HOLD THAT THOUGHT

Okay! So yesterday I woke up with a case of laryngitis, and I sounded very much like an unhappy Bullfrog. Since I couldn’t communicate through my nose, and the Good Lord provided me with three other holes in my head, I had no choice but to use two of them for listening, and keep the other one closed until further notice.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “The human voice is the organ of the soul.” Well, Henry tell that to a Trappist Monk. So, for the time being, I had to shut down my voice until I could find a cure for my ailing vocal cords. Not wanting to bother my doctor with silly stuff, I decided to Google the Mayo Clinic website, and see what their physicians recommended.

The Google Mayo doctors informed me that my vocal cords were stressed, and that the best cure was to keep my mouth shut. They also warned that whispering is even worse for the ailment than speaking in a normal voice. Since I don’t own a horse, I found that to be no problem.

Other recommendations were to drink hot fluids and to try steaming my head by sticking it over a sink and inhaling the steam from running hot water. I dismissed that last suggestion. Last month, I used $25.00 worth of water and ended up with a $95.00 water bill that included fees, taxes and a penalty for not using my sewer enough. Don’t ask! I didn’t get that one either, but I am flushing my toilets as fast as I can, which comes much easier after drinking gallons of hot tea.

After drinking my fill of tea with honey and lemon, I decided to skip the lemon and add a shot of whiskey. It didn’t improve my croaking, but it did cheer me up---as did several friends whom I had e-mailed about my predicament. They called and suggested that perhaps I should take my frog act on the road. One friend suggested that faking laryngitis was an inventive way to avoid talking with people you don’t want to talk to.

Vincent Van Gogh made a suggestion that I found not helpful at all. He said, “If you hear a voice within you saying ‘You cannot paint’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. Since the only voice I had was now in me, I remembered another time when I was in grade school and my inner voice had suggested that I wasn’t much of an artist. My teacher confirmed it when she looked at my painting and said, “That is the worst painting I have ever seen.” I suspect that Vincent would have turned his bad ear in her direction.

Life is not fair! Why do I have laryngitis while all those fool politicians keep right on talking? I’m sure that soon both time and whiskey-tea will take care of the problem. In the meantime, in my stead, please lend your voice to a good cause until I’m back in the saddle again.

Esther Blumenfeld---Speak softly and carry a big shtick.

GO OUT AND PLAY

My mother was a firm believer that in the summer, children were meant to neither be seen nor heard.  That meant sending the kids out to play, ordering them to stay out of trouble, and then telling them to come home as soon as it began to get dark. At three years old, my brother was too little to be out on his own, so she tied a long rope to his toddler harness, attached it to the clothesline and let him run around the back yard. Our neighbors did the same thing with their German- Shepherd, so the two of them used to run about having a wonderful time.

However, Mother did get her exercise when the neighborhood fire engine would come directly toward the house. Before it made a turn at the road, Mother would start running when she heard the siren. But, of course, my brother started wailing and the dog started howling way before she could arrive.

I was twelve-years old, and entertaining myself all day posed no problem at all. I was free to roam. Nowadays, my mother would have been reported to Child Protective Services. “The neighbors reported your daughter up in their tree eating green apples and staring at the clouds,”  “Was that your daughter riding her bike to the park on her own?” “Are you aware that your daughter jumped into the swimming hole with her clothes on?” Maybe, it was a lame-brained idea when my friends and I used the railroad tracks as a shortcut to the swimming hole, but I survived since Mother never found out about it.

Of course, Mother warned me not to talk to strangers, but that was difficult while selling lemonade on the corner. The park was only three blocks away, and they offered Kiddy-Camp with arts and crafts, and dramatic arts and metal slides (where you could burn your butt if you wore a skirt) and jungle gyms, and swings that when you pumped your legs hard enough you could fly high and touch the sky. I don’t know what the surface of the playground was made of, but when you fell down, skinned knees were a badge of honor.

When it started to get dark, if I wasn’t home, Mother would whistle for me, and I knew it was time for dinner. If I drank my milk, I was allowed to go back outside in order to catch fireflies in a jar---and then let them go.

In the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family a study is cited that shows that the amount of time mothers spend with their children, between the ages of 3 and 11, has no impact on how the kids turn out—emotionally, academically or behaviorally.  Don’t know if that is true, but if so---Lucky for me!

In this day and age, parents can be punished for letting their children play alone in a park, or letting them climb on play equipment without supervision. I have a neighbor, whose son spends 6 hours a day staring at a computer screen. I don’t know what he does with the other hours, but I’m sure it involves thumbs and a complicated phone. Oh, Yes, he is very safe, and his Mother drives him everywhere. We didn’t have a car, so that wasn’t an option.

Granted, the world can be a scary place. It never was risk free.  And, that is difficult for parents to accept. However, if a child doesn’t have the freedom to roam, and stays home, and figuratively pulls the covers over her head---she just may smother to death without having lived at all.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.”) Steven Wright

A BIG FAT SICILIAN REHAB

My neighbor, Giovanni fell off a stepstool, hurt his knees and cracked his shoulder. The ambulance took him to the hospital. Luckily, nothing was broken, except his pride, but the doctor insisted that he check into a rehabilitation facility for physical therapy.  His wife, Maria suffers from low vision, and is no longer able to drive. The timing of this incident couldn’t have been worse. He fell on   Friday before the beginning of Passover, and then--- Easter Sunday was to follow.

Giovanni’s health insurance provided a few rehab selections, but most of them required a stay in the hospital before admittance. So, since Giovanni had not been hospitalized, he was checked into a highly recommended Jewish rehab facility near their home.

On Saturday morning when the nurse asked Giovanni what he wanted for breakfast, he gestured with his good arm (as only an Italian can) and bellowed with his expressive Sicilian voice, “Eggs and toast, please.” “You can have the eggs, said the nurse, but no toast! It’s Passover, I’ll bring you matzo.” Giovanni, the life-long Catholic was going to have his first “bread of affliction,” which kind of resembles communion wafers without the wine chaser. However, prune juice is a healthy substitute.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Exodus story here’s a quick rundown. When the enslaved Jews escaped their Egyptian taskmasters, there was no time to leaven their bread. To this day Jews all over the world, when celebrating Passover, are stuck with a week of flat bread called matzo.

On Easter Sunday, I drove Maria to the rehab facility, so she and Giovanni could spend the holiday together. Giovanni had told her on the phone about the matzo ball (dumpling) soup, and a kind of matzo pancake with syrup. Her response was, “I guess that means, no ham for Easter.” 

When we walked toward his room, all the way down the hall, we could hear the hockey game on television. Maria shouted, “Turn off the TV! Why have you been playing it so loud?” “Because,” he answered, “the Evangelicals in the next room have been carrying on for hours. I have gotten more Evangelical religion than any one Catholic should have to endure while eating his matzo ball soup.”

Giovanni said, “I don’t know what I have been eating, but thank God for my friends.” I had brought him chocolate truffles, and another friend had smuggled in a pastrami sandwich, and stood guard at the door while Giovanni inhaled it. He then garnered enough strength to lead a wheelchair-rider-revolution about lack of salt and peppershakers in the cafeteria.

A shy, young nurse hesitantly came into the room, and quickly stuck a thermometer into Giovanni’s mouth. She asked, Maria, “Does he shout around the house? He sure yells at all of us.” He of the loud voice, removed the thermometer, and boomed, “I’ve been shouting at her for 63 years.” And, Maria, with a twinkle in her eyes replied, “And that’s why I never wear my hearing aids. Wait until the physical therapist arrives tomorrow. You ain’t heard nothing yet!”

They threw him out after two days.

Esther Blumenfeld  (“It’s not easy being green”) Kermit

TAKE A HIKE

Ellen DeGeneres said, “My grandmother started walking 5 miles a day when she was 60.  She’s 97 now, and we don’t know where the heck she is.” Finding Ellen’s grandma, not-with-standing, U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy has recently issued a prescription for sedentary Americans to “take a walk!”

Driving 5 miles is a piece of cake. However, walking 5 miles takes a bit of stamina. Somehow, the recommendation to walk 10,000 steps a day became a goal of the gullible. Depending on your stride, supposedly 10,000 steps can be achieved on a 5-mile walk. The origins of the 10,000 steps recommendation aren’t scientific. Pedometers sold in Japan in the 1960s were marketed under the name, “Manpo Kei” which translates to “10,000 Steps Meter.”

If it’s any comfort the CDC recommends 150 minutes of moderate activity a day. I know that I can walk at least 2000 steps back and forth to the refrigerator in that amount of time. I take great pleasure in hiking nature trails in the mountains. Of course, there is a difference between hiking and walking.

Hiking means; rocks, dirt, bushes, fresh air, and little gnats that fly up your nose. Hiking up a hill is tedious and slow, but it relaxes the mind when you focus on not brushing up next to a cactus or stepping on a rattlesnake.

Walkers go on concrete, asphalt, gravel and sand. Hikers seek the natural environment. Walkers seek Starbucks. Hikers dress the part with sturdy boots, natural fiber clothes, hats with broad brims and walking sticks. Walkers look like everyone else wearing flip-flops and carrying water bottles. Hikers take essentials to deal with an emergency. Walkers take a house key and plastic bags for dog poop. Some walkers go around and around in shopping malls. They keep walking until the stores open. Then walking can get expensive.

Somnambulism is a form of walking, but people don’t know they are doing it, because they are asleep. One night, when I was on a riverboat, there was a knock on my cabin door at 2 a.m. I asked, “Who is it?” And, from the other side of the door, my cabin mate said, “It’s me.” I opened the door and although she looked awake, the blank expression on her face let me know she was asleep. She said, “There was no one at the desk,” and went back to bed. She didn’t remember any of it the next morning. I don’t know how far she had walked, but I know she wasn’t wet, so she hadn’t been walking on water.

Jogging is an annoying mutation of walking. It is an activity for people who enjoy sweating and pain. P. Jones said, “The trouble with jogging is that by the time you realize you’re not in shape for it, it’s too far to walk back.”

My recommendation for those who walk or hike or even jog is to stop once in awhile, and look behind you. The reason is, because, like everything else in life, you don’t really know where you are going, unless you appreciate where you have been.

Esther Blumenfeld  (“I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me”) Noel Coward.

CHEAPEST FACELIFT IS A SMILE

There’s an old cure for rheumatism: Kill a rattlesnake, skin it, dry it, put the remains in a jug of corn whiskey and then drink it!

I can’t recommend this home remedy, although Israel’s Shulov Institute for Science is looking at the possibility that snake venom with the toxins removed, could become a cure for arthritis. Venom has peptides---a molecule containing amino acids that can turn off pain signals.

People have used home remedies forever. Early American settlers applied urine to outbreaks of acne, and although there is no science to support the pee-on-the-face cure, even Elvis Presley’s mother used urine whenever “The King” had a childhood earache. No wonder he twitched so much.

A doctor once told me to put a drop of vodka in each ear to prevent Swimmer’s Ear.  Now that I am no longer sticking my head under water, I figure a vodka-tonic can do the same thing. No Swimmer’s Ear for me!

I must admit that every time I go to see my excellent doctor, I bring him a new home remedy that I have discovered has worked for me. For instance, for awhile I was getting pain in my legs, and there was seemingly no reason for this phenomenon, until the day I went to buy new hiking shoes and the young salesman said, “Lady, You need a size bigger shoe.” Who knew that old feet keep growing? After I replaced my entire shelf of ill fitting shoes, my wallet shrank and my leg pains disappeared.

The next time I went to see my patient doctor, I showed him my two rubber duckies that light up and squeak when I squeeze them. Squeezing those little ducks, when I go hiking, strengthens my hands and keeps animals as well as fellow hikers at bay.

 I read that putting uncooked rice into a sock, and then heating it in a microwave oven, makes a good heating pad for a sore elbow or shoulder.  I had no regular rice in my cupboard, so I used Rice-A-Roni instead. My heating pad smells delicious!

One time, my father-in-law, the dentist, told me to stick a wet teabag in my mouth. I’m not sure if it was to stem a bit of bleeding from an extracted tooth, or to shut me up since I was chiding him for voting for Richard Nixon.

My greatest home remedy achievement is my “Aches and Pains” topical cream. My doctor told me to get this at a Compounding Pharmacy, but when I saw the ingredients in the cream, I figured, “I can do this.”  So, I got out my mortar and pestle, and ground up some very old heavy duty Ibuprofen, that had been taking up room in my medicine chest for years. I added a slug of Arnica Cream, some Menthol Gel and a pinch of cold cream (just for the heck of it.)  It worked just fine, and my doctor said he was going try to whip up a batch for himself.  

My neighborhood pharmacist told me that I could make a fortune from my “Aches and Pains” cream, since he sells a prescription for a similar concoction for a lot more money than my home remedy costs.

Next time I see my doctor, I am going to tell him to suggest that his patients walk with their shoulders thrust back, instead of hunching forward.  It has to be better than compressing the lungs. And I am going to suggest that his hiking patients get walking sticks. A walking stick is lots of fun to twirl, when no one is looking, and very helpful, unless you toss it into the air and it hits you on the head. 

Then I suggest a bag of frozen peas on the noggin.

Esther Blumenfeld (“The only cure for a real hangover is death”) Robert Benchley