Our very own Mummy

The Hubster felt we needed this mummy for our front porch. Since Herr Mummy arrived a few weeks ago, he has been standing guard by the piano. A few days ago he was moved outside and Hubster spot lighted him with a rather dramatic result. Methinks Hubster wants to scare away any potential trick or treaters so he can have all the Halloween candy to himself...that is if any is left. He and son have already made a big dent in the candy stash.

Restraint

A while back I was working with a woman who had a history of unrelenting childhood misery due to chronic intestinal problems most likely due something akin to Hirschsprung's disease. Her first bowel surgery was shortly after birth. Her childhood was filled with hospitalizations and surgeries.

I found myself telling her about a little boy, who after surgery on his mouth, was put into arm splints to keep him from pulling at his stitches. He had to wear these restraints for three weeks. In response to the word restraints, her whole body jerked as if I'd poked her with a cattle prod. I inquired if she'd ever been put into restraints. She teared up as she told the story of one hospitalization where the staff insisted she wear diapers even though she was already wearing big girl panties and used the potty. When the nurses tried to put a diaper on her, she fought so hard that they tied her legs to the side of her crib. Can you imagine the fury and the humiliation that little kid felt? She was no more than three, but she's never forgotten the indignity.

Back home

It was a full and interesting week visiting oldest daughter and her husband and playing with the big boys and girls at a shrink conference. The conference proved to be quite intense and intensive so there was less play time that I'd hoped for. Still, there were many good times with darling daughter. I saw her new place of work at her distinguished university, had a tour of her end of the campus, and broke fish tacos with her at the student union. I found some handsome university logo attire to bring back for the hubster and son.

Later in the week we ate at a cool and tranquil Persian restaurant which was quite a contrast to the noisy crowded Italian place where I had dinner the night before with some fellow conferees. After knocking back my lamb kabob, we went to see Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, which was a delightful nostalgic romp from beginning to end. Frankie was played by a school friend of oldest daughter which made it even more fun.

The next night we ate at a Russian/Georgian restaurant where the tea is served in glasses and the food is abundant and sumptuous. Poetry, sayings and comments in many languages have been written on the walls and doors. The rotund and ebullient chef from time to time circulates among the patrons. I was waiting for my turn at the john when he arrived and demonstrated how to use the bell mounted on the outside of the bathroom door. He took up the spoon which hung by a chain besides the bell and clanged it loudly grinning the whole while. "That will hurry them up!" he said. He was correct. The lady who shortly came out from the bathroom was not amused and of course by then, the chef was nowhere around.

Sunday we went to the beach and out to visit a lighthouse. The perfectly blue sky very suddenly grew hazy. Daughter thought she smelled smoke. I wasn't sure. But the haze thickened and soon we all smelled smoke. We were way too far from Malibu, we thought, to be getting the smoke from there. Once we got to the car and turned on the radio we found out another fire had broken out. Daughter and hubby told stories of other wild fires. It was quite unsettling even thought the fires were many miles away. The air quality deteriorated rapidly and the sun shone bright orange through the smoke.

I flew out very early the next morning. Our flight path took us over the fire. Talk about a weird sight, to look down on a giant gray cloud with glowing patches erupting through the thick layer of smoke. Of course, more fires have broken out since. Daughter and husband are fine as of this morning though her university is closed for the time being. Life in California goes on, the kids who don't have school hit the mall. Daughter on the other hand, used her time off to go donate blood. That makes her mother proud.

Blue Highway - Wondrous Love

Westward Ho

Tomorrow I fly out to the west coast to hang with beloved oldest daughter, her delightful husband and to learn the latest about fear at a professional meeting. This trip comes a bit soon after my cabining trip. The timing elicited some mild protest from several patients. When I shared that my conference was on fear, without exception people thought it was an excellent topic to study and expressed hope that I would learn something that would help them. No doubt there will be interesting stories to tell upon my return.

I hope I don't miss fall in the Midwest entirely since it has, at long last, come. Speaking of fall, leads me to apples and a new-to-me variety called Honey Crisp. I haven't seen this apple in local stores, but I picked up a bag at an orchard just because I'd never tried them. My oh my! They are juicy, crisp, tart and sweet all at the same time. I can't remember ever eating a better apple. The Hubster loves them too which is great because he's a Granny Smith guy married to a Fuji/Pink Lady gal. We have found common ground. In Wisconsin, Honey Crisps go for premium prices and are credited for keeping local apple growers in business. It is still possible to invent a better mousetrap.

What's on my reading table

A few weeks ago, a friend ran up to me in the grocery store parking lot. She said she'd thought of me often as she read The Memory Keeper's Daughter. "Had I read it?" she wanted to know. I said that I hadn't it. She said she really wanted to know what I thought of the book and wanted to discuss it with me at some point.

With that lead in, I picked it up and read it. From an analytic point of view, it made no sense. The doctor husband never would have picked orthopaedics as his specialty. He would have been a cardiothoracic surgeon. That said, I really had to wonder about my friend. She seriously thought this book was an accurate depiction of the life of a doctor's wife. The wife in this novel became a drunk and had several extramarital affairs. Gee, somehow I'm not too flattered that my friend thought of me.

The book is a soap opera of implausible plot developments and a disappointment. I really wonder why it is a best seller. But I wonder why a lot of books become best sellers.

Another odd book, What Therapists Don't Talk About and Why was bought based on the glowing review in a professional journal. Reading about the myriad of possible professional quagmires, a strong case is made for therapists to undergo their own analysis. Psychoanalysis directly deals with the emotions that surface when treating other human beings. Have I found such a recommendation? Why no. Not so far.

The third book Cat's Cradle is a gem. Kurt Vonnegut has been compared to Mark Twain. I like to think of him as America's Voltaire. To the end of his life he was perennially the little kid shouting out that the emperor wore no clothes. Vonnegut was a German prisoner of war during World War II . This book was written during the height of the cold war when the US and Russia were busily building bigger and badder bombs by which they could annihilate each other. Forty years later things haven't changed a lot. It's just a different cast of characters. While he pokes fun at political inanities and scientific irresponsibility, he illuminates his readers with incomparable wit laced with dark realism. The plot centers around the fictional inventor of the atomic bomb and his children who inherit the means to end the world. He throws in a cardboard banana republic, a xylophone virtuoso, a Russian dancing dwarf and a calypso religion. What can one expect? It's Vonnegut, not Tom Clancy.

Anniversary

A man arrived in my office in obvious distress. His mother, he told me, keeps calling his house wanting to speak to his teenaged son. She calls seven or eight times a day ignoring whatever she is told. She might be told that the boy was at school or would be at soccer practice until six. It didn't matter because she'd call back within an hour asking once more if he were there. She's hoping he'll take her out to eat.

The obsessive phone calls usually mean she is heading for a breakdown. Her son has been down this path many times with her. It is he who has to take matters in hand and insist that mom go see her psychiatrist once again. Her doctor is competent, thank God, but she is one of the chronically insane that can only be more or less managed medically.

Something is familiar about his mom's behavior. Hadn't she been seriously wobbly this time last year I queried? He went silent, pondered my question and then turned to look at the wall calendar beside his chair. Yes, he replied and he knew why.

Fifteen to twenty years ago, in mid-September, his family had been rocked by a tragedy. His brother's wife and son were both killed in a car wreck. Many times we had discussed the impact on him and on his brother, but we'd never talked about how his mom had dealt with the deaths of her daughter-in-law and oldest grandson.

It seems that on that day, she had called her daughter-in-law asking if she would take her out to eat. Her daughter-in-law and grandson were on the way to pick up Mom when the accident occurred. It took a moment for me to absorb what he was telling me, but his mom's compulsive phone calls suddenly made sense. She was calling her grandson wanting him to take her out to eat. She was unconsciously trying to recreate that fateful scenario of so many years past but this time, there would be a living grandson and maybe on some level a happier ending.

Anniversary reactions happen to us all. Sometimes we are aware of the anniversary. Frequently we are not. Sometimes it's the anniversary of a significant event like the death date of loved one. It may be an anniversary year like turning the same age that that loved one was when he/she died. An anniversary year can line up with one's kid's age. For example a man whose baby sister died when he was seven years old melted down physically when his own son turned seven. These are a few examples of different types of anniversary responses. The unconscious mind of this man's mother was talking loud and clear but it took hard work to be able to understand what was being communicated.