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The Body Part I’m Not Steaming

August 23, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism) , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Body Part I’m Not Steaming

Department Of I Thought It First, But She Said It Out Loud

Writer and social critic Fran Lebowitz, responding to a question as to why she often gives the impression of being so angry, or why she is perceived to be so angry, either at an individual person’s behavior and/or situations around her:

“I have no power. But I am filled with opinions.”
( Fran Lebowitz, Pretend It’s a City )

Speaking of which (re having no power and being filled with opinions)….

Department Of I Usually Like Learning New Things

…but moiself  is confident that I could have gone to my grave/urn/ashes scattering ceremony/medical cadaver lab in peace without knowing that there is such a thing as a yoni steam.

There; I said it (okay; typed it).  Yoni steam.

Alas, there will be no such peace, for me.  While searching for yoga studios in my area which might offer a tai chi or other classes of interest, I found a new (to me) place which offers a variety of yoga classes, massage, and other “wellness” services.  In a website blurb the business briefly listed the services they offer, including, yoni steam. 

 

 

Yoni steam.  Um…say what?  That got my attention, as moiself  was fairly certain sure that yoni was the Sanskrit term for vagina.   Nah; it’s gotta be something else.  It’s something else, all righty, as judging from the service description I clicked on:     [1]

” Yoni steam, $50.00
Sit back and enjoy your time alone while sitting over a pot of warm herbs. Yoni steam has been shown to help balance your PH levels, improve odor, decrease dryness, improve menstral (sic) cycle, and increase libido.
Yoni steaming is the practice of allowing warm steam to permeate the exterior of the vagina. Use this time to allow connection with the body and plant medicine. Steaming is suggested just before and after your cycle to help with cramps, bloating and balancing your PH.”

 

 

No, Martha, it’s not, and you’d better stop smoking whatever Snoop Dogg is sharing with you if you’ve fallen down that rabbit hole.

If you think your yoni needs servicing you need to see a yoni specialist gynecologist, not a yoni steamer, FFS.  You do not need to shell out $50 to squat over a glorified potpourri prepared by someone who uses woo-woo language to refer to lady parts and who can’t even spell menstrual.  And what is this balancing your PH crap – how would a glorified spa employee accurately assess whether your PH is out of balance without sticking a litmus test strip up your (non-steamy)  yoni?

Here’s an internet search summary of the practice (my emphases):

“Yoni steaming, also known as vaginal steaming or V-steaming, is an alternative medicine   [2]   practice that involves sitting over a pot of hot, herb-infused water while unclothed from the waist down. The goal is to cleanse the vulva and absorb the herbal steam through the pores to enhance blood flow and promote healing.”

From what I gathered, some people say v-steaming can “…help with a variety of uterine issues, restore health and balance, and ease the transition through life phases.”  That latter phrase is code for a school of thought which defines a woman’s life as a series of “phases” – read: conditions or even diseases –  which need to be managed, and that everything revolves around the reproductive cycle ( “Are you pre/post/peri/quasi – /kinda/neo/retro/over/under/uber menopausal? We’ve got a pill/injection/cream/steam for you!” ). And those some people are those who will financially benefit from selling a product/treatment (“service”) to women whom they’ve convinced will benefit from it.

Other folks – e.g., moiself  and every medical professional I worked with in my former life as a reproductive health educator/medical assistant   [3] –   would say the y-steaming practice is yet another gimmick which reflects Western societies’ traditional (read: repressive and shame-based) values of women and the lifelong critiquing and managing of their bodies, specifically their sexual and reproductive parts, which are presented as needing constant…”attention.”

In that former life, my colleagues and I spent a lot of time educating women about why they should *not* use the so-called “feminine hygiene/cleansing” products that had been ferociously marketed to them since adolescence.  The vagina is self-cleansing; women are not “dirty’ after menstruation or intercourse; douching has been sold as a remedy for problems that mostly do not exist (and also mistakenly sold as a form of birth control, as in, wash that icky sperm right outta there…when actually, what post coital-douching does is give those swimmers a speedboat push up toward the cervix).   We were happy to note that fewer women were falling for that woman-shaming practice, and that our patients knew that douching is “…harmful and should be discouraged because of its association with pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, and other conditions….”     [4]

 

 

Most women nowadays seem to understand that a woman should never douche or otherwise “clean” her vaginal canal, except for those rare times (as in, for post-surgical care for certain, rare procedures) when one is instructed to do so by their medical professional (the doctor or nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant, not the receptionist or office manager).  When I left that world, I was confident that douching, a medically needless and even harmful practice rooted in ignorance and shame, was dying out.  Then a few days ago moiself  finds out that yoni steaming is a thing.

Why should this surprise me?  Ain’t never been a shortage of folks – both on “the other side” and those disguising (deluding) themselves as being  pro-woman – who exploit to turn a woman’s body and natural cycles into conditions that need to be managed and “balanced.”  The yoni steam is just a douche-wolf wrapped in sheep’s clothing.

 

Step 1. Keep it away from your yoni.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Memory Sparked By A Notable Figure’s Death

That notable figure would be the writer, producer, and activist most known for hosting his eponymous, innovative daytime talk show, Phil Donahue. 

Moiself’s  relation with The Donahue Show was sporadic; I watched it occasionally during the nursing-my-offspring years, and sometimes during my exercise sessions.  I’d never been a daytime talk show fan, but I appreciated Donahue’s groundbreaking approach and willingness to feature guests who ruffled the feathers of the social, cultural religious, political and entertainment establishments. He had a few missteps over the years; e.g., he was somewhat patronizing to the Freedom From Religion Foundation‘s co-president, minister-turned-atheist Dan Barker, and editor and author and FFRF cofounder Annie Laurie Gaylor (ala “oh my gosh, scary atheists, you’re taking it too far…“)  [5]   when they were guests on his show in 1998.  But Donahue was the first – and for a time he was the only – talk show host to realize that the women watching his show and those in the audience had opinions and solutions and were interested in politics and world affairs, and not just fashion and meringue recipes.  And he gave them a voice by giving them his microphone, to both question his guests and voice their opinions and feedback.

 

 

Two of Donahue’s show’s guests are the subject of this memory I will share.  Dateline: 30+ years ago; early in my marriage to MH; working at two Bay Area Planned Parenthood clinics.  One Friday afternoon MH had some kind of work conference that was fairly local but far away enough that he was given a hotel room for an overnight stay, and since I had that day off he asked me to join him.  It was a smoggy day; while MH was at a meeting I attempted to go for a walk, then decided to protect my lungs and return to the hotel room and get in some exercise before meeting MH for dinner.  When I turned on our hotel room’s TV, there was the Donahue Show. To my proverbial jaw-dropping surprise, among a group/panel of Donahue’s guests who were “promoting alternative sexualities” (I did not see the show from the start, so I’m not exactly sure what that day’s theme was) were two people I recognized: a young woman, Caryn, and her “boyfriend,” Richie.  [6]   

Caryn was a new clinic assistant in the Planned Parenthood clinic where I worked. Richie came to work with Caryn, almost every day. He didn’t just drop her off and leave ( I’m not sure if he drove her there or if she drove the two of them); he would find an excuse to hang around in the waiting room and/or return when her shift ended. I’m not sure of Richie’s employment status; frankly, I tried to show as little interest in them as possible in order not to encourage their mutual, “It’s all about us, PAY ATTENTION  AND  NOTE  HOW  SPECIAL  WE  ARE !!!” obsession.  But whether or not her coworkers showed any interest,    [7]   Caryn and Richie made sure that their personal business was everyone’s business.

Y’all know or have known such people – you may have even worked with them.  Remember how tiresome it can get, sharing work space and responsibilities with fanatical attention whores seekers?

 

 

None of Caryn’s coworkers ever asked about her personal life; nevertheless, we were treated to her frequent recitations of her and Richie’s relationship.  Which seemed to be the point of her existence: she was on a not-so-subtle mission to have her and Richie be considered the most unique (“freaky!”) couple you’d ever met.  Your not being shocked by (or interested in) their lifestyle was of obvious disappointment to them.

The reason I qualified Richie’s “boyfriend” status was because that’s how he was introduced to me:

Caryn (amid much giggling by her and Richie):
“And this is Richie, my (air quotes) boyfriend.  BOY friend…for now….”

Moiself:
“Nice to meet you Richie.
Did Caryn mention that you are not allowed back in the clinic area?”

Caryn and Richie were proud of *not* being the typical young hetero couple, and they wanted, with a yearning approaching desperation, for everyone to know why.  Some context is in order:  This was the San Francisco Bay area in the late 80s, where, for example, the Exotic Erotic Ball , an annual costume party held on the night before Halloween from 1979 – 2009, was considered the epitome of the area’s anything-goes culture.  Now, let’s say you’re a puerile, histrionic, sexuality-focused attention-seeker living in an area where gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, multi-sexual, cross-dressing, up-and-down-dressing, not-dressing, is considered old hat – or worst, for attention-seekers, even conventional.  How, then, do you stand out?  And those two really wanted to stand out.

It wasn’t their sexuality/gender-bending obsession that irritated me; rather, it was the attitudes they projected, which were befitting of insecure, self-absorbed ten-year-olds and not grown-ass adults:

“Look at me! Look at us! We are different; we’re special!
Please give us a just a whiff of disapproval
so that we can exult in lecture you on your judgmentalism.”

Every other shift I worked with Caryn she found a reason to mention, to either moiself  or another clininician, that she was gay and Richie was in the process of “transitioning,” but that Richie’s transitioning was different from the usual transition!   Her announcements would be met with tolerant silences, followed by relevant comments such as, “Uh huh.  Could you get the hematocrit readings from the lab log?” from her coworkers.  Caryn was not good at hiding her dismay at the lack of follow-up questions, and she would find some excuse reason to elaborate on the topic of Richie’s transition and her and Richie’s relationship.

I was a couple of steps above Caryn in the clinic assistant hierarchy, and had briefly helped with her initial training.  During those trying days she found ways/excuses to mention that she was gay/lesbian (her terms varied) and was concerned about receiving equal treatment.  I began to wish for the opportunity (which never arose) wherein she would whine about me being rude by not showing interest in her personal life and thus I must be LGBTQ-phobic, so that I could tell her,

Congratulations, you have achieved the equality you say you seek.  I am treating you as I would any other narcissistic bore, and couldn’t care less about how you LGBTQ-BFD spin it.  You’re acting like an immature ass; thus, I ‘ll give you the same respect I would give an immature ass in a three piece Brooks Brothers suit.  So please, STFU and do your job.     [8]

 

 

Caryn’s You-have-anything-better-to-do-than-to-hang-out-here? boyfriend Richie was actually quite a looker.  He had a chiseled/angular facial bone structure and piercing dark eyes which were sometimes obscured by his shoulder-length, curly, brownish-red hair.  Overall, his features were classically masculine; he was lean and tall, and his muscular physique included ample body hair (particularly on the legs), which Caryn’s coworkers were privy to because Richie’s typical attire was a short sleeved, v-neck  tee or polo shirt tucked into a kilt-type man/skirt garment. And the reason for Ritchie’s transitioning (at least, the reason both Caryn and Richie found excuses to share with Caryn’s coworkers) was that although they were– of course! and enthusiastically! – having sex, Richie wanted to be with Caryn, sexually, as a female, and not as a male.  You see, Richie had the soul of a lesbian trapped inside the body of a male model man. Or, to use Caryn’s favorite, oh-so-overused catchphrase description, Richie was “a dyke with a dick.“

 

 

Caryn and Richie were really proud of Richie’s dick – and so very fond it that Richie’s transition to being a woman was going to be different from your run-of-the-mill, man-to-trans woman, because Richie was transitioning not to be a heterosexual woman who has sex with men, but to be a lesbian in order to have lesbian sex with his lesbian girlfriend, only with his dick still…hanging around.

Got that?  Neither did most of Caryn’s coworkers…

 

 

…which was the point of Caryn’s convoluted narratives.  Because any trace of a “Uh, how’s that work?” expression   [9]   that flitted across a coworker’s face was an excuse for Caryn to go through the whole speil, again.

So, from context to content: there I am, in the hotel room.  I turn on the TV, start doing reverse pushups on a chair, and I see Caryn and Richie on Donahue’s guest panel.  The host is going from panelist to panelist (there are about a dozen), making introductions, and is asking Caryn about her and Richie’s relationship.  I am gobsmacked; this is Caryn’s supreme fantasy.  She is getting what she’s dreamed of: a national audience (this was way before cell phones and social media).  Sure enough, Caryn manages to get in her tagline, which I’d bet she and Richie were hoping wouuld be their ticket to tagline immortality (or at least 15 minutes of fame), ala SNL catchphrases:

* You look mahvelous!
* I’ve got a fever… and the only prescription… is more cowbell!
* We are two wild and crazy guys!
* Well isn’t that special/Could it be… Satan?

When Donohue notes that Caryn’s and Richie’s relationship may be confusing to some people, he sets them up to deliver the phrase they intended and hoped would be a shocker.  Caryn mentions how she is attracted to Richie because he’s a lesbian in the body of a man: “I like to think of him as a dyke with a dick.”

Finally, Caryn and Richie get the response they’ve been hoping from: audible gasps from the audience.  And there I am, in a hotel room, face palming my forehead and saying to myself, “Please please please do NOT say where you work.”  [10]

 

 

My concern was for the financial stability of my PP clinic.  I’d wager that very few people, including most of the clinic workers, knew the history of how the PP clinics of San Mateo County were funded, and that they were established by both Republicans and conservatives as well as liberals and Democrats.  Many Republicans back then (including my in-laws) would tell you that “true” conservatives supported PP’s mission – after all, what could be more anti-big-government than supporting the right of people to be free from government interference when it came down to determining the size of their families and managing their own health care?

Hanging in the halls of the PP clinic’s administration wing were a series of framed pictures of older men and women.  Every day when I arrived for a shift I walked down the hall which led from the back entrance to the clinic, and I’d never paid attention to those pictures.  Then, one morning I passed the PP second-in-command in that hallway, and she took note of the button I’d clipped to the strap of my purse:

 

 

She pointed at the button and said, “I’m a Republican. Do you think I should have a lobotomy?”  Gulp.   I removed the button from my purse strap. stammeringly assuring her that I never wore political “statements” of any kind when I was on duty.  She proceeded to give me a tour of that wall of faces – faces of the old, conservative, Republican men and women whose initial and ongoing financial contributions ensured that the clinic stayed open and that services were available to all, regardless of ability to pay.

 

 

And there is always another thing, isn’t there?  Caryn came to work dressed rather rattily, in the hobo chic style that was popular with the financially secure miscreants   [11]    of the day.  She looked as if she’d paid good money for clothing that had been torn and stained to give the impression that the person attired in such outfits was above the judgements of mainstream society.  She also wore an excess of jewelry that was not appropriate for work ( one doctor mentioned to me privately, that he thought her spiky rings and piercings were a hygienic hazard in the clinic    [12]   )   and several times she came to work wearing t-shirts with provocative and ribald political and sexual slogans printed on the front, slogans which were just barely/inconsistently hidden by the lab coat she had to don in the clinic.  That was a  dress code no-no, but no clinic manager ever mentioned it to Caryn (that I knew of), and I sure wasn’t going to open that particular gender-inclusive can of worms.

That is, until one afternoon when the clinic lead tapped me on the shoulder and asked to speak with me privately for just a moment.  We stepped into the lab; she said that this was difficult/awkward for her to bring up, but that my habit of wearing brightly-colored clothing – she pointed past the hem of my lab coat to the teal green mid-calf-length skirt and multi-colored geometric patterned ankle socks I wore – had caught the eye of someone in the administration, who found my attire “unprofessional.”

 

 

I told her she might remember that I did not dress that way when I started at the clinic, but began doing so more regularly after I’d worn a colorful shirt/skirt/socks combination one day and several of my patients told me how nice it was to see “joy and color” in a clinical setting – a setting they’d really rather not be in.    [13]

The clinic lead smiledn nodded, then averted her eyes when I asked her if anyone was speaking to Caryn about her coming to work in a dirt-smudged t-shirt which displayed an obscene slogan about the hetero patriarchy?  When she replied no, not to her knowledge, I wondered aloud as to why that was.  I gave her an out; I told her she need not answer my question as there seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgement amongst clinic staff that if Caryn were reminded about the dress code, or even questioned about her attire, she would raise a fuss about some kind of phobia (homo/trans/attention-seeking juvenile )…and until I saw equal treatment re the “professional attire” issue I will keep wearing my vibrant socks, thank you very much and don’t let the centrifuge hit you in the ass on your way to another employee attire review.   [14]

 

 

And Phil Donahue: thanks for the memories, enlightenment, and entertainment.

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [15]

“Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works?
Medicine.”

( Australian actor/musician/composer/comedian Tim Minchin )

 

 

*   *   *

May you never have a reason to steam your (or anyone else’s)…parts;
May you have entertaining memories sparked by the death of a celebrity;
May you not be such people in someone else’s memories;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Yep, my curiosity got the better of me.

[2]  That should tip you off.  If something is legit you rarely need to call it alternative. See Freethinker’s quote at the end of this blog

[3] 5 ½ years in a private OB/GYN practice; four years in Planned Parenthood clinics.

[4]  NIH National Library of Medicine

[5] I do realize Donahue often played the devil’s advocate – no pun intended in this case – when it came to asking questions of his guests, questions and critiques that he knew their critics would sling.

[6] Not her (or his)  real name, which I have mercifully forgotten…although their presence is etched upon the folds of my cerebellum, for life.

[7] And the answer was most often a resounding, NOT.

[8] How and why she was hired was anyone’s guess (and I was far from being the only clinic aide who wondered).  My guess was that Caryn was a diversity hire – having worked with her in clinic I can attest that it certainly wasn’t because of her experience and/or work ethic – as in, up until then, there were no openly LGBTQ women on that particular PP’s clinic staff.

[9] Which was her interpretation, when we all were really trying to convey, “And we’re supposed to care about this, because….? – just being rhetorical –  PLEASE DON’T ANSWER.”

[10] And they didn’t – there was some brief identification along the lines of, “works in a health care clinic.”

[11] I’ve no idea about her family background-social class-financial status, but her casual attitude about work gave the impression that she didn’t have to worry about money.

[12] I encouraged him to bring his concerns to the clinic manager, but he told me that frankly/off the record he didn’t want to be accused of “discriminating” against her.

[13] This was the abortion clinic.

[14] Not verbatim.  I was very fond of that person, but I made sure that she knew that I knew that there was a double standard going on.

[15] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Patient I’m Not Taking

March 1, 2024

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, politics, reproductive rights, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Patient I’m Not Taking

Department Of Another Great Moment In Inclusion/Diversity

The story behind the story:  The Inclusion/Diversity story moiself  is about to share came to my mind when MH and I were recently talking about the respective rhinoviruses…

 

“Yeah baby!”

 

…sorry, dude, I refer to the virus most responsible for what we call the “common cold.”

I’ll begin again.

A week or so ago MH and I were talking about the colds we’d each had at the end of last year.  When we were comparing how long each of us had had symptoms, I snickered (to moiself , or so I thought) to recall The Great Cold Debate®  which I inadvertently became a part of, during my time working at a Planned Parenthood clinic.  MH asked what I was snickering about, and thus I shared this memory, which was entagled with another….

 

 

As mentioned previously in this space (e.g., here, and more specifically, here) I worked as a Family Planning Specialist for Planned Parenthood, including several shifts per week in their Bay Area clinics which offered abortion services.  Dateline: one morning in one such clinic, when I was doing intake procedures with a patient, who was accompanied by her husband.  [1]    I’d reached the point during the intake where I would ask them about the contraceptive method(s) the patient had been using and bring up birth control options with them, if they were open to discussing the issue.

Important Background Detail ®, for both this story (and the one which follows): the patient and her husband were from India.  They had come to the USA a year earlier, for the husband to pursue his graduate studies at Stanford University.  

After we’d discussed what had worked, or not (ahem…   [2] )  for them re contraception, and the different options available, I asked if either of them had any questions.  The wife said no; her husband looked at me and asked:

“What is it about American colds?”

 

 

He phrased his non sequitur of a query in tones which seemed more accusatory than questioning.  “Excuse me; *American* colds?” was all I could muster for a response.

His wife glanced at me, rolled her eyes without really doing so, and excused herself to use the restroom.

So: the husband began to whine tell me that he’d had several colds since coming to the USA, and in fact he had a cold right now, at the present time, a cold which was going on two weeks now, and this had never happened in India.

Ummm,  ooookkkkaaaayyyy….

Now, this was a (supposedly) educated person; I can’t remember the exact name of his graduate program, but it was in the biological sciences.  As briefly as possible I mentioned that the viruses which cause what we call “a cold” can typically last from 7 to 14 days…

“No; not in India.”

…and that being ill in a new/different country can seem like a different experience, and when you travel you will be exposed to different cold viruses….  I tried to steer the conversation to the subject at hand, but he would not be deterred.  I realized he really didn’t want an answer.  He just wanted to complain, and found it necessary to repeat himself several times:

“There’s something wrong with American viruses!
Colds in India *never* last this long.”

 

 

It was bizarre; I got the feeling he wanted me to apologize, to him, on behalf of those disrespectful, persistent, American microbes.

The patient returned from her pee break and the three of us settled the contraception issue.  I asked, again, if either of them had any questions about the procedure.  The wife said no; the husband said, “Can you tell if it…

During his micro-pause I could feel moiself’s  arteries icing over — he’s not going to ask me that, is he?  Yep.  

“Can you tell if it is a boy fetus or a girl fetus?”

“No,” I replied, gritting my teeth.  I managed to restrain moiself  from adding,

…but I can tell if its father is an asshole.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of And Now For The Story In Front Of The Story
Behind The Story….  Or Something.

The Planned Parenthood clinics where I worked had many student-couple patients from other countries, who were in the Bay Area for either their and/or their husbands’ college and graduate educations.  Several of my fellow PP clinicians who’d been working for PP much longer than moiself  had noticed certain patterns with – and thus had developed certain opinions about –  patients from certain countries and cultures.   [3] 

Dateline:  Another morning (circa 1989); another clinic.  After finishing my first intake of the day, I escorted the patient to the waiting room, then headed for the lab to chart her hematocrit results.  Hanging on a wall outside the entrance to the lab was the file holder which held the charts of patients who had checked in to the clinic and who were in the reception area, awaiting intake.  When a Family Planning Specialist had finished with her intake she began the next intake, taking whichever chart was on top in the file holder.  Which is what I was going to do, after charting the lab results for my previous patient.

CR, DD, and ML, the other Family Planning Specialists who were working at that morning’s clinic, were gathered around the file holder, quietly but passionately discussing a chart DD was holding in her hands. 

 

 

More IBD ® (just to be clear, that’s Important Background Details, not…er…the other acronym) for this story:

 (1) my fellow FPS’s respective ethnic backgrounds:  CR (the lead for the morning’s clinic) was White; DD was Black; ML was Latina;

(2) Our clinic personnel had recently undergone our first of what would be several days of (not well-planned or executed, IMO    [4]  )  Diversity Awareness training seminars;

(3) There is no background detail #3.

 

 

CR, DD, and ML were gathered around the file holder, quietly but passionately discussing a chart DD was holding in her hands.  So intent were the three of them that they did not notice my approach.  They seemed oblivious to my presence, even when I was standing three feet behind them, listening to their discussion (recalled here to the best of my ability, but not verbatim…duh).

CR:
“Nope, it’s yours.”
(CR shook her head and put her hands out, as if to push away the chart DD had thrust in her direction)
“I know what you mean, I’ve had the same experiences,
but that’s the chart on top, DD, and you’re up.”

DD:
“Please, I  can’t.  I had the last one – I’m serious.  ML, would you take this?”

ML:
“No, oh no, I just don’t – I know this sounds bad, it’s nothing personal, but that culture is so – well you know how the women can’t say anything direct, so they whimper and cry to punish their husbands and make them feel bad….”

DD:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I get woozy with the odor – I’m not prejudiced, I’m serious.  It’s from their diet, the curry or whatever, and it comes out of the skin and the breath and the last Indian patient I had, it was so strong, I thought I was gonna pass out in the procedure room….”

ML (changing her tone from pleading to teasing):
“CR, you’re the lead, you should set a good example, and help out DD….”

CR:
“No way.”

My snort-laughter caused them to turn around, and their collective expressions changed in a flash, from obstinacy to hope (“Maybe Robyn will take this patient?!?!)…a hope which crashed and burned as I declared,

“Oh, how I wish I had a recording of this moment!
My faith in the equality of humanity is restored, with this prime example of diversity before me:  a White woman, a Black woman, a Latina woman, all arguing about not wanting to help an Indian woman.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself .  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [5] 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

“Religion is man-made.
Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.”

(  Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything )

 

 

*   *   *

Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when men mansplain teach about sexism and misogyny to captive audiences.

 

 

*   *   *

May your colds (caused by proud, American viruses) last less than two weeks;
May you never have to explain sexism and misogyny to captive audiences;
May you never have cause to wish, maybe someone else will help this patient;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] At some point during the intake, if a client seeking an abortion was accompanied by another person – whether their partner, or friend, or parent or family member –  we made sure to speak to the patient *alone,* to make sure she wasn’t being pressured into any decision.

[2] Considering where they were (a Family Planning clinic, for an abortion), the husband’s idea of birth control – “I’ll wear a condom when I feel like it” was infuriating…but, unfortunately, not uncommon, as I learned.  I was to witness, during my time at PP, the disturbing phenomenon wherein couples from countries/cultures where The Husband Is In Charge Of Such Things ® often had a dynamic where the wife was subject to her husband’s whims of whether or not he wanted to wear a condom every time they had sexual intercourse (even if he was adamant about *not* wanting his wife to get pregnant, he would not consistently use protection!).  But, he didn’t want her to use oral contraceptives (“The Pill”), or an IUD, or a diaphragm. To have her be the one using and choosing birth control would take her out from under *his* control.  And her option of saying no to sex if he refused (“no glove; no love”) – ha!  Not an option, for her, or for far too many women (and any woman who does not have that option is far too many).

[3] I never, never, ever, saw any instance of them allowing their opinions to affect their care of their patients.  That said, working in such a stressful environment, yep, they would discretely blow off steam by commiserating with their fellow clinicians.

[4] That kind of employee education/seminar was in its developmental stages, and not A Thing®  like it is now, and it seemed obvious to moiself  that those leading the training were well-intentioned but didn’t exactly know what they were doing.

[5] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg.  Until I did.

One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens.  No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. 

No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The April Fool’s Joke No One Was Playing

April 1, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, category-free rants, community, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, Oregon, politics, science, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The April Fool’s Joke No One Was Playing

Content warning: Despite the date, and one or two moments of comic relief,  [1]   this is probably the most serious and personal blog post I have written.  No foolin.’

*   *   *

Department Of Worst April Fool’s Day Ever

The following took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – twenty-one years ago today, April 1, 2001. Background info: MH and I and our offspring, K and Belle, were members of a local church.  [2]   Within the past seven weeks we’d celebrated K’s eighth birthday, and Belle’s fifth.

*   *   *

At approximately 12:20pm, Sunday, April 1, 2001, MH and I were in the ___ (church name)  Fellowship Hall’s kitchen, doing cleanup after coffee hour.  K and Belle were playing with other children outside, in the church’s courtyard.  Belle found a hypodermic syringe (“A shiny toy,” as she later described it to me) on the grass under the bushes next to a play-shed in the courtyard.  She picked up the syringe, which was capped, but the syringe’s needle — which was sticking out at an angle from under the side of the cap — poked her in her right thumb.  She dropped the syringe and walked away.

K had seen Belle pick up something and then quickly drop it.  He went over to where she had been, saw the syringe, and picked it up. He intended to take it upstairs to MH and I, to show us what Belle had touched…then he also got stuck by the needle (in his left thumb) when he picked up the syringe.

K came into the kitchen, holding the syringe.  He told us that he’d found “this thing on the grass” and that he’d accidentally stuck himself with it. Before K had finished his sentence MH whisked the syringe from K, and recapped it (K said he took the cap off *after* the needle stuck him, as he wanted us to see exactly what it was that had stuck him, but that the syringe had the cap ON when he picked it up).

I rushed K to the sink, quickly but thoroughly washed his thumb, and told MH to get Belle and meet us at the hospital.  We had our two cars with us; I wrapped the syringe in several paper towels and ran down the back stairs of the hall with K in tow, telling him that we were going to the Tuality Hospital ER (which is less than half a mile from the church).

At this time MH and I did *not* know that Belle had also – and first – been stuck by that same syringe’s needle.

MH found Belle standing in the entrance to the Fellowship Hall, crying and holding her thumb, which was bleeding.  MH asked another child, who was lying on a couch in the entrance, what was going on.   The kid glanced at Belle and casually replied, “Oh, she cut herself.”   MH asked Belle what happened; she said that “a knife” she found in the courtyard had cut her finger.

I’d parked on the street by the entrance to the Fellowship Hall. Just as I was about to pull away from the curb MH ran to my car, pounded on the window, opened the door and practically threw Belle in the back seat, next to K.  MH told me about Belle’s thumb as he strapped Belle into her car seat; we tried to get more out of her, but she was very upset.  She didn’t want to say that it was the needle which had cut her, but K said that it was, and then Belle confirmed this.

All of this — from the moment K came up to the kitchen with the syringe to MH running with Belle to the car — took place in less than two minutes.  I squeezed Belle’s thumb to get more blood out, gave her a tissue to hold over her thumb, and drove to the ER, with MH arriving in our other car about four minutes after the kids and I did.

The bad news:

…was what had happened.  Of particular concern was the fact that the syringe was from an “unknown source,” which is hospital jargon for, “We don’t have the syringe’s user to test.”  However, as the hospital personnel  [3]   – and our own instincts and experience told us – as far as what the syringe had been used for, we should assume the worst.  Translation: the syringe had been used to inject a person or persons with illegal drugs; it had not been left there by a diabetic who on the spur of the moment decided to adjust his blood sugar/insulin ratio in our church’s courtyard’s bushes. (Coincidentally, earlier that morning I’d been told by the church groundskeeper that the previous day, members of our church had done a cleanup of the church grounds, removing beer cans and trash from under and around the bushes in the courtyard, where the groundskeeper had occasionally found “vagrants and street people partying.”)

Hospital personnel told us the syringe was likely used to inject its user(s) with a certain kind of heroin (“Mexican brown”) and/or methamphetamine, which, for “street users,” were the injectable drugs of choice both the hospital and the police were seeing at that time.  Although we brought the syringe with us (and could detect a micro-microscopic drop of fluid inside of it), we were told that there was nothing the hospital could test it for.  In fact, it was hospital policy not to test it, for among other reasons, the false reassurance of any false negative results (which they would likely get, as there was no way to determine how long the syringe had been there).

The relatively good (or at least, less bad) news:

-Both kids’ immunizations were up to date, including for Hepatitis B.

-Although there were no vaccinations for Hepatitis C and the other rare strains (D, E, F), risk of transmission for those infections, in that kind of possible exposure, were negligible…  Also, those strains of hepatitis were rarely seen in Oregon at that time (Hepatitis A is not transmitted via needle sticks).

-The syringe had a small gauge needle; thus, the possibility of a significant “viral load” transmission was small.

-HIV, the big fear factor at the time, is a very fragile virus.  Despite its many mutations it can survive only a few hours (if that) outside a host body.

The children were seen by P.A. ____, who examined them and then spoke with us about what happened.  Over the next three-plus hours, the P.A. consulted via telephone with Drs. E___ and L___ at Emmanuel Hospital’s Infectious Disease and Pediatrics Infectious Disease departments, with our pediatrician’s on call group, and with other physicians at the CDC.  [4]

We were told (by the P.A. and a Tuality ER physician) that HIV prophylaxis treatment was something we should consider, for both K and Belle.  We did, and decided against it, with the following information in mind:

– None of the doctors consulted would strongly recommend that we start either K or Belle on prophylactic treatment for possible HIV exposure, given the parameters of the particular accident/incident, nor was such treatment the recommended protocol for that kind of possible exposure.

– MMR (Morbidity & Mortality Report) statistics showed no transmission of disease had been recorded to have occurred in “this kind of injury,” in Oregon.

– Risk of transmission of HIV was estimated to be less than 1%; risk of side effects from AZT or other prophylactic HIV treatments definitely exceeded 1%.

K and Belle had blood drawn at the hospital for baseline HIV and Hepatitis titers, and we were given scripts to have the tests repeated at intervals of two, four, and six months.  The P.A. suggested, for our own peace of mine, that we do another test at twelve months (although that was not the official recommendation).

******************************

Department Of The Aftermath

At one point, sitting in the ER exam room with MH and the kids, I remembered noting the date and thinking, “If only this were an April Fool’s joke….”

The above was the Dragnet (“Just the facts, ma’am”) version of the incident, which I sent to family, and wrote for our own records.  I left out the emotions experienced by K, Belle, MH, and myself, which you can probably imagine (and which took me months to forget).

 

 

We were at that ER for hours.  We waited, while the P.A. consulted with various specialists and/or waited for them to return his calls and periodically came into the exam room we occupied, to update us.  All the adults were (trying to be) calm.  The ER seemed understaffed, to me (a hospital staff member later told me it was unexpectedly busy “for a Sunday afternoon”).  Even so and speaking of the afternoon, I wish one of the staff would have thought to offer our kids some food.  It was lunch time when the accident happened, and a little after 4 pm when we got out of there.  MH and I were too adrenalized to be hungry and, in our state of shock and with possible scenarios and outcomes running through our minds, we forgot that the kids, of course, were hungry  [5] ). I finally had the presence of mind to realize this, and got someone to bring them some sugary drinks, which made them both happy.

Waiting, waiting, waiting….  We bummed drawing supplies (paper and pens) from a nurse, to keep the kids amused or at least distracted, while hospital staff checked with one another and called various experts.  We shut the door to the exam room we were in and talked loudly to the kids when an accident victim with a fractured femur was brought into the ER (we were mostly successful in muffling the victim’s cries of pain, which echoed down the ER hallway).

MH’s cousin is a pediatrician and her husband an epidemiologist; MH used some of the waiting time to call her (she lived on the East coast).  She was very reassuring.  She told us that, to her knowledge and after checking her sources, there were no cases of someone “sero-converting” – i.e., going from a negative HIV test to a positive – after having “that kind” of accident (being stuck with a needle which had likely been used and discarded several hours before the stick-accident).

Okay; yes; this is good.   But, if this is common knowledge, why is this taking so long?
Why all the consults – are they preparing detailed information for us,
for a prognosis we don’t want to hear?

We had plenty of time, sitting/waiting/pacing in that exam room, to imagine the worst.  I had worked for nine years in the women’s reproductive health care field but been away from the medical world for almost as many years and hadn’t kept up with “things.”  HIV, despite its ability to mutate rapidly, was – or had been – a very fragile virus. Perhaps new strains had developed, which I was unaware of – new mutations which could survive hours outside a host body? I thought that unlikely, thus; actually, my main concern was not HIV.

I was more troubled to think that the kids might have been infected by one of the new strains of hepatitis that seemed to be cropping up left and right. When I’d worked at Planned Parenthood, just before MH and I moved up to Oregon, I’d had a needle stick accident, [6]  and had to go through the routines of initial HIV/hepatitis blood tests, getting the Hep B vaccine series,   [7]   then follow-up HIV and hepatitis tests at two, four, and six month intervals.

Meanwhile, back in the ER….  Finally, a little before 4 pm, the ER staff attending to our case had documented it to their satisfaction. We needed the kids to each have their blood drawn for the first round of tests, and then we could go home.  MH and I and the hospital personnel tried to be as straightforward – and as nonchalant – with the kids as possible.  “Everything is going to be all right, we just have to do one test (which…er, yeah…will involve another needle stick)….”

K tried to be brave.  He was old enough that we could explain the hospital procedures to him, how they’d need to draw a small amount of blood for a test.  Did he think he could cooperate?  His lower lip trembled as he nodded yes.  He sat in my lap, I hugged him, and he hid his head under my arm when they drew his blood sample.  For each of the subsequent, follow-up blood draws (at two, four and six months after the incident), K got better at handling the needle poke (he even watched the last one, instead of turning his head to the side!).

Belle’s reaction was…almost feral.

What a difference three years makes, especially for younger children, in terms of experience and comprehension. Looking back, I realize that Belle was also being brave, in a different way – in defense of herself.  She did not understand why she had essentially been held captive for hours; she did not understand the need for the tests the adults were trying to explain to her.  She understood that she had already been injured by one needle, and she was determined not to let that happen again.

The hospital personnel were kind and patient with her, but despite their assurances that they would use the tiniest needle possible (“The size we use on preemies,” a nurse told me) Belle became unhinged. Even her beloved daddy could not get her to cooperate, nor could he restrain her.  Finally, in order to safely draw her blood, the hospital staff put her in what I can only describe as a full body straitjacket.  It was a device/garment I’d never seen before,   [8]   and it provided me with one brief moment of levity in that dreary afternoon (I had to leave the exam room for a moment, to stifle my giggles).

The follow-up blood draws were, for Belle, not much better (although full body restraints were not necessary).  For years after that ER visit Belle maintained a visceral fear of needles.  Routine vaccinations were…stressful, to put it mildly, for Belle, her parents, and her pediatrician.

Despite Belle’s fear of needles (which had not been present before the trip to the ER), neither she nor K seemed to carry any long-term trauma from the needle stick accident.  They also barely displayed any short-term distress.  By the morning after they seemed to have accepted what the adults had told them (it was an accident; everything is going to be fine), and it was almost as if the accident hadn’t happened.

The night we came home from the ER they both fell asleep even quicker than usual (fatigued from the excitement, was my guess).  Oh, to have that short term memory dump capability, I remember thinking.  Meanwhile, as our children dozed in blissful ignorance, MH and I sat upright in our bed, eyes abuzz from our respective adrenaline overdoses.

“What just happened?” I said to MH.  “I feel like – like I should attack something.  I’m all geared up for battle, but there’s no one to fight.”

*   *   *

When the option for prophylactic HIV treatment had been offered to us, I thought:

Is this the day our lives change forever?

I hoped the medical personnel were going to advise *against* such treatment; instead, they’d presented the pros and cons, and left the decision to us.

I’d already decided that, unless there were compelling evidence to do so, no way was I going to agree to poison my kids to play the odds.  During some of the down time in the ER exam room I’d chatted with the kindly if seriously-demeanored P.A., and discovered that he too was a parent.  After he and a hospital physician had presented the HIV treatment option to MH and I, I waited until the physician left the room, then asked the PA,

“What would *you* do, if this had happened to *your* children?”

He paused, and I continued.

“I know you’re not supposed to answer that kind of question, but please?”

The P.A. nodded at me, in a way I can only describe as respectful, and I saw the brief flicker of a smile cross his eyes for the first time since he’d met us.  No, he said, if they were his children, he would not opt for the HIV prophylaxis.

*   *   *

Thanks to the merciful element known as “the passing of Time,” the distress of that day has morphed, for me, into having an impassive remembrance of what happened without having to relive how it “felt.”  Years will pass without me thinking about the accident, and then something will remind me.

One such reminder came via a local public television show I saw a few years ago, which featured an interview with an activist who “represented” an encampment which homeless people had been setting up in a Portland neighborhood.  The encampment was in an area which had been designated as a wildlife corridor; homeowners living near the corridor were disgusted and alarmed by the encampment’s accumulating trash, habitat destruction, and crime.  The activist/representative said that the camp occupants were policing themselves – she looked directly into the camera and declared that they had a strict, no drugs/no alcohol policy.

 

 

Local news reported that within days of authorities evicting the campers, the encampment resembled an EPA-declared toxic waste dump. City employees and volunteers who cleared out the hundreds of pounds of garbage the campers had left behind had to wear special gloves and protective garments, as the trash included  – surprise, “self-policing” activist/representative! – drug paraphernalia, including contaminated syringes and needles.

When I read that follow-up story I was right back to that day – back to the moment when MH ran up to my car, carrying our frightened five-year-old in his arms; back to the moment when I realized that *both* of our children had been stuck by a hypodermic needle; back to the moment when, as surely as I could sense my own pulse hammering in my carotid artery, I felt as if my “spirit” were draining out of my skull, down through my chest and gut and legs, and exiting my body through the soles of my feet.  And no, this is not a florid way of saying I peed my pants (which I didn’t).  The sensation was so vivid, I later checked my car’s floormat for…something (I didn’t really know what I was looking for).

Several months passed before the needle stick accident wasn’t the first and last thing I thought of every day.  Some mornings with stoic acceptance and some nights with fierce, Samuel L. Jackson-style defiance (“C’mon, just try and hurt us again, you needle-discarding, muthaF#&%?! ass#@&%* !”), I’d contemplate the fact that there are so many things out of a parent’s control.  Seemingly apropos of nothing, I would find myself ruminating on the plethora of shit, be it circumstantial, biological, genetic, or whatever, that I could neither anticipate nor control, but which could harm K and Belle.

I eventually made peace with the reality that generations of parents before me had recognized:

Your life can change in an instant;
your love for your children may be river deep and mountain high,
but it cannot protect them from everything that might harm them….
including random fate and their and other peoples’ (and your own) mistakes.

One day, several months after the NS accident and after things had returned to the proverbial normal, I was out running errands with Belle.  We were at a crafty-type store, getting supplies for her preschool project, and she had to pee.  The store’s restroom was a fairly large, handicapped access room. After Belle flushed the toilet and began to move to the sink to wash up, she exclaimed, “Look!” and reached for a shiny object lying on the floor, to the side of the toilet.

I had my first ever out-of-body experience: I watched as a hand (that was apparently my own) reached out with lightning speed and slapped Belle’s hand just before she touched the object; I heard a banshee’s voice from the bowels of the hells I don’t believe in bellow from my mouth:

” NO NO NO NO NO !!!
Don’t EVER pick up ANYTHING when you don’t know what it is –
didn’t you learn ANYTHING from the accident ?!?!? “

It took a stunned two seconds for first Belle and then me to burst into tears, and a nanosecond after that for me to apologize to her.

*   *   *

May you never have a similar story to tell;
May you make peace with life’s realities but do your damnedest anyway;
May you remember to ask for something to eat and drink when
you’re stuck in an ER room for hours;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

 

[1] Thank you for the inspiration, Samuel L. Jackson.

[2] One of the more (if not most) liberal of the Protestant denominations.  Yes, this foulmouthed  expressive atheist and her family were active church members.

[3] The P.A., doctors, and nurses we saw during our ER stay.

[4] He had also spoken with at least two other Tuality hospital physicians, one of whom, along with the P.A., presented the HIV prophylactic treatment option to us.  We also had several nurses (in and out of the exam room where we and the kids waited) who never introduced themselves.

[5] Although, oddly enough, neither of them said anything to us about it…which I attribute to them being intimidated by the surroundings.

[6]  This happened as I was doing a finger poke blood draw from a high-risk (multiple sexual partners; IV drug user) patient: I poked myself with the same lancet I’d just used on the patient, as I was transferring the lancet to the sharpie container.  It was a move I’d done a hundred times, only that time I somehow managed to stick myself as I grabbed the sharpie container.  To this day, I’m not sure how it happened, but I’ll never forget how the patient looked at me and said, “Uh oh.” 

[7] Which I should have had anyway…but I’d kept putting off for time/scheduling reasons.

[8] Then a few months later, in a veterinary setting, I saw a similar garment used to restrain a fractious cat!

The Two-Faced, Sanctimonious, Festering Turd-Of-Hypocrisy I’m Not Strangling

May 24, 2019

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, politics, reproductive rights, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , 2 Comments

The real reason behind the total ban on abortion in Alabama and other backward misogynist shithole legislatures states, or so political strategists on both sides of the aisle tell us, is to set up a challenge in SCOTUS for Roe v. Wade. State legislators know their draconian laws will be struck down by state judges as unconstitutional; thus, the hoped-for trip to up the judicial ladder to SCOTUS chambers.

But so-called real reasons often leave real people and their real stories in the dustbin of history.   I will share some of those stories in this post: a series of vignettes, in no particular chronological order, from my time working in women’s reproductive health care. The stories I have from those years are legion; I’ll attempt both restraint and discretion in relating a just few of them.  [1]

The last one still blows my mind, all these years later. If I were to write it up as a short story I’m sure literary journals would reject it (“Contrived plot,” the editor’s notes might read), but trust me, I’m not a skilled enough writer to have made it up. Once again, reality trumps fiction.

TheBackground

 

From the early 1980s – 90’s I worked for a Planned Parenthood (“PP”) clinic in a SoCal county, a private OB-GYN practice in the Bay Area, and Planned Parenthood clinics in a Bay Area county.

PP clinics provided services determined by geographic need.  Example: because there were several other clinics in the county which performed abortions, the SoCal PP clinic provided a range of health care but referred patients seeking an abortion to those other clinics. Because there were few options in that same county for women needing colposcopy exams,  [2] that PP set up a colposcopy clinic, the patients mainly coming via referrals from the county public health system.

The Doctor (“Doc”) at the OB-GYN office where I worked (“The Practice”) shared the practice with a nurse practitioner (“NP”). Their patients ranged from Silicon Valley execs to welfare recipients (but skewed toward the higher end of the economic spectrum). Doc infrequently performed first trimester abortions (~ four per year), at an offsite day surgery center (he was aware that many more of his patients had abortions, but went elsewhere for the procedure). He told me he didn’t like performing them (“It’s a sad situation, all around”), but what he didn’t like even more was the idea of abandoning his patients when they needed help.

The Bay Area county PP had four clinics in the county, three of which offered abortions services, one to three mornings per week. I worked initially at the main site’s STD screening clinic,  [3]  then at their abortion (AB) clinics.

 

 

The Stories

We (The Practice’s Doc, NP, and I) developed a personal relationship  [4]  and had many interesting conversations on issues re women’s health care. Doc and NP were both staunchly pro-choice, Doc in particular due to his knowledge of what things were like before Roe v. Wade.  He told me stories about The Bad Old Days, about how (surprise!) the rich could always get safe care, no matter what. Back in the late 50s – 60s when abortion was illegal, a Japanese airline had a clandestine (but procurable, if you knew the right people) package deal: the fare included flights to and from Tokyo from West Coast airports, overnight lodging in a Tokyo hotel, and the fee for an abortion performed by a Japanese doctor. Sympathetic American doctors whose desperate patients had no safe local alternatives would refer their patients to someone, who would refer them to someone else, who would refer them to….   [5]

One of The Practice’s OB patients, after a routine exam, asked Doc if he ever performed abortions. Although it was none of her %&!$ business (and moiself wanted him to tell her so) he answered honestly, while tactfully letting her know that he would not be steered down the anti-abortion harangue road she was heading for.  After she’d left, Doc signaled to me to follow him to the office’s back room, where old/inactive patient files were kept.

As Doc searched through the files he told me about a former patient of his who’d sought an abortion, back when the procedure was illegal except for “medical reasons.” This woman had to go before a (male, of course) judge to get approval to have an abortion. Her physicians had to testify as to her mental and physical well-being, and they had lots of material: she had chronic health problems; was depressed to the point of suicide; her husband had left her and their three children…. She’d wanted to get her tubes tied after birthing her second child but could not find a doctor to do so – as per the standards of the time, hospitals would not book a sterilization surgery for a woman unless she met this weird algorithm (criteria included her age, the number of children she had, and other factors I can’t recall).  She also needed her husband’s permission for the surgery, which he’d refused.   [6]

The woman won her petition. At this point in the story Doc had found the patient’s chart, and showed me the transcript from her day in court. He snorted with disgust as he recalled how a grown-ass adult woman had to grovel and reveal highly personal information to male strangers who held power over her life.  Doc re-filed the chart, the ever-present twinkle in his eyes absent as he said, “Don’t ever let it go back to that.”

 

*   *   *

The R- PP clinic site (Bay Area) performed abortions on Friday mornings. The R-PP had two recurrent anti-abortion protesters who hung out on the sidewalk by the clinic parking lot. They were an odd pair: an older woman with an imperious air, always impeccably dressed in a woolen suit, designer handbag matching her designer pumps, her chin-length white hair sprayed into a Doris Bay-type bob, and a tall, lanky young man with wild eyes and a shock of Conan O’Brien-ish, unruly red hair. I called them Snow White and Big Red.

Dateline: A Friday am; the clinic had just opened, patients were in the waiting room filling out forms. One of the four clinic aides motioned for me and the other aides to follow her down the hallway. Looking out the clinic’s rear window, we saw “Consuela” outside, approaching Big Red.

Consuela, a native Mexican married to an American, was R-PP’s AB clinic manager. She was committed to providing reproductive care for Latinas, even as she admitted struggling with her work, due to her harsh Catholic upbringing. Consuela was kind and sweet-tempered, admired by PP’s staff and beloved by PP’s Latina patients, about whom she would tolerantly (but never patronizingly) educate us “white girl” clinic aides. She told us about the vagaries of the male-dominated culture Latina women had to endure, and the stories of her patients who’d had a horrifyingly experience common to impoverished Latinas entering the US were truly heartbreaking. The template: a woman’s husband summoned her to join him in the US after he’d found a job. He’d wired money to pay a coyote  [7] to escort her across the border, and during the journey the coyote raped her. Coyotes often assaulted women and girls with impunity and threatened their lives, knowing they’d be too frightened to tell the authorities or their husbands (sadly, Consuela said, even loving husbands were steeped in their culture’s machismo code, which cast a wife’s rape as a stain upon her husband’s honor…or as a cover for an affair).

Consuela would be in a certain mood I learned to identify – anger muted by melancholy – after working with a woman impregnated by coyote-rape. I often saw her, as her patient was leaving the clinic, slip the patient some money (“For bus fare,” Consuela would whisper in Spanish).   [8]

Back to the sidewalk: Sweet, warm Consuela was also very, very shy. Thus, we (her fellow clinicians, staring out the window) were amazed to see her approach Big Red, speak to him for a few minutes, return to the clinic…and holy crap, Big Red is leaving the parking lot! When the clinic was finished (~ 1 pm) Consuela told me what she’d said to him (paraphrased here):

I know you are here because you think you are doing good, but there is something you need to know. Three weeks ago, there was a no-show at our clinic – that older Latina woman you thought you had talked out of having an abortion. Actually, she left when you confronted her because she was afraid of you; she speaks only a little English, and didn’t understand everything you had to say, only that you were a stranger, who knew nothing about her, trying to intimidate her into not having an abortion.  She returned last week and had the procedure.

She may be poor and illiterate, but she is not stupid. When a woman makes such an important decision she considers all her options, and when she makes up her mind she is going to do whatever it takes.  All you did was make her wait another two weeks; she had to be sick and stressed and distraught for another two weeks. That may not have been your intention, but that is what happened. You caused even more grief for her.

For several weeks after Consuela spoke to Big Red, Snow White was the lone protester outside the R-PP clinic.

*   *   *

I’m glad those days (when abortion was illegal) are passed. But I fear the younger generations have no memories of what happened and take their rights for granted, and those of us who lived in those times are dying out, and our stories will die with us.
(paraphrased, from a conversation with Samuel Greenberg, M.D., PP-M physician)

Dr. Greenberg was an older gentleman, retired from his longtime OB-GYN practice, who worked several days a week at the PP main site (“PP-M”). “Dr. G” was the doctor I most often worked with at PP, and I came to admire his expertise, experience, humor, and compassion.

We talked often; Dr. G was concerned that when he and his peers died there’d be no one left to tell about The Bad Old Days, and that people might forget….  Sound familiar? Like many Jews of his age, he’d lost loved ones to the WWII concentration camps. His family’s experiences as Jews in non-Jewish cultures was one of the reasons, he said, he felt so strongly about his work at PP  –– he knew first-hand what can happen when people have their rights abridged by those of differing beliefs.

When Dr. G was a young doctor in the 1950s, doing his OB-GYN residency rotations in two different urban Catholic hospitals, he saw and treated many women who showed up in a the hospitals’ ERs, gravely ill and/or dying from botched illegal or self-induced abortions. Yet he never *once* saw the attending physicians list complications from illegal abortion as the cause of death for a patient who had indeed died from that.  On one such occasion, when Dr. G had the unhappy task of writing the “cause of death” on the patient’s chart, he challenged the doctor in charge who’d instructed Dr. G to write that the patient died of sepsis from an incomplete miscarriage. But, that’s a lie! Dr. G protested. – How can we, as doctors, lie about such a thing – people need to know, and the public health statistics will never reflect the reality…

Dr. G’s boss grabbed Dr. G by the elbow and steered him to the ER waiting room, pointing toward a sofa where the dead patient’s bereft husband and children sat.  He then led Dr. G to an empty hallway and spoke to him, privately and sternly, about the hospital’s non-official policy re reporting abortion-related deaths:  This is a Catholic hospital, with a mostly Catholic clientele. The truth will only bring further anguish, and shame, to a grieving family; also, since abortion is illegal, the police will have to be notified, and the hospital does not want its staff to get dragged into criminal investigations….

I will never forget the patience and kindness Dr. G showed toward all of the women we saw in the clinic, but in particular, to one recovering heroin addict.  Like most addicts, she was hypersensitive to pain, and howled as if she’d been stabbed when I did a simple finger prick blood test to check her iron level. She’d asked for additional analgesics for her procedure, which less than 5% of patients requested and which the doctor had to approve and then administer intravenously. Due to her years of junkiedom, Dr. G couldn’t find a usable vein to inject the medication.  I waited with an impatience I tried not to show, thinking thoughts for which I was later ashamed (What a whining wimp – suck it up lady, this is all from your own doing… you’ll be out of here in 10 minutes, and nobody else begs for drugs….), while Dr. G searched and searched, and searched again, and finally found a usable spot between her toes. After her surgery Dr. G spent additional time with her, holding her hand and encouraging her not to get down on herself or let this be another setback on her road to healing and sobriety.

*   *   *

In the PP clinics I saw a variety of women, from a wealthy Señora from Guadalajara whose IUD “slipped” while she and he husband were vacationing in the US, to a mother of four, in her late 40s and going through a bitter divorce (who’d had been told by a doctor that she’d gone through early menopause and couldn’t get pregnant), to the proverbial teenage girls who seem as if they can get pregnant just by standing downwind from a boy.

As per the coyote story,  rape/incest victims were the saddest cases to see. Those included a preteen holding onto her mother with one hand and her stuffed animal with her other hand (accompanied by a police escort, to retrieve “evidence’ of the assault, evidence they hoped to use to prosecute the family member who’d raped the girl); a woman forcibly impregnated by her estranged, abusive husband (she was told  [9] by a police officer that she couldn’t press rape charges because she was still married to her rapist), girls abused by their brothers/cousins/stepfathers/mom’s “new friend”/youth pastors….

And then there were those who’d been assaulted by non-related acquaintances – scenarios given a term I despise for its downplaying of the trauma it inflicts:  Date rape.

During a patient’s intake procedure we reviewed her medical history, and one of the questions we asked was, What kind of contraception were you using when you became pregnant? That question was not posed to known rape victims, and was a particularly cutting one to hear for sexual assault victims who’d not yet told anyone what had happened to them.  One patient, her tough chick attitude failing to mask her nervousness, threw her hands up in the air and laughed bitterly when I asked that question. Nothing; I was using nothing!  Can you believe that the guy my friend set me up with, the guy who choked me until I passed out, didn’t have the decency to put on a condom before he raped me?!   [10] 

*   *   *

Big Bad Wolves are not always so obvious, Little Red Riding Hood.

 

She was not my patient; I’d finished my first intake and was on my way to place my patient’s chart in the surgical queue. She stood in the hallway outside the clinic’s bathroom, holding her urine sample cup, fidgeting in a way I’d come to recognize as a woman trying to convince herself to pee when she didn’t have to go. She was dressed like a 1950s secretary, with a pleated plaid skirt and a faded, rose red cardigan sweater. She looked sweetly anachronistic, nervous, and shy.

“Let me guess,” I pointed toward the empty cup she held.  “It seems like you have to go every five minutes, then when you need to go, you can’t?”

Exactly!  She flashed me a puppy-eyed look of gratitude. Kelly, my, uh, intake lady, left me here; she needed to talk with a nurse or something.  It might take awhile before I can… she looked askance at the empty cup in her hand. I shouldn’t have gone at my mom’s, before we came here.

I offered to get her a glass of water, and as I walked her back to her intake room she told me how out of place she felt.  I can tell I’m the oldest girl here. It’s so embarrassing. She lowered her voice. I’m twenty-seven.

“I’m thirty-one,” I said. “I win!”

She blushed, and told me she hadn’t meant the age of the staff, but rather “the girls” she’s seen in the waiting room, whom she assumed were, like her, there for an abortion, but unlike her, were probably not virgins… I mean, were virgins, until….

I stopped before entering the intake room, where her mother sat.  Sweet Twenty-Seven-Year-Old-Former-Virgin looked at me imploringly. Can you come in and talk with me?

I said I’d love to, and asked if it would be okay to talk in front of her mother.  She assured me it was.  I sat down with the two of them, and STSYOFV began to spill her guts. 

STSYOFV had flown out from Kentucky, where she’d gone to college and where she lived now. Her mother was helping out, paying for the abortion –  STSYOFV didn’t want to have it done where she lived, in case any of her friends and especially her church friends found out…well, I  really don’t have any friends besides church friends…

As STSYOFV told it, her  life revolved around an evangelical church where she was a member of the choir. STSYOFV ‘s mother discretely shook her head and gave me a look.

STSYOFV said she loved choral music; her church choir met for practice several times a week…and what they would think of me, if they knew where I was now.  I know what I’m doing is wrong in their sight, but my they’d disown me if I was pregnant out of wedlock and I know all my options and everyone here is so nice about reminding me but I wish they’d stop asking I don’t need adoption or pregnancy referrals I know what I’m doing and I can’t bear being pregnant it would destroy me and how could I be was so stupid and ignorant and naïve to stay a virgin until 27 and then get pregnant the first and only time…I feel felt guilty but I’m going to do it anyways, I tried a few home remedies, even thought if I threw myself down the stairs…

My eyes widened at the remark, and STSYOFV’s mother gasped. STSYOFV assured us both that she’d chickened out; I made her laugh when I told her that a miscarriage caused by falling down the stairs only happens in the movies.

Lawdy, Miss Scarlett!

 

My eyes flitted back and forth, from STSYOFV to her mother, who mostly remained silent while her daughter talked.  The mother’s unwavering love for STSYOFV was evident to me, as was her disapproval of the church her daughter had gotten involved with.

STSYOFV said she hadn’t even intended to have sex… I hope god will forgive me but I am going to do this, or if he can’t forgive me, at least I hope he won’t hate me.   If they only knew…they all think I’m a nice person….

“Then that’s one thing they’re right about – you are a nice person.” I placed my hand over STSYOFV’s. She grasped my hand with both of hers, her eyes moist with gratitude. Although a (closeted, at that time) non-believer, I attended a liberal Christian church, and knew what STSYOFV needed to hear. I assured her that her god, that no one, could ever hate her.

STSYOFV smiled at me through her tears. I wish you would be doing my intake, and be with me during the procedure. Kelly is nice, but she’s so young.

Actually, Kelly is 26, I thought to myself.  I also thought about how STSYOFV, with her gentle, desperate naivete and high voice, seems like a 12 year-old in a 27 year-old’s body.

I told STSYOFV I had another patient to help, but promised I’d check on her after her procedure. She hugged me, and said she’d like that.

STSYOFV was the last patient to see the doctor, and when she was out of the recovery room she, her mother and I had a heartfelt conversation before they left the clinic. I assured STSYOFV re how much she had going for her – she was young, strong- spirited and good-hearted, with a wonderful mother who loved and supported her…

She is the best. STSYOFV gazed lovingly at her mother. And she says she won’t let me pay her back, for lending me money for the plane tickets and everything.

“Speaking of which…” I hesitated. “What about the guy who got you pregnant? Why isn’t he helping you with this, or at least paying?”

Oh, no, that would ruin him. STSYOFV shook her head, sadly yet vehemently.  While her mother’s mama bear eyes blazed with rage on behalf of her daughter, STSYOFV told me that the man who’d seduced her was her choir director. He was older, married and with children, and active in the church’s pro-life demonstrations. When she went to him with news of her pregnancy he warned her to not to tell anyone, and told her to “take care of it,” and so STSYOFV had swallowed her pride and telephoned her mother….

*   *   *

Department Of This One Takes The Cake
Aka If I Hadn’t Seen It With My Own Eyes….

I lost track of how many times an AB clinic patient laughed and said, “Until it happened to me, I was against abortion. That” – the patient would indicate the clinic’s entrance, referring to the protesters outside – “might have been me a couple of months ago.” I’d smile, say, “We hear that a lot,” and do my best not to reveal that I didn’t find her admission – that she’d have supported taking away other women’s autonomy until “it” happened to her –  to be amusing.

PP-M had a semi-regular group of protesters who demonstrated outside the clinic’s front entrance. (I never saw them; I parked in the employee lot at the back of the clinic and entered and left through the back door.) Other PP-M employees became quite familiar with the protesters, who were part of some Catholic group led by a perky blond in her mid-thirties. The Vice President (“Veep”) of PP-M went out of her way to befriend the protesters. Veep was an ex-Catholic, and would go outside and chat with the protesters during her coffee breaks, sometimes joining them in reciting The Rosary. On sweltering summer days Veep carried cups of water out to the protesters – one day she even brought them lemonade – and on more than one cold winter morning I heard a fellow clinic aide good-naturedly grouse about how She ( meaning, Veep) is out there, serving them hot cocoa, can you believe it?

Dateline: one memorable Monday, ~ 8 am, at the PP-M AB clinic. As I reached for the first chart in the intake pile, “Cindy,” the clinic’s assistant manager, whisked the chart out of my hand. “I don’t believe this,” Cindy hissed. She motioned for me to follow her to the reception office, where she and the receptionist stared through the  bullet-and-sound-proof plate glass window to the waiting room, and traded incredulous remarks back and forth:

I don’t believe it – can you believe it? That can’t be her…no, it is her…this is got to be a joke…a plant…a set up…no – look at the chart, it is!….

I asked, What’s up? Cindy told me that Perky Blonde Anti-Abortion Protest Leader was in the waiting area, with her 15 year old daughter, whom she’d brought in for an abortion.

“I am doing this intake,” Cindy announced. As her WTF ?!?!  expression morphed into that of Compassionate Health Care Worker, she opened the door to the waiting area and called PBAAPL and her daughter back to an intake room.

It was a busy morning; I didn’t get to talk with Cindy until after the clinic was over, when all four of us clinic aides gathered around Cindy to ask, What the heck….?  Cindy told us that she’d started the intake as usual – she led PBAAPLW and her daughter back to a private intake room, then asked the daughter to give a urine specimen. While the daughter was in the bathroom, Cindy introduced herself to PBAAPL, and the following conversation (paraphrased) ensued:

Cindy: I need to tell you something. I recognize you, from the protesters outside. If this makes you or your daughter uncomfortable, you can request another…

PBAAPL:  Oh no; thank you. You’ll be fine.

Cindy: Okay. Uh…now I’m speaking for me, personally, not on behalf of Planned Parenthood.  I can’t help but wonder, what are you doing here?

PBAAPL:  Well, my daughter got in trouble, you know?  And you people here are all so nice, I knew you’d take good care of her.

Imagine, if you will, the sound of four jaws simultaneously dropping to the clinic’s tile floor.

PBAAPL skipped the protests for the next two weeks (there were a few demonstrators who showed up, and only for one day, during PBAAPL’s absence). After she brought her daughter in for the girl’s post surgery exam, PBAAPL returned to leading the protests, trying to deny other women’s daughters the “good care” she’d sought for her own.

*   *   *

Department of Epicurean Excursion   [11]

 The excursion returns next week, having been temporarily grounded this week, due to the appetite-quashing political upheavals which prompted this post.

*   *   *

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1]  We didn’t have HIPAA laws then; still, I’ve altered all names and a few geographical details for privacy’s sake.

[2] A colposcopy is a procedure to closely examine a woman’s cervix for signs of disease, using a special instrument (colposcope). The procedure is most often done due to the woman having an abnormal pap smear, and may be followed by a cervical biopsy.

[3] I worked primarily at two PP clinics  in the county, and twice at a third PP clinic.

[4] Which continued after I left the practice and which exists to this day.

[5] I later heard about this same service from another doctor who was Doc’s age.

[6] Yep, that’s right – he knocked her up a third time, and then abandoned her and their children.

[7] A coyote is a man who makes a living smuggling migrants across the US-Mexico border.

[8] Consuela and her husband ( who was still in college) were far from wealthy, and had two children of their own to support. It probably violated some kind of clinic policy to give money, even your own, voluntarily, to patients; I always saw her look around furtively when she did so.

[9] Erroneously, I believe, although I don’t know the status of the marital rape laws in California at that time.

[10] I stopped the intake immediately and got the patient to speak with someone from PP’s counseling/education department. She was over 18; we couldn’t force her to go to the police, and she refused our advice to do so (she said she’d known someone that had the same thing happen and “was raped again by the cops” (i.e. they didn’t believe her ). After her procedure we set her up with referrals for individual counseling and a rape crisis center…I have no idea if she ever followed through with those contacts.

[11] A recurring feature of this blog, since week 2 of April 2019, wherein moiself decided that moiself would go through my cookbooks alphabetically and, one day a week, cook (at least) one recipe from one book.

The Definition I’m Not Making Up

February 12, 2016

Robyn Parnell family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, games & puzzles, health & wellness, Holidays, Isms (religion), politics, reproductive rights, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

 

Department Of They Gave You A What?

Last week marked MH’s 25 years with The Company That Shall Not Be Named Right Now. Twenty-five years. It’s difficult to wrap my mind around that, until I look in front of me and to my left. Hanging from the walls of our home office are just some of the framed awards for product design and launching, and plaques for the patents MH and fellow various team members hold.[1]  I read the dates…yep…it’s been that long.

When MH had been with TCTSNBNRN for five years, his then-manager took MH’s entire work group out to a Very nice restaurant © for lunch. For this auspicious occasion – a quarter of a century of creativity, loyalty, [2] diligent, sometimes family-life sacrificing or altering work – MH’s now-manager provided cupcakes for the work group, and a cake for MH.

From Safeway.

A single layer, 7 inch diameter, $8.99 cake. [3]

 

No, Martha, it’s not.

 

Can you say, appreciation-fail, boys and girls?  I knew you could.

MH stayed up late last Sunday, baking a double batch of his family specialty: kringle, Norwegian pretzel-shaped buttermilk cookies. On Monday he emailed every person in the company (well, those who are still with TCTSNBNRN) with whom he’d worked over the years, thanked them for their help and camaraderie, and invited them to stop by his workstation so that he could thank them personally and share some cookies.

I’m thinking, How sweet that is! & How classy is that?  – thoughts I hope will, eventually, push Twenty-five years and they gave you a !#?@% cake?!?! out of my mind.

 

*   *   *

Department of I Lie Because I Say I Care (But Still, I Lie)

Many centers across the country provide what mainstream medical experts say are misleading accounts of rare abortion complications, and of disproved longer-term effects….. at least one brochure in the facility flatly says that abortion causes “an increased risk of breast, cervical and ovarian cancer.” …. But the National Cancer Institute states that “women who have had an induced abortion have the same risk of breast cancer as other women,” and that abortion has not been linked to other cancers, either.
(from the front page article, Pregnancy Clinics Fight For Right to Deny Abortion Information, NY Times 2-11-16)

CPCs (“crisis pregnancy centers”) have been prevaricating their asses off for as long as they have been in existence. When I worked at Planned Parenthood I was both amused and astonished at the stories I heard from women who had visited a CPC, about what had been presented to them as factual information. [4]

My favorite such story: Rachel [5] was told by a CPC “counselor” that during a physical exam a doctor could tell just by looking at a woman’s cervix if a woman had ever had an abortion (lie #1), and thus, because most doctors are adamantly opposed to abortion (lie #2) if Rachel had an abortion, for the rest of her life doctors could refuse to treat her (lie #3) or, even if Rachel found a doctor who deigned to see her as a patient, that doctor would give Rachel substandard care (lie #4).

Four whoppers in one sentence – that’s gotta be the record for a non-politician.

I’ve long considered the Right to Life moniker to be a misnomer. The removal of just one consonant would reveal their justification of their zealotry: Right to Life = Right to Lie.

*   *   *

 

TWENTY FIVE YEARS AND HE GETS A FUCKING CAKE.

 

*   *   *

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the death of “Chet-the-Jet,” my beloved father.  Back in September, when we were discussing the passing of MH’s father, my friend SCM remarked about how it was a milestone event for our family: the first time our son K and daughter Belle had to deal with the death of a grandparent.

Uh, actually, I reminded her….

SCM was horrified by her omission (I wasn’t). It was an honest and completely understandable mistake, as per this comment she made when she apologized. I found her observation quite touching:

You speak of him so often, it’s as if he’s still alive.

 

May 1978, Chet Parnell, celebrating his and Marion’s 25th wedding anniversary.

 

*   *   *

 

TWENTY FIVE YEARS AND HE GETS A FUCKING CAKE. AT LEAST YOUR FATHER GOT A TROPHY.

 

 

*   *   *

Happy Year of the Monkey

 

I find it suitable that I was born in a Year of the Monkey, as You little monkey! was one of several endearments my father bestowed upon moiself, his second-born child.

At my Qigong class this week, someone posed a question about the lunar zodiac calendar: What does it mean, to be born in the year of the monkey? I told her I could ask my SIL, who is Chinese, who’d likely say, “Nothing; it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s a superstition.”

From what I know of my brother’s delightful wife, she holds no superstitions – not those from her country of birth, nor those of her adopted country. She does, however, honor and acknowledge celebrations of culture. Thus, when I emailed her Gung Hay Fat Choi wishes on Monday, she winkingly told me that wearing red would ensure good luck during the coming year.

On Monday I did indeed wear red. I also visited Uwajimaya, my favorite Asian supermarket, and returned home with the fixings for a Lunar New Year dinner: veggie spring rolls; cucumber peanut salad; hot and sour fish ball soup…and this Indonesian snack, from a company whose marketing department needs a translation lesson.

 

*   *   *

 

TWENTY FIVE YEARS AND HE GETS A FUCKING CAKE.

 

*   *   *

Happy Darwin Day!

Today, February 12, we honor one of the greatest scientists ever, Charles R. Darwin (Feb 12, 1809 – April 18, 1882).

 

Yeah, thanks, but over one hundred and thirty years dead and I don’t even get a cake?

*   *   *

 

The story I’m currently working on involves a character who regularly thumbs through an actual (vs. online) dictionary. Thus, I am doing the same, an activity which brought back a fond memory.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, MH [6] lived in San Jose and I in Palo Alto. One weekend fairly early on in our dating relationship, MH hosted a game night at his apartment. MH and I and a group of about eight friends were playing a word game called Fictionary. [7]   When it was my turn be to Selector (the player who provides an obscure word for which the other players would have to make up a definition), I opened MH’s dictionary to a random page, and was immediately struck by the top of the page heading – you know, the one in a dictionary which lists the first/last words on the page:

blowjob/bluff

Now, I can’t honestly remember what the second word was, but I’ll never forget that the first word was blowjob. And, of course, I had to share my discovery with the other players – most of whom, as I seem to recall, were from our church’s young adults social group. [8]

 

 

MH, who hitherto had no knowledge of that page’s heading, seemed mildly embarrassed that he was in possession of what I subsequently and for all eternity referred to as The Blowjob Dictionary. Or perhaps his embarrassment came from the fact that his girlfriend couldn’t stop pointing this out to anyone who would listen.

Blowjob?!  At the top of the page?! “Blowjob” is at the top of the page and no editor or publisher caught it? You have a BJ dictionary [9] This is amazing…a mild-mannered engineer with a Blowjob dictionary, who knew?!  No, I am so not making this up – look, it’s right here, it says, blowjob….

Reader, he married me.

 

*   *   *

 

TWENTY FIVE YEARS AND HE GETS A FUCKING CAKE.

 

Of course, it could have been worse (or better, depending on your POV). He could have received a package of

 

*   *   *

May your significant anniversaries and accomplishments receive worthy acknowledgements;
May the calendar and lunar year bring you health and happiness (and interestingly titled snack foods),
and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

 

[1] The framed awards ones having to do with microprocessor design are like works of art.

[2] He has been head-hunted over the years, by other companies.

[3] Yes, the price tag is prominently displayed on the plastic cover

[4] Other equally horrific/entertaining stories came from my fellow PP clinic workers, several of whom had undertaken to do their own “undercover” sessions by going to a CPC and pretending to be pregnant, to experience firsthand what kind of (dis) information they would receive.

[5] Pseudonym.

[6] MH, as regular readers of this blog know, stands for My Husband, who of course was not in fact my husband at the time of this incident, but the privacy acronym stands.

[7]  Fictionary is a game in which players guess the definition of an obscure word. One player selects and announces a word from a dictionary. After the other players confirm that they indeed are not familiar with the word, they each make up a fake definition for it, while the Selector writes down the dictionary definition. The Selector collects the fake definitions, reads all definitions aloud, and players vote on which definition they believe to be correct. Points are awarded for correct guesses, for having a fake definition guessed by another player.

[8] Yes, happy heathens MH and I met at a Lutheran church. Now, there’s  a story for another time.

[9] Actually, I think it may have been American heritage?  I wish I could remember the name and the edition…I’d pay good money for that one…which for some reason never made it the the marital assets, when we combined households.

The Spanish Class I’m Not Taking

January 22, 2016

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), family life, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, reproductive rights, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Spanish Class I’m Not Taking

 

There is no I in quitter.

Turns out, there is.

¿Come se dice Homework sucks en español?

Guess I’ll never know, unless I look it up myself. On Monday I dis-enrolled moiself from the Spanish class I’d so been looking forward to.

 

 

Yes, really.

I’d been a little put off by the cancellation-without-notice of the class’s first meeting, (mentioned in a previous post), an incident which, on the second meeting of the class, [1]  la professora seemed not at all concerned about, even after several of us told her we had showed up to an empty, dark classroom. [2] But hey, okay, no big deal in the whole scope of things, right?

I was also a bit put off when la professor told her estudiantes that she was not fond of the textbook for the course, a book we had all purchased as instructed (a book that was, what, assigned for her class against her will?). What was the point of mentioning that?

I liked the other students in the class just fine and dandy. [3]  And then it came time to do the homework assignments.

Something in me balked. I did not find the assignments difficult; in fact, I was encouraged – given that I’d enrolled in an “accelerated” beginner’s class – by how much of the material was familiar to me. But…I… just….

 

 

 

 

I found myself reacting as if it were one of those committee meetings I so loath.

Homework.

Been there; done that, for sixteen years, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

Why again, I asked moiself, am I taking this class?  And why am I still typing moiself instead of mi mismo if I am supposedly interested in improving my español?

*   *   *

Department Of That Is So Not The Correct Response

Whilst using the self-checkout line at the local grocery store, the sopping wet bunch of scallions I’d picked up from the store’s why-do-they-spray-the-vegetables-every-five-seconds produce section leaked through my reusable bag. Water dripped all over the scale, and this apparently/somehow obscured the scanning device. I turned to face the clerk’s station which was right behind me, the station manned by the exceedingly tall, dull-eyed, slack-jawed lucky employee whose job it is to oversee the store’s self-checkout lines.

“Hello/Excuse me.” I smiled my best, Affable Customer Needs Assistance ® smile.  “One of my produce bags leaked water all over the scale. I’m unable to scan my last item, and….”

The clerk said, “Okay.”

Okay?

That was it. He said it somewhat expectantly, as if he were waiting for me to finish a not-very-funny joke.

I paused, awaiting the offer of assistance that was not forthcoming. I restated my dilemma, more succinctly the second time, and received a blank stare in response. I tried a third recitation of the situation, this time pointing toward the roll of paper towels at the clerk’s station, paper towels which are there to – wait for it – wipe the scales. [4]  He grabbed the roll, shuffled over to my checkout station and slooooooooooooowly wiped off the scale,[5] all the while shooting me several  Why are you telling me this? glances.

Silly moiself. Why did I tell the guy whose job it is to help the self-checkout stations that I needed  help with a self-checkout station? WTF, dude, I just decided to share this with you because I’m having a lonely night.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Sushi Politics

MH and I had a lovely sushi lunch last Friday, with two administrators (the President/CEO and Chief Development Officer) from the local Planned Parenthood chapter, who wanted to thank MH and I personally for our year end donation, and pick our minds about our history of supporting the organization, etc.

We’ve supported PP [6] at both the local and national level for years, although I removed the national organization from my donation list many years back, [7] a story I got to share with the PP Ladies. And although I am so grateful for the services PP provides to the community, I also shared my disappointment [8] with the decision by the political wing of the National PP organization to break a long-standing tradition of neutrality to endorse a presidential candidate during the primary races.

The PP Prez made an articulate, well-reasoned and passionate case for the national PP board’s endorsement – a decision I found not surprising and certainly understandable in these trying times for supporters of reproductive freedom. Still, I agreed to disagree with the endorsement, in part due to the story I’m about to share with y’all.

Another long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I worked for Planned Parenthood of San Mateo County (CA). One morning at the beginning of my shift, as I walked down the hallway which led from the PP building parking lot through the administrative offices, I was greeted by PPSMC’s vice-president. The Veep was on her way to the employee break room for her morning coffee, and her attention was caught by the button I’d affixed to the strap of my purse:

 

 

Veep flashed me a wicked, I-am-so-going-to-love-this smile and asked,

Do you think I should have a lobotomy?

Gulp.  Uh, no, ma’am.

Turns out PP Veep was a longtime Republican, and as she accompanied me to the clinic wing of the building she treated me to a PP history lesson. She pointed to the pictures of the clinic’s founders and major financial sponsors, pictures which hung in the hallway I’d traversed every day I came to work – pictures I heretofore had given nary a second glance as they all seemed at first glance (to moiself) to be a bunch of “old folks” who looked like they could have been the disgruntled bridge partners of my Aunt Erva.

 

I support your reproductive choices. But if you choose to bid one heart again I’m gonna choose to kick your ass.

 

The majority of the clinic’s founding donors were political conservatives and/or Republicans who, the Veep explained to me, had the highest respect for PP’s mission statement – that the family is the bedrock unit of society; thus, the ability to plan one’s family is a fundamental and most personal decision that should be free of governmental interference – and that that was the true conservative’s position, and anything I’d heard to the contrary was the result of political and religious fanatics hijacking the authentic….

You get the picture.

And I got the button off my purse strap. [9]

My dear and recently departed FIL was a staunch Republican, who made it a point over the years to tell MH and I how he’d consistently (and successfully) fought to procure and maintain the donations to PP from the many charitable foundations on whose boards he’d served. He and my MIL – pro-choice Republicans [10] – might seem to be an endangered species, but I know there are more of them are out there.

Again, I get PP’s decision. The current crop of Republican presidential candidates is particularly dismal, and it’s been a tough political row to hoe for the pro-choice movement.

But, it’s been that way for a loooooong time. Fiscally conservative/socially progressive Republicans who are teetering about their loyalties…I fear the endorsement of Clinton by PP might just be the “nudge” to get those R’s thinking that they have to choose sides once and for all on this issue, and that the fanatics are correct – only those liberals support reproductive freedom.

  *   *   *

Department Of Object Lessons

I follow the blog Epiphenom: The Science of Religion and Non-Belief. The blog came about as per its author’s curiosity regarding…I’ll let him tell you in his own words:

Hi, my name’s Tom Rees I want to know why some people believe in gods, and what the psychological and social consequences of those beliefs are. I read the research, and when I find something juicy I write it up and post it here!
I’ve been blogging on the psychology of religions belief (and non-belief) since 2008 – this blog has its origins in a paper I wrote published in 2009 on the link between personal insecurity and religious belief. I’m a medical writer by profession, and have a PhD in biotechnology.

A recent post on the Epiphenom blog is worth a look for all you Freethinkers, or anyone, no matter how you label yourself, who is concerned re the influence of religion on education.

The world’s first scientific renaissance took place not in Italy, but in the Arab world…
Which makes it all the stranger that modern Islamic nations have such a lamentable record in science. Where did it all go wrong?
(from How Religious Schools Led to the Decline of Arabic Science, Epiphenom, 1-14-16)

As per the following excerpts (from the same post), replace Sunni revival with Evangelical or Conservative Christian…and feel free to shudder away.

And once religious traditionalists took control of the education system, they shut down most lines of scientific inquiry. Not only were there fewer scientific works after the Sunni Revival took hold, but those that were produced in were cited less often – indicating that they had less impact on other scholars….. So, this is a simple case of power and control. Once the Sunnis became dominant, they clamped down on any potential challenges to their authority. And that included rational inquiry – dealing a fatal blow to the region and causing lasting damage that persists to this day.

*   *   *

 

Okay. Enough with the Serious Stuff © .

Department of Morning Surprises

Oh, crap, no!

I espied a suspicious dark blob on the floor by the kitchen table and dropped to my knees for further inspection.

What is it? MH asked cautiously.

We both feared another thinking-outside-the-box incident, for which one of our cats is notorious. Instead it was only (and oddly) the top of a jalapeño – a trimming from the previous night’s dinner – which had somehow escaped from its (intended) journey from the kitchen counter to the compost bin.

MH recoiled reflexively as I dangled the so-relieved-it-is-not-a-cat-turd object in front of his face.

“It’s a jala-poo-ño,” he declared.

 

*   *   *

May your mornings bring only pleasant surprises;
May your requests for assistance bring only appropriate responses;
May you enjoy a realization of freedom that is one of the few unmitigated pleasures of aging (hey, I don’t have to do this thing if I don’t want to!);
and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

[1] Uh, which was then actually the first day of the class.

[2] A simple, vaguely apologetic, Oh, how inconvenient for you, would have sufficed.

[3] And in age-reporting fairness, as per my being the youngest in the other class I’m taking (which I mentioned in last week’s post), I’d estimate I was one of the two oldest in the Spanish class.

[4] I have seen other clerks do this. I have seen, and I have believed that it is possible.

[5] It took three paper towels. That store believes in soaking their scallions, lemme tellya.

[6] Translate: yearly $$ donations.

[7] Due to my dissatisfaction with their non-response to my repeated, reasonable and well-stated concerns re their constant dunning for membership dues. Someone’s yearly membership is not “in desperate need” of renewal eleven months before the expiration date.

[8] I’m pissed off, I believe, is the genteel expression I employed.

[9] I still wore it. Just not to work.

[10] At least, ones willing to be vocal about it.

The Blog Post I’m Not Occupying

July 31, 2015

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Blog Post I’m Not Occupying

Occupy The Antis

No, not the Aunties….

 

Antis, as in, anti-choice protesters. As in, the ones at Portland’s Lovejoy Surgicenter. 

One week ago today, after dropping off her daughter at Audubon Camp, SCM [1] drove past the Lovejoy Clinic on her way back to what was going to be a productive work day at home…until the product turned out to be not what she’d planned. She saw a small but visibly determined group of anti-choice protesters occupying the sidewalks around the clinic entrance, a sight which frosted her butt and prompted her to call moiself.

The possibility of protesting anti-choice protesters was something SCM and I tossed about many months ago, when she’d mentioned that she sometimes saw anti-abortion demonstraters outside the clinic. I had never seen protesters outside of Lovejoy, [2] but told SCM if she ever wanted to offer some spontaneous support to the clinic, I’d be there if I could.

Dateline: last Friday am. My phone rang (??? What? A phone call – no text?), and it was SCM. There were protesters in the sidewalk outside Lovejoy, she was stopping at a nearby office supply store for poster board and Sharpies, and did I want to join her?

Within 35-40 minutes I

–  changed out of my workout clothes [3]
– dismissed my computer reminders (the list of things I was supposed to be doing)
– found sign-substitute paper (alas, no poster board) in my daughter’s art stash
-hastily scribbled three signs
– drove to the corner of NE 25th & Lovejoy.

For the next couple of hours, SCM and I, according to a supportive passerby, “Occupied the protest.”

SCM told me over the phone that two of the protesters were holding signs which read Women Need Support Not Abortion. Therefore, one of my signs had to be

 

 

Our counterprotest was more…fun…than I’d thought it would be.  SCM and I had nice time people-watching and conversing on a variety of subjects, despite the periodic interruptions by the Antis, who just had to try to witness to us, every ten minutes. (Really – they were quite regular. I think they used an egg timer).

The Antis were a small group, totaling maybe seven white bodies: four or five women ranging in age from late twenties to sixties, and two middle-aged men. The men patrolled further up the corner sidewalks and seemed to be keeping “lookout.” The womenfolk took turns holding signs, and one of them playing pointman, trying to engage anyone entering the clinic. [4]

I’d had previous experience with anti-choice protesters, when I worked at three different Planned Parenthood clinics in the [5] Bay Area. Those encounters were sporadic and mostly benign. The Lovejoy Antis were not using the Bat-Shit Crazy Screaming Fundy ® approach;  instead, they followed the glowing smile, “You are beautiful – don’t you know you are beautiful…may I ask you/show you something?” method of chat chumming, and Pointman Woman complimented my posters:

Pointman Woman: “Your signs are so funny!”
Moiself: “And yours are so boring!”

I felt my pulse rate gallop the first time one of the Lovejoy Antis tried to start up a dialog with me. Despite their outward, assertively serene manner, I knew what those people were and are: fanatics who believe they are doing their god’s work by invading other people’s private business. Which makes them crazies, IMHO. And in the  Good Ole U.S.A. , everyone with a pulse – including and especially the crazies – has access to guns.

My pulse, however, quickly realized it had gotten a workout for naught, and returned to normal. Turns out the only weapons the Antis were packing were the verbal and intellectual gaffes with which they shot themselves in their own feet. [6] 

 

҉    Things I Learned While Occupying the Antis    ☼

* The four way stop sign intersection at 25th and Lovejoy is a dicey spot for cyclists and pedestrians. Yo, wealthy NW Portlanders: stop signs mean drivers are supposed to stop, y’all, not cruise through while checking your reflection in the mirror of your Mercedes SL convertibles (admittedly, you who occupied them did look fabulous) or dictating some jive-ass drivel into your burnt orange Blackberrys.

*  It was almost too much fun to watch SCM school the Antis on American religion; i.e., Pilgrim and Puritan and immigrant European (redundant, that) Christian theology and history. We hadn’t planned on speaking with the protesters and did not initiate conversation, but they would make some asinine comment that begged for clarification…and they were not prepared for how incisively intelligent SCM is (and how ignorant they sounded).

* I almost completely underestimated the entertainment value of watching passing automobile riders’ lips move as they tried to read SCM’s and my signs.

* After said lip-readings we received bemused looks and thumbs up, and some rolled down windows and Right on! s – from drivers who showed down and/or stopped long enough at the intersection to read our signs.

 

make that, NOT

 

* We also received a couple of, er, favorite finger salutes, from a couple of male drivers who drove as quickly as they could through the intersection without even glancing at our signs. When I heard a few choice epithets [7] one of the bird-flippers tossed along with his finger, I realized that he and others like him, who probably drive through that intersection regularly, to and from work or whatever,, and didn’t even bother to look at SCM’s and my signs, assumed we were with them  (the Antis).  Thus, the next time I engage in such a venture, for clarity’s sake one of my signs may be a variation of the classic t-shirt message: I’m NOT With Stupid.

* One of SCM’s signs – The Flying Spaghetti Monster Hates Anti-Choicers – was our litmus test of sorts, for identifying the Cool People Who Get It.

 

 

* Okay, the following is not technically a Thing I Learned While Occupying the Antis, in that it is not news to me. Rather, it could go into the category of a sad fact reinforced: people who think they have the Christian god on their side have no qualms about breaking one of their god’s rules about bearing false witness.

SCM and I saw a police officer park his cruiser on the NE corner of Lovejoy. Meanwhile, the spineless lying asshat one of the male patrolling Antis, whom SCM had seen speaking furtively into his cell phone a couple of minutes before the cop car arrived, high-tailed it around the corner as soon as the cop car arrived.

The officer exited his car and approached the clinic. I called out to him, “You’re at the perfect place if you want to do a traffic sting!” and started to tell him about the stop sign scofflaws, while SCM wriggled with excitement and gushed, “It’s not really a protest without the police arriving!” The officer gave us a regretful smile, told us nah on both accounts, and said he wasn’t here about the protest or the traffic, but to check out a call they (presumably the cops) had received. He asked us, rather laconically – as if he already knew the answer but had to go through the motions – if we’d heard anyone yelling for help from inside the building.

Of course we didn’t, because nobody had. “You’ve been set up,” I advised him. Officer Nonchalant tried to stifle a cynical grin from spreading across his face as he entered the building to check things out. He exited the clinic a minute or so later, just as I wondered aloud who had made the false police report. Within a minute of the cop car leaving, the spineless lying asshat the suddenly-disappeared- male-patrolling Anti returned to his post on the sidewalk.

* One of my signs was quite popular with drivers who had children in the car. Not only that, the sign seemed to motivate the female sign-holding Antis to change places on the sidewalk, so as not to be on the pointing side of my sign’s directional arrow. People who think they’ve a sacred obligation to tell other people how to live do not want to stand next to you when you’re holding up a sign that treats them with all the seriousness they deserve:

 

* Yo, anti-choicers: If you’re going to attempt to proselytize you need to know your religion’s basic terminology. I’m not even talking complicated theological constructs, ala transubstantiation or theodicy or Catholic vs. Protestant soteriology. Jesus Christ up the creek without a paddle! – know your basic vocabulary, or shut yer yap.

Examples: When Pointman Woman declared that “we are all sinners,” I asked her to define sin. She ummm-ed and ahhh-ed before throwing the question to one of her older comrades : “It’s kind of…well, how would you explain it?”

 

 

They finally settled on anything that “offends the holiness of god.”

Oh, like my fucking potty mouth?
(from the Department of Things I Almost Said)

During another slow moment on the sidewalk (no clinic patients to pester), Pointman Woman, already tantalized to discover that SCM was a minister’s daughter, asked me what my “faith” was. I offered up Happy Heretic and Avid Apostate, and told her she could use whatever term she found most entertaining. It quickly became apparent – and she admitted, when I asked her – that she didn’t know what either heretic or apostate meant.

Later in the morning another Anti made yet another attempt to engage me with a “May I show you something?” entreaty. She’d already flashed me her (supposed) aborted fetus pamphlet, and she was reaching for a blue velvet lined-jewelry case, which, as I’d seen earlier, contained fetus trinkets laid out in charm bracelet fashion.  I countered with, “May I show you something?” and removed what was intended to be my morning snack – a small baggie of almonds – from my pants pocket.

Moiself: “Would you like to scrutinize my nut sack?”

Anti:      “I don’t understand.” (She looked genuinely confused.) “How does this relate…”

Moiself: “Since you are so interested in policing other people’s bodies I thought you might like to examine an intimate part of mine….”

Anti:      ???

Her expression, to a tee.

 

DANG! A perfectly good pun, wasted on a proselytizing pudding head.

Laaaaady ?!?! You’re standing outside a medical facility trying to tell strangers what to do with their reproductive organs and you don’t know what a nut sack is?

 

 

Every so often, two or three of the Antis women put down their signs and formed a group to murmur, pray, exchange Jell-o salad recipes or whatever. Once, three of them began to sing the hymn Amazing Grace. SCM joined in – and of course, she knew more verses than they did. [8] Not to be outdone, I chimed in with the Mary Tyler Moore Theme song.

 

 

Possibly The Best Answer to a Question, Ever

We stayed until the Antis left, then entered the clinic. The Ladies of Lovejoy got quite the kick out of our signs and expressed their grateful for our support. We chatted with them for several minutes, trading protester stories and shop talk. [9]  As per the latter, one of the clinicians mentioned that the clinic had expanded their services to include male healthcare, and that she “really enjoys” doing vasectomies. I, of course, had to ask her why she found vasectomies so enjoyable. After working with women’s health all day, she replied, “it’s a nice change of scenery.”

*   *   *

After our counter-protest, SCM and I treated ourselves to sushi lunch in the Pearl district. Driving on home from Portland, I passed a guy, apparently hoping to hitch a ride to the coast, standing by one of the freeway entrance ramps, holding up a sign which read

SEASIDE
PLEASE

I caught myself wanting to yell out the window, that’s a boring sign!

*   *   *

May you take the opportunity to express your Anti-Anti convictions,
may your signs always be entertaining,
may you enjoy an occasional change of scenery,
and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

[1] She of the multiple slash identities: friend/attorney/fellow writer/wit and snarkstress extraordinaire….

[2] However, it’s not like I’m in that part of Portland on a regular basis.

[3] No time to shower, but I thought my exercise B.O. could be yet another turnoff for the protesters. As for SCM…she is a most tolerant friend.

[4] Actual in-and-out clinic traffic was quite spotty.

[5] Although the clinics I worked at were rarely picketed, and the picketers hadn’t figured out where the back doors were, where the staff entered.

[6] Let’s just pretend that was a smoother application of the shoot yourself in the foot idiom.

[7] Along the “mind your own !#$*! business you #@&$% asshole fanatics” line.

[8] They got the first two verses, then began to mumble/sing, like when you forget the lyrics and substitute whatever you think rhymes.

[9] A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I worked in women’s reproductive health care, both in a public clinic setting and in a private OB/GYN practice.

The Birds I’m Not Strangling

July 11, 2014

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, Holidays, Isms (religion), politics, school, travel , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Birds I’m Not Strangling

I am, really and truly, trying to keep shiny happy thoughts in my head about our neighborhood’s avian inhabitants. But they start singing outside my bedroom window at 4:10 in the morning, and WTF’s with that, tweetie pie?

♫ I know you’re in there. Get up and feed the cats. ♫

 These Kids Today

Dateline, July 3:  The University of Puget Sound  sent its Class of 2018 students a list of dorm supplies the students need to bring with them.  Belle asks me if I would go with her tomorrow to shop for items on the list.

Moiself:  “Sure. But remember, tomorrow is July 4th.  Have you checked to see if the stores you want to visit are open?”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Belle looks confused.  “It’s not as if it’s a national holiday or anything.”

*   *   *

Total Surprise of the Week
aka, Mum’s the Word

I’m sure you were as shocked – shocked! – as I was to learn that another conservative politician [1] who champions Abstinence-Only “education programs,” and also opposes the ACA’s contraceptive mandate, now has to do the I-supporter-my-daughter-who-will-be-facing-many-challenges tap dance; i.e., the announcement of his 17 year-old (unmarried) daughter’s unplanned pregnancy.

“That, like, so never happens!”

When I worked at Planned Parenthood, some of us snarky experienced clinic worker bees had a term for the Abstinence Only gals. We called them MUMs [2] in the making.

 *   *   *

It’s Still Working

The sound of footsteps at the front door is accompanied by the sound of muffled voices in consultation, followed by the sound of…nothing.  Yet another knock and/or ring of the doorbell was averted.  I can only guess that they, who/whatever they are, saw The Sign.  And they took The Sign as a sign, and did the right thing. [3]

I work out of a home office, and have come to loathe the interruptions from door-to-door salesfolk, proselytizers and petitioners.  Even so, I never wanted to post one of those NO SOLICITING signs by the front doorbell.  This is FAVOR, [4] including

*  such signs seem hostile, or at least unsociable, and I want my neighbors to feel welcome to stop by;

* several friends and neighbors who have posted No Solicitors notices told me that their signs are often unheeded; [5]

*  in My Ideal World ® , such signs should be unnecessary.  Why should I deface my house because some presumptuous blowholes think my family needs their opinions as to which imaginary friend we should worship and/or which political issue we should support?

MH and I vowed that we would not harass our neighbors when it came to underwriting K’s [6] and Belle’s school and extracurricular activities.  I can count on the fingers of one finger the times we allowed either of them to participate in those dreadful fundraising drives.  Suffice to say, we were not the most popular family amongst the school fundraising organizers. I discretely but firmly explained to a series of teachers, administrators and PTA Nazis (make that presidents) that while we while we supported ___ activity (if, indeed, we did support it) and would contribute the expected per child amount for our own child to participate, we would not send our children door to door, imploring our neighbors to purchase toxic-to-pets-and-infants, Go Team USA! made-in-China plastic water bottles and unrecyclable gift wrapping paper to finance the school’s lacrosse team mouth guard fund.

Many other families apparently held no such sentiments. Thus, over the years there were a series of disappointed kiddie solicitors leaving our porch.  We were kind to the children, even as we were irritated to be put in the position of honing our gracious, “Oh, sorry, no thanks” response on wide-eyed eight-year olds. [7]

I wanted to get the point across, firmly and directly, but with humor.  My first solution, several years ago, was in the form of a topical Non Sequitur comic strip.  I was so pleased when I saw it (this is perfect!) I contacted the strip’s syndicating organization and paid the fee to receive a copy of the panel, which I laminated and posted under the doorbell.

The panel has long since been destroyed by the elements. I can’t find a copy of it online (how can this be?!?!?!?), so a description will have to suffice.  It was a single panel comic: a couple of solicitors pause on the sidewalk, outside of a house which has a sign on its front yard gate. The sign, which read something like, “Welcome, we love solicitors! Please, do tell us why your religion is better than ours!” is posted above an iconic coroner’s chalk-mark on the sidewalk that outlines where a body has lain.

After we posted the comic strip sign we let certain families in the neighborhood know of our policy (and the rest, I think, caught on). For families we actually knew/liked/recognized, [8] their children were welcome to pitch us their fundraisers, and we would support the activities if such activities were in line with our interests and values (e.g. nothing in which plastic swag was involved, nothing promoting religion or divisive politics, nothing where money would be funneled through non-legit “charities,” and nothing just plain lame-ass stupid).

As mentioned previously, I work at home, and used to get a lot of visits from the door-to-door crowd.  The comic panel sign worked…but only for about 50% of solicitors. The rest would smile broadly as I opened the door, and would immediately point out that sign and say, “That’s great!” or “That’s really funny/cute!”

To which I would respond, “And you think it doesn’t apply to you, do you?”

Most people would sheepishly and graciously retreat at that point. However, some did not, and would attempt to get in their spiel about how they were not actually selling anything – oh no! – they were giving away good news, for free!  I was surprised by the sheer lack of self-awareness and brass balls persistence of those who believe they have something their gods/political gurus/10,000 Friends of Oregon want them to share to people who have specifically and repeatedly said, no way/go away.

So.  I came up with the following.  The graphics, used with permission (and even encouragement) are the logo for The Brights. The text is my own.  And, it works. [9]

Welcome, friends and neighbors!
All others:  No doorspam, please.

Translation: No soliciting.
Nope, none at all, be it
political, religious, or otherwise.
(Yes, this means you)

*   *   *

The Future Is In Their Hands

This week Belle and five of her high school friends (two boys, three girls) [10] went on their first no-adults overnight trip. [11] They drove up the Columbia Gorge, stopping at Multnomah Falls and Hood River before crossing the Columbia to head for their final destination, a cabin in the mountains belonging to one of the girl’s parents.

Belle was quite conscientious about providing MH and I with Required Parental Details ® , including the names of the cabin owners, [12] the location and phone number of the cabin, the names of the other attendees, their departure and return plans and time frame, and the description of the vehicle they’ll be riding in.  Belle didn’t know the vehicle’s license plate, so when her friends arrived Tuesday morning to pick her up, I went outside to say hello/goodbye/have fun, and wrote down the license number.

Contemporary, non-vanity Oregon driver’s licenses consist of three numbers and three letters. “You’ve got an easy one to remember,” I said to the driver and another passenger, who stood outside the vehicle while Sadie squeezed her duffel bag between back seat passengers.  I pointed to the minivan’s license plate.  “DDE – those are a president’s initials.”

The two girls looked at me blankly, their eyes only lighting up in comprehension when I followed up with, “Eisenhower – Dwight David Eisenhower.  You know, the WWII general; the one with the ‘I like Ike’ campaign slogan?”

“That poor man,” Passenger Girl laughed.  “His parents probably named him Dwight David ’cause they thought, ‘Who could ever make an embarrassing nickname out of that?’, and he ends up being called, ‘Ike.’ ”

*   *   *

 May your nicknames be campaign-worthy and your proselytizers be mock-worthy, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

[1] This time it’s Bill Cassidy, state congressman, Louisiana.

[2] More Unmarried Mothers.

[3] i.e., they left skidmarks as they fled our porch.

[4] For A Variety of Reasons.

[5] The proselytizers say, “Oops, I didn’t see it until I’d already rung the bell….”

[6] Our kids turned out to be like-minded, imagine that. One of the first intentional profanities I heard son K utter had to do with his declaration that he wasn’t going to do any of that “@#!& fundraising #$!?^.”

[7] And had we said yes to a mere fraction of the solicitation the financial outlay would have been substantial.

[8] It’s amazing, how many of the kiddie funraisers were not from our neighborhood, but trucked in from miles away. Yep, I asked if I did not recognize the kids, and yep, they told.

[9] Except in the case of about 4-5 people who have said, as I opened the door, that they were going to leave  when they saw the sign but really wanted to tell me how much “I really love the term ‘doorspam,’ ’cause you know exactly what that means, and I’m leaving now, I promise….”

[10] Revealing the mixed gender makeup of the group prompted a totally unsolicited reassurance, from Belle to her bemused parental units, that there was no kind of romantic interest amongst any of the parties.

[11] They’re all eighteen, so legally adults, but…really. How many adults take Disney animated movies with them to sleepovers?

[12] Who will not be there, as it’s a kids young adults-only vacation.