, picks up some merchandise and puts it in their pocket and walks out, that is just shop lifting and they won't send a SWAT team to your store. Hmmm. You learn something new every day.

Fast forward to today and we are being robbed, er, I mean shoplifted from again. Even with big signs all around saying that the building is equipped with 24 hour video taping. Some idiot comes in and walks out with stuff that doesn't belong to him. Police still come, but not as fast. Take my statement and give us a card with a case number on it and tell us to call if anything else happens. Here's what happens. It throws the whole workplace into a tizzy. Some of us are totally freaked out about it. Some seem like they couldn't care less. Everyone talks about it and rehashes what happened and what they saw and what could have been done to prevent it. Truth is not much. If someone is bold enough to come into a business that is bustling with people and cameras and still try and steal something, there probably isn't much you could do to stop them. The fact that he didn't have a gun or knife is a blessing. The loss of merchandise is a small price to pay for the safety of customers and staff, however frustrating it is to have stuff stolen. It does suck that people, for whatever reason, feel that they have a right to take what doesn't belong to them. But that type of behavior dates back to the garden of Eden, I guess. Besides, it will give us something to talk about for the next week!

Grandchildren

Grandchildren.

Something I never thought I would want and now, strangely, I desperately crave. Seems like all my friends are becoming grandparents. It is amazing to me how fast I have gotten to this stage in my life. I remember like it was yesterday, turning around in the minivan to look in the back seat and seeing three little faces staring back at me. At the time I remember feeling shocked at how fast I had reached that milestone. Wasn't it just a couple of years before that I had gotten married. And just a short time before that, graduated high school. My first job. My first car. My first boyfriend. My first dog. My first...

No one tells you when you have your first baby how soon you'll see her go through her firsts. How soon she'll move away and get married. If they did, how differently we would treat life. We spend so much time focused on the 'stuff' of life. A job, a house, a car. After the past few years of seeing family members die too young, you change your opinion on what really matters. Family, friends, love. Those are the things that really matter. Those are the things we should be working on, day in and day out, to make stronger. To make sure that those people around us, the ones who really matter, know how much we love them.

I'll turn 50 this year. I can't believe how fast that has gone. I have lived more than half my life already. My prayer and hope is that I will spend the rest of my days focused on what really matters. My husband and children. My friends and family. And, god willing, grandchildren.