Riddle Me This

Let me tell you about my tiny adventure with the clinic that I visited for my steroid injections (read previous story here). 

First up, they waste a lot of paper.

As soon as I stepped in, I was asked to sign in by the security guard: name, address, telephone. After waiting for a few minutes, the reception gave me a paper to fill out. This one is for the health card provider that they need to get approval from. Mind you, I already gave them the physical card that had a magnetic strip that contains details of my life including all the sorrowful triple bogeys I made. Then, since this was my first time to visit this branch, yet a new form. What happened to online connection between branches? And finally, another one for the laboratory work to measure the amount of disgust and uric acid level in my blood. Bloody hell!

Why? Am I a grumpy old man to rant about this during this cyber age? I mean, for the love of Alexa and Siri!

Second is the waiting room/reception setup. The front door leads a visitor directly to several rows of immovable chairs facing the reception area. Patients sit with their backs against the door, fronting the reception to wait for their number to be called. For supposed entertainment, a TV is mounted, not on the front where all chairs face, but on the left wall! For anyone wanting to watch, he has to twist his gaze to the left side. A Jacky Chan movie was playing during my wait but I tried avoiding it lest I add neck strain to my list of consultations.

Why? Who did they consult for their interior design? I bet it was the receptionist. She has the best view of the wall.

I was waiting for another paper to fill out but was not given: a post-visit suggestions form.

Apart from these, the health service was good because tho’ I still couldn’t wrap my steroidal fingers around these mysteries, they feel better already. 

Life is still good while I drink this cup.

Cheers!

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Senseless Driving

Bothered by pain of having two middle trigger fingers, I decided to have them injected with liquid corticosteroids into the base of each. I knew that enough was enough finding myself becoming more short-handed.

When you’re in pain, there’s no second thoughts taking the easy way out. But the after effects, I did not anticipate.

It turned out to be a reckless decision driving alone to the clinic, 5½ kms away. The procedure required that I’d be locally anaesthetized at the injection points. Within the following half-hour, the upper area of my palm and all but the thumbs and pinkies were numb. I couldn’t feel half my cellphone. Texting became very difficult. Picking my nose was quite a senseless experience.

Driving with hands in nearly rigor mortis state wasn’t any less difficult. It felt like driving an EV in auto-drive mode. Believe me when I say I was steering with the unaffected lower part of the palms of the hands pressed against the wheel. It was so strange.

No small feat I arrived home unscathed navigating the most challenging rush-hour traffic in the city. 

Life’s lessons can numb more than just the fingers.

This is just one for my daily journal. Maybe two:

…when these bad fingers get better, I have one less crappy golf game alibi.

…if not, I will go for the open trigger finger release surgery. A new alibi presents itself.

Coffee cheers to that!

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The Beauty of Creation

There is nothing like a dream to create the future. -Victor Hugo

Isn’t it amazing to create something in your mind and make it real, so real you can actually touch it?

During our recent visit to the U.S., I had the opportunity to see, be in and actually touch two of the obras maestras of Santiago Calatrava, a world-famous architect, painter, and sculptor. Looking at The Oculus (NY) and Milwaukee Art Museum, I knew I was staring at something that, at first, only resided in Calatrava’s imagination. An unseen thought bubble. And from that simple pigment, stood giant structures made of steel and concrete, designed to last for decades and sometimes, for centuries.

I felt so small. Overwhelmed and a bit envious, even. But with much respect.

In my line of work that is lighting design, I also start with that tinypigment lingering in my head like a light bulb going off. The end result is not something you can touch or hear or smell but something to look at and to feel. Set mood with. With a flick of a switch, it goes out. It disappears. It appears again. But unlike a concrete structure, it can dynamically change colors and intensity and move to a beat at the speed of light.

Different discipline, different outcome…

A chef creates food that satisfies all senses.

An author writes stories that arouse the imagination.

…but to the creator -the gratification of finally seeing his/her creation, priceless.

In my discipline, I am content with the thought that without light, you see no creation.

I see this beautiful cup of coffee creation. So good to the smell. Now I touch. And I sip.

Cheers!

©all images by the author

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Beating Long Covid

By twenty laps. Beginning with little steps at a time.

Many of you who had covid like me know that after battling the disease, the next thing you have to contend with is long covid. And if you didn’t know, it’s about time you did.

Long covid are post-covid conditions which are long-term effects of the ghastly infection. Extension, so to speak, like overtime to a ball game. Some say they could last for years. I heard from some that their pre-school asthma came back to continue from where it left off. Some allergies became worse. Coughing which started as just a symptom, became frequent and extensive. Other manifestations, too. Like covid brain fog, fatigue and loss of memory. I forgot the others.

In my covid story (read here), coughing was the last to go even if I had already tested negative weeks before. I wasn’t really perturbed by it, in fact expecting it because many of those I knew who had it had the same story. What I was a bit anxious about are the other effects like asthma which I had, too, when I was a kid. And weakened lungs. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let covid defeat me.

A month after freedom -it’s what we refer to the day we got out from quarantine from the infection, I went back to running. I knew it would take extra effort to get back with my body getting used to a newfound state of lethargy. Oh, yes -procrastination, Netflix, and IG reels were the other long covid conditions I had to battle against.

My first run was only 2.5kms, half of my regular run. This was a litmus, so to speak, allowing my body to speak for itself. Getting past the mental roadblock was the first hurdle to overcome. I still remembered my name after the run which only took 10 laps around our ‘hood block.

For the next several runs, I added increments of 500m ’til I reached my usual 5k, twice a week. Slowly but surely, I got back! 

__________________

Life is full of challenges. For me, I take on those I know I can conquer. For those I can’t, letting them be may even turn out for thebetter. It takes wisdom to know the difference.

Here’s to making long covid story short -Cheers!

                              

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Fear and Prejudice

These two words rarely go together in a sentence or in a title like this but if you were me in a situation described here, they could inhabit your character like mud on your face. 

I was in Veteran’s Memorial Driving Range practicing my swings when a man about my age and build walked past my lane tugging a golf bag. He set his clubs across the lane next to mine. Nothing unusual about that. What caught my attention was that he was smoking a cigarette! Last time I checked, smoking in sports facilities like this should not be allowed. And I hate the smell of smoke.

This range is frequented by military men and high-ranking city government officials. And that thought shut out any courage in me to tell him to go away with his lit cigarette and be cast into hell. I dread the thought of being whacked in the head with a shiny Taylormade Stealth driver. If his grip was strong, it would slice my temple. If neutral, hook my jaw. Dreadful, either way.

That was fear.

A few puffs later, another man joined him. He was greeted by the smokin’ man, “Good morning, sir. Ready for your lessons today?”

Sonnafagun! He was just an effing golf pro. A golf trainer -in my mind, lower than the pedestalled gun-wielding 5-star general I previously took him for. I could have acted differently. Bravely. Arrogantly righteous!

That was prejudice.

My good character reared its ugly head. But I was quick to realize it and as penance, I made a few steps closer to where they were and snuffed in all the smoke in the air. Then beat my breast in silent atonement. Mea culpa.

I went back to my swings. Coughing, every now and then.

Oh well. Fore!

                                                     

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Old and Ugly

Lining up to pay in a supermarket counter, I was sandwiched by a couple of happy, old-but-not-too old lady and a gentleman who, by the level of the excitement I witnessed, maybe old ‘hood friends but have not seen each other for quite some time.

Lady in front me: “Hey, Frank, long time. How are you?”

Frank at the back: “They said I’m old and ugly. I said, ‘Not yet, but I’m getting there!'”

They had a good laugh. At my ears’ expense. More yakitty yak yak after that. Man, they were loud!

It took a while for my brain to process what Frank meant when he said, “Not yet, but I’m getting there,” and laughed loud about it. There was too much yak-yak noise at the front and at the back for proper processing.

Then, at the sound of the POS machine scanning the load of stuff in my cart, I had a grasp.

He must have meant we’re all getting there -old. You and I. We all. We get older by a second every second, by a minute every minute, by an hour every hour, by a freakin’ day every freakin’ day, ad infinitum. Then when we finally reach the end and we die, our bodies decay, decompose, rot, or get burned. Same process: slowly, second by second by every second. That’s uglier than ugly, bruh. Uh-huh!

Ugly. But true.

And if you don’t laugh about it, you lose.

So Frank, I catch your drift, man. That day, I left Costco with less money than I had when I got in, but with a new perspective full of happy thoughts.

Here’s to you. Cheers!

                                             

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One Starry Night on a Summer Day

I am not much of an artsy person. My appreciation of art is no deeper than my belly button. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa ages ago in The Louvre. I went straight from the entrance to where it hang. I remember getting lost on the way because I walked past the same trash bins and Attention: Sol Mouillé signages on the floor several times -never mind the art works. I literally ignored Venus de Milo because she didn’t wave at me for my attention.

Decades prior, the curious cat in me was wildly tickled by a 1971 song written and sung by Don Mclean, Vincent. The song, also known as the “Starry, starry night,” was an homage to the artist, Vincent Van Gogh and his works. Since then, seeing the Starry Night with its flaming flowers that brightly blaze, and its swirling clouds in violet haze became a lifelong dream. 

I finally got to live the dream last summer. At the Museum of Modern Art.

With the excitement growing in me, I breezed through “less popular” Matisses, Monets, Gaugins and Picassos. And other names I could not pronounce. In my mind, they were all eclipsed by the beauty I was about to behold.

I knew right away that I’ve reached the one gallery I’ve wanted to be in. Like a rock star,the Starry Night, was surrounded by fans and dreamers like me. I wove through a landscape of smelly armpits and clicking camera phones to find out what a dream looks like in reality. And then, finally:

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they’ll listen now 

But, really, no. I don’t claim to understand what was in the artist’s mind when he painted. But looking closer at this obra, I found a new dimension to the lyrics of the song:

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

That was the summer I met Vincent whose other works, Self Portrait and Bedroom in Arles -I’ve also seen at the Art Institute of Chicago. My belly button pit just got deeper. 

                                

                                

Cheers!

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