Fish talk

Since I'm on the road, and didn't bring my computer I went and downloaded an app for blogging on my iPod. We'll see how this goes.

So far I think I actually already posted a completely blank entry using this app. Amazing.

Jen works at Teach For America developing teachers, so she has flexibility in her day time schedule that my other friends out here don't have. Yesterday in between phone meetings about the ACT and emails about standards that need to be met, ("we only have so many instructional days left!") we took a walk along Lake Michigan.

As we walked we discussed our jobs and our lives. Jen was in the middle of explaining something about Chicago Public School curriculum when we noticed a man fishing off a dock. By his feet was a white plastic bag, occasionally flopping a few inches right or left.

Jen winced. "I hate fish."

To our dismay the man proceeded to stomp on the bag to stop the flailing.

"I always forget that you hate fish," was my lame reply as I tried to hurry her past the rest of the fishermen. But it really hasn't come up since college.

In college I suggested a fish for our dorm room, which Jen was obviously adverse to. Instead, for her birthday I bought a lizard. Avie,(named for Avagadro's number) used to get hand fed crickets. Jen's not a squeamish lady. She just HATES fish.

The Lincoln Park Zoo presented more problems. In the greenhouse a small koi pond caused Jen to leave the orchid room, the pelican's dinner dish sent her out of the bird house, and the hundreds of fish sharing space with a tiny asian hippo ruined the entire hippo experience for her. I've known Jen for eight years and never thought about her aversion to fish because it rarely came up. Now we were being stalked by creatures of the deep and shallow.

Eventually Jen had to get more work done so we parted ways with promises to meet for dinner.

I waited for Jen with some other college friends at the restaurant Liz C. had chosen on Belmont. When Jen arrived we finished our order, and awaited our selection of sushi and maki rolls eagerly.

I turned to Jen and raised my eyebrows.

"It's ok, she said, "nothing here looks like fish." She goes out for sushi every Tuesday.

I would have pointed out that the stomped fish in a bag probably didn't look like fish anymore either but my mouth was full of sea creatures.

---------

As an aside, my best friend from high school ALSO hated fish, their eyes, etc. I pointed out this pattern to Jen who suggested flippantly that I blog about it. So now I have.

black bird singing in the dead of night

It was around 12:30am , and I was returning from my Saturday night shows at Improv Asylum. The shows had gone well, standing-ovation-well actually, but all I could think about was sleeping in preparation for tomorrow's 7a-3p shift.   As I walked down my street, talking rapidly on the phone with Jen, about upcoming plans to see her, I had little else on my mind.  But as I neared by house I heard fluttering and rasping, and paused the conversation to search for the source.

There, in the middle of the street, lay a small black bird on its back struggling to flip itself over.

Past my initial assessment (clear airway, pulse visible, no open wounds)  I had no idea what else to do. I'm a people nurse, not a bird nurse.

I tried to help it flip over by crouching and using the edge of my foot.  I got it onto its legs but then a spasmed wracked its frame throwing it onto its back again. It bit at my shoe angrily and I backed off.

"What now?" I asked Jen.

She looked up the number for Animal Rescue while I ran up the stairs to grab a pen to write with. I kicked off my shoes when I entered my apartment out of habit. As I wrote down the number I watched through the window with horror as a cat approached the helpless bird.

"Gotta go!" I hung up the phone and flung myself down the stairs at the cat. The cat stalked off, more disappointed than frightened.  The bird eyed me suspiciously and stopped struggling. Playing dead, I thought, smart.


I called the number Jen had given me only to be directed to call the police for an emergency. "Please consider injured animals an emergency," a woman's recorded voice urged. Somehow still I doubted a small black bird counted. I settled for calling the next number listed on the recording: Angell Memorial. The woman who answered the emergency triage phone informed me that she didn't know anyone who would come out for the bird but that if  it was clearly suffering, I could bring it to the hospital and they would euthanize it.

The bird at my feet decided I wasn't a threat and began fighting to get up once more. Euthanasia? I felt like I had seen more than one show on Animal Planet where a bird is nursed back to health by wildlife experts, but I was proving to be a poor resource for this case. Still, I couldn't leave it in the street to be toyed with by a cat or hit by a car. Yes. A quiet dignified death would be best. Now where did I put that shoe box?

As I stood there the bird suddenly flipped itself over. It looked right at me and then did an about face and started to walk down the street.

I called Jen back.

"It got up, and I'm now following it. I think it broke a wing, because it's hopping but it won't fly."

"You're following it?"

"Well, yeah." I explained my plan which was to try to get it into a box. If I could bring it to the hospital maybe they could keep it safe until someone could look at the wing in the morning.

"Do you have a box with you?"

I admitted that I did not, but it was trash night so if I followed the bird long enough I was bound to find someone with a bird appropriate container in their recycling.

Out loud the plan sounded less logical. Also, I was barefoot from when I kicked off my shoes.

"You know what, Jen, the bird isn't suffering any more. I'm going home."

"Good plan."

And it was a good plan until I realized that besides removing my shoes when I get home I have two other very, very responsible habits:
Hanging up my keys and,
 resetting the lock.

I tried several options for re entry including calling my roommate, and ringing the top floor's doorbell. No success. I even considered sleeping in my car*.  Finally, I called Juan, my landlord.
He opened the door in his pajamas and, to make things somehow infinitely worse, a neck brace.
I felt myself blush.  "I'm so sorry, I found a bird outside and I came in and then forgot my keys."
And all he said was, "Okay."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* An idea which was immediately dispelled by the less- than- thrilling prospect of having to show up for work the next day smelling like old hairspray, in post performance clothes, eyes ringed with mascara, barefoot.

Improv Asylum Presents Second City!

I was going to combine this post with another Improv Asylum plug but I have decided it gets its own entry:

After months of hard work and anticipation, Improv Asylum is excited to be producing the first ever run of Second City Boston!

The all original show, "One if by Land, Late if by T,"  is performed by a cast of stellar SC Chicago actors and also features Improv Asylum's own  Kiley Fitzgerald and IA alumnus Micah Sherman! The musical director Brian Dunn also just happens to be IA's former musical director.

That means I can personally endorse this as being chock full of hilarious and talented people.

The show started on April 20th and runs through May 9th at the Wimbley Theater, Boston Center for the Arts.
It's a limited run only so buy tickets today!

very smooth

 The Charge Nurse was holding a nip of Christian Brothers brandy in his hand when I walked into the nursing station.

"I'll take care of disposing of it," Nurse Nightingale joked, pretending to grab at the bottle, "I know exactly what to do with it."

"So do I," joked Nurse Sassy, but I'm not a brandy person myself."

I grabbed the bottle and waved it dramatically. "Let's pour it on the cookies I baked, then we can- "

"Light them on fire?" suggested Sassy.

"Cookies foster," the Charge joked, taking the bottle back.

"We don't even know if it's actually brandy," Nightingale pointed out.

"It looks more like whiskey," Charge said.

"I bet it's Listerine," ventured Sassy.

"Where was it?" I asked.

"In the bathroom on the toilet:" came the answer followed by an agreement that it couldn't be brandy.

"No one would leave a whole nip of Christian Brothers in a bathroom," Nightingale pointed out.

"So Listerine," Sassy said, and then: "You know what?  I'll do it, I'll smell that."

Charge handed her the bottle and we watched, waiting. She unscrewed the tiny cap and brought her nose down to the tip of the bottle and immediately pulled her head back.



"Yeah. It's piss."

Marriage Equality

My friend Steve and his husband Peter are featured in this article today posted on GLAD's website entitled There is Nothing to Fear From Marriage Equality.

When Steve's husband Peter passed away a year ago in March the process of making all the necessary arrangements was smoothed (as much as it can be) by the fact that their marriage is recognized legally in Massachusetts.

Dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, but the pain and suffering of survivors is only compounded when legal kinship is denied.  It's exactly as Steve worded it in  his open letter to Ameriblog: "For all the wonderful things that marriage equality does for the living, it maintains our dignity in death. …"

Things like this make me proud to live in Massachusetts.  I'm also really proud to know Steve. He shares his story in the hopes that true equality will one day be offered to everyone, and I am sharing it with you for the same reason.

all you need is love, love is all you need

On the Thursday before Easter known to Catholics as "Holy" or "Maudry" Thursday, the gospel reading for the mass is about the Last Supper. When Luke, Matthew and Mark recount the story of the Last Supper, the focus is on the   covenant Jesus speaks of ( "This is My body...This is My blood.").
John, on the other hand, gives us the only account of the Passover meal where Jesus gets down on the ground and washes every body's feet.

Every parish does this next part differently, but in each church after the gospel and then the homily, there's  usually some literal foot washing. It's often the priest who washes the feet of some lay ministers. One year at the church I attended at college I was asked to be one in a handful of parishioners to have their feet washed. I sat rigid in my chair as my feet got washed. It felt weird. I hoped no one would ask me about it later.
This year, at St. Cecelia's in Boston, Fr. John closed his homily by introducing the foot washing saying, "For those of you who don't know us, here at St. Cecelia's we don't just wash the feet of the twelve men on the church board." The congregation chuckled knowingly and my mouth opened as I realized what was coming next.

Father John reminded everyone that they didn't have to participate, but he invited everyone who wanted in to ditch their shoes and socks in the pews. I shook my head in disbelief.

As the choir sang and bowls of water were set up, I reflected on the first half of Fr. John's homily. He had pointed out that in the midst of everything else going on with that Passover night Jesus told his disciples to wash one another's feet. "That's it," Fr. John said in his comforting Boston accent, "that's all it comes down to. Washing each other's feet."

He urged us to think about the feet we've washed, literally and figuratively. And to think about whose feet we should wash next. He asked us to think about those in our lives who need to be "scrubbed" by our forgiveness, or our compassion. He implored us to try to "rinse" those around us by being refreshingly positive in every day small talk rather than respond to those around us with sarcasm or negativity.

My thoughts tumbled as I stepped into the aisle and got in line with the other bare foot men, women and children. I thought about the people in my life who need compassion, patience and positive energy the most. I thought about the people in my life who provide me with the compassion and love I need to survive.

Then I couldn't help but start to think about the literal feet I've washed as a CNA and then as an RN.  For that reason alone I imagined this ritual was less scary for me  than for some of the other strangers in line. (Or the ones sitting with their shoes securely tied on in the pews).
That made me remember about the man who wouldn't let me wash his feet.

As I stepped up to the bowl to have my feet washed by the stranger in front of me, who had just had his feet washed by the stranger in front of him I thought about the people I met in Haiti. I remembered how most of the people doing the "foot washing" in those tents weren't blood relations of the injured or dying patients - they were just neighbors who were responding to the need they saw around them.

After the man at my knee was finished washing my feet he patted them dry with a clean towel. He put it down, and an altar server appeared to refill the bowl and replace the towel. As she did so, the man and I embraced and I thanked him. Then I took my place at the bowl and washed the feet of the next seated stranger. After I dried his feet he thanked me, and hugged me goodbye. I padded back to my seat, struck by a lack of discomfort in the whole thing. Mine and everyone else's too.

"We belong to a church with a ton of hierarchy, huh?" Fr. John had challenged at the top of the homily, "sometimes it seems like people are more interested in getting their feet washed than washing other feet."

He continued, "We have a lot of ways of describing the hierarchy and power and ritual, huh? High mass? Low mass? But no matter how you understand religion, or what parts (pahts) of it are attractive to you... in the end it is all about washing one another's feet."<

That, as it so happens, is actually exactly how I choose to understand religion.

towed

I didn't notice until Saturday night. And the car ... was gone.
I don't use my car every day, but I do walk by it every day, and I frantically tried to remember when I last saw it. Used it Monday. Saw it ... Thursday. So. Friday. Friday. April. Cambridge. Street cleaning. My car had been towed, and rightfully.
At 11pm, after the shows at Improv Asylum got out, I hopped on a train to a distant station. Unfortunately, that's about all the information I had for how to get to my destination. I had called the lot and the man on the phone was nice, but distracted. "We're... near...a T stop. We're near... [ T stop ].
"Ok..." I started.
"Ok, great!" he chirped. "See you later on!"

After about an hour of walking around in the dark in Somerville encountering several pigeons that I thought were bats, and what was possibly a man breaking into a car,  I called a friend. "If I tell you where I am can you tell me how to get where I'm going?"  She confirmed that I had missed my destination by a long shot.

I finally made it to the lot. I was exhausted, hungry. My feet hurt. I just wanted my car back.

"Make, model, year?" the man at the desk asked. "Are you sure it's here?"
"I did call -"
The other man behind the counter turned at the sound of my voice. "I know which one it is," he said.
While the older of two men behind the desk sorted through the paper work he also barked a staccato drink order  into a walkie talkie. "Light. With. One. splenda."
I waited patiently. The walkie mumbled.
"No," the man said, " splenda. - Here, you talk to him." he pushed the walkie talkie to the younger man.
I pretended to watch the end of the How I Met Your Mother episode on their flat screen tv.

"Yeah I wanted the orange coolata. It's orange," he said into the handheld.
"Coffee?" came the question through the static." No, it's like an iced drink."

The older man sifted through a pile of papers. "Can you tell me again what your license plate is?"
Putting he walkie aside, the younger man said, "I know which one it is," and moved some papers around on the desk.
The walkie buzzed to life again, unintelligibly.
"Yeah, I mean, that's fine too, but I wanted the orange one. And...  what do you want?"
" -I just need your credit card, Miss. - I TOLD them. I want whatever that drink is, the iced one and I want it vanilla flavored. Light with a splenda."
"Vanilla?"
"Yeah. Vanilla whatever. Just make it with a splenda. Light. - And can I see your license?"

The younger man spoke into the walkie: "yeah... with a splenda."

The older man: "Light."
Into the walkie: "Life."
The older man: "Light."
Into the walkie: "Life."
The older man: "LIGHT."
Into the walkie: "Oh. Light."

"You're all set now. It's in the first row." I walked outside. I found my car in the second row. And I completely understood the directions I had received earlier over the phone. It all made perfect sense.

100 Beds for Haiti Video

Here's an awesome video by Daren McKelvey from the YoYoYo 90's Jam fundraiser for 100 Beds for Haiti on March 23rd. The video includes a couple clips of me and Colleen W. talking about Hopital Sacre Coeur.*



YOYOYO 90's Jam: Heal The World Edition w/100 Beds For Haiti from 100BedsForHaiti on Vimeo.


* Be sure to watch for when I can't decide between saying DVT and "deep vein thrombosis," and end up almost saying  neither. Then go donate!