It was one of the most embarrassing things about working at the World Health Organization for an American like me. My knowledge of geography really wasn’t all that hot.
I was pretty good at Europe. I knew that Italy is shaped like a boot, and Switzerland, where I was living, looked like a delicious croissant. Russia and China? No problem. South Africa and Chile — those were easy — they’re at the bottom (and I had been to Chile, so I knew that it was south).
It didn’t help that several countries changed names at the precise moment when I was trying to find them on the map. Yeah, I’m talking to you Burma/Myanmar.
But I’m a pretty quick study. My knowledge of geography grew daily as I had to figure out where the hell everybody was when they went away without me. Today I can proudly say that I, an American citizen, am no longer geographically challenged. I’m so good, I can even find Malawi on a map.
It’s right there at 4:00. Google Image.
So I will admit feeling a wee bit sanctimonious when I learned that the GOP wants to bomb every Arab city including Agrabah. Because I know where it can be found.
Those stupid Republicans! They don’t even know where Agrabah is! They don’t remember their, umm, history. I know that it’s the town from The Arabian Knights. Agrabah, the city of magic is the stuff of fiction, and folk lore and Disney movies.
Agrabah is where Aladin and Jasmin lived. The city they flew over on the magic carpet. Oh and the Genie. He was there too.
My bloggin’ buddy, Bruce Thiesen wrote an interesting piece about the GOP, that made me think that bombing Agrabah isn’t such a bad idea.
I figure, by focusing all our military efforts on Agrabah, we can rewrite Middle Eastern politics and history.
We can shoot fictitious people instead of real flesh and blood ones!
We can carpet bomb the hell out of a magic city instead of ones with bricks and mortar and things like hospitals and schools.
We can demonstrate to the world that we are willing to use the most terrible of weapons if anybody tries anything on us, but without hurting a fly. Or a flying carpet.
Bombing the shit out of Agrabah will satisfy the blood lust of the Right Wing without hurting any real people. The GOP will be happy, the Military-Industrial Complex will get their $$$$$ and nobody gets hurt (well, except the taxpayers). It’s a win-win-win. Lots of wins.
This is how we give peace a chance.
I’m expecting the Nobel Peace Prize for this baby.
Dr. C wiped a tear from her eye, hugged me and laughed as she walked me out of the examination room after my semi-annual tune up the other day.
“I have never had this much fun during a consultation, Elyse,” she said.
I love this doctor, my gastroenterologist. She is bright, listens, figures out the best treatment for me, and incredibly importantly for me, she has a fabulous sense of humor. That’s incredibly rare for a gastroenterologist as I’ve mentioned before.
“I’ve been keeping up with all the research on poop transplants,” I told her.
“Yes! It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”
Even though they aren’t currently being used for IBDs like mine, well, I do keep up with the research. Obviously, you do too. Why else would you be reading this post about poop?
How could I resist this image? I know it’s Canadian and they have single-payer health care and I don’t, but you will admit, it’s funny. Thanks, Google Images. You’re the bomb. Errr…
Did I lose you there?
Our discussion continued down that same hole …
“I read that you have to be very careful who you get one from,” I said, proud of the depth of my knowledge. “I read that if you get one from a grumpy person, or a depressed one, you can take on these traits. Or fat people (thanks, Carrie!)”
“I actually have a patient who had a poop transplant. She had c difficile, and the transplant came from a heavy person. She’s actually gained a lot of weight!”
“I used to think I’d get one from my husband. But he’s kind of a curmudgeon, and he has risks of a couple of other diseases that I don’t want to get.* But mostly it’s the curmudgeon thing. I don’t want to become a crank. Besides, he refuses to laugh at my jokes. Since I’m often the only one laughing, taking his shit might make my career as a humor blogger short-lived.”
“You’ll have to just tell him to keep his shit to himself!” Dr. C said, roaring with laughter. Suddenly she realized, oh shit! I’m talking to a patient!
“‘My doctor says you have to keep your shit to yourself!’ — That’s what I’ll tell him! –Maybe then, he’ll stop leaving his crap all over the kitchen counter!”
Google Image.
“Maybe you have to get your poop transplant from a model — a smart and beautiful one. You don’t want to get your poop transfer from somebody stupid, because we don’t yet know if it can impact your IQ. So you should choose somebody really smart — a scientist might be good.”
I looked over at her. She’s healthy. She’s slender. She’s smart. She has curly hair like mine.
“I want a poop transfer from you!” I announced.
She quieted her laugh for a moment.
Uh-oh, I though. I’ve gone too far.
“You know, that may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
We both roared with laughter.
“Great. Lemme know when they figure out that poop transplants really do work on Crohn’s. I’ll bring the sterile cup.”
Where do you think I found this?
* Nobody can say I don’t protect my husband’s privacy. Ammirite?
***
While this blog was awaiting publication, I found this article in my inbox:
Commensal bacterial living in the gastrointestinal tracts of cockroaches lace the insects’ feces with chemical cues that mediate social behavior, according to a study.
It was a Sunday night in, I think, 1982, and I arrived home from my late night walk with Goliath at the U.S. Capitol grounds. We’d had a lovely walk, on the always safe grounds.
When I got home, my roommate Keily met me at the door.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I responded, thinking she was weird.
“They just reported on the 10 O’Clock News that a bomb went off at the Capitol.”
“Oh!” I responded, and sat down to watch the news.
If I had heard or seen anything, I would have reported it. But in fact, there was nothing unusual about my walk that night. Nothing at all.
Tuesday morning, I headed to the Rayburn House Office Building bright and early to attend a hearing. I was stopped by the guard on my way in. My briefcase and my purse were searched.
36 Hours Later.
Stupidly, I cracked a joke to a security guard who was suddenly actually guarding security.
“Now why did you have to say that?” he said. “Now I really have to look.”
As the days went on, more and more security was added. No longer could I be at two places at once. I (and half of the other twenty-somethings in DC) had long been leaving my briefcase in one hearing with a tape recorder running while my body attended a second one. That became a thing of the past.
Within a very short time, security increased by leaps and bounds. Metal detectors were installed; the life of a low-level lobbyist became more of a pain in the ass than it had been.
Our Congressional Representatives and our Senators were protected, though. For a long time, I thought that was fine.
Until mass shootings became common. And until those very same Congressmen and Senators refused to act to protect people in the US from the danger of random gunfire. Until fealty to the National Rifle Association (the NRA) and keeping their jobs — became more important than the safety of regular people. More important than protecting students in their schools, shoppers in their stores, workers in their offices.
So here’s my idea:
Let’s take down those metal detectors. Stop paying for them to have security guards at every door.
The real world is a dangerous place. And the folks who refuse to make it less so, should not hide behind shields the rest of us don’t have.
* * *
I am not advocating violence against Congress or against anybody. I oppose violence — and I am strongly in favor of sensible gun control laws. But until the folks who make the laws — or in this case, DON’T make the laws — have the same concerns as the rest of us, well, nothing is going to happen.
And in fact, in the 1960s, Governor Ronald Reagan actually repealed open carry laws when Black Panthers led by Huey Newton made the legislators a wee bit nervous.
Since I was a tomboy/ragamuffin hybrid as a kid, nobody called me “Princess.” And the one time I tried to be a princess – the time when I was 4 and dressed up as a princess for Halloween and fell on my face in a Queen-size mud puddle – that pretty much cured me of any princess fantasies I might have had.
But there was one time, one time, when I really did feel like a princess. I felt that like a princess because I stood in an actual ballroom. That’s where princesses hang out, isn’t it?
I looked around the room in wonder. It was, of course, huge. I easily imagined hundreds of beautifully dressed dancers waltzing around the floor. There were floor-to-two-story-high-ceiling windows all along the back of the room, covered in Scarlett O’Hara’s curtains. Thick, heavy green velvet drapes with gold brocade tassels holding them back. And through them, I could see to the sea. Long Island Sound.
This isn’t the actual room, although there are similarities. You see, I had forgotten my cell phone that day in 1965, and couldn’t snap a picture. I had to use Google Images. Thanks, Google!
A balcony surrounded the ballroom on three sides, and it too rose way up. The floor is what I remember most clearly, though: Black and white marble, a massive checkerboard, without a single scuff mark in the entire room.
As was true of all of my childhood adventures (or since it was a princess-thing, perhaps I should call it a fantasy), this one came to me courtesy of my brother, Fred.
You see, Mr. Richardson, the wealthiest amongst our very wealthy neighbors, had invited us to his house. And we were to use the front door! Because we — me and Fred (and our sister Beth) — were heroes. Heroes always use the front door.
Wanna know what happened?
Well, one hot summer day, Beth and I were out in the backyard, when Fred came racing in from the outer limits of our yard, near “the fields.“ The fields was a tract of land owned by Mr. Richardson, located behind our yard. It stretched for several hundred acres. Part of it was meadow, but part of it was made up of small, neatly spaced and impeccably trimmed pine trees.
The Fields Behind My House. I think. Google Image. So really, it could be anywhere.
“Tax haven,” my Dad said, rolling his eyes, when he realized what Mr. R was planting. “A Christmas tree farm.”
Well, yeah. Probably. Whatever.
But Mr. R believed in investing in land, and he bought anything he could. (He was away when our house went up for sale, or according to my Dad, my childhood would have been spent elsewhere. I will always be thankful for that trip of Mr. R’s.)
Anyway, Fred came running in from the fields, shouting “FIRE!” “THERE’S A FIRE IN THE FIELDS!!”
Beth and I didn’t ask any questions, but apparently we rushed into the house, called the fire department, grabbed brooms and blankets and rushed out to where Fred had seen the fire. That’s where the fire department found us. We had contained the fire, and there was very little damage. Without our intervention, well, who knows what might have happened.
So back to the Ballroom.
Mr. Richardson had invited us over to thank us. And he gave us a gift!
“I want to thank you for putting out the fire in my fields. You were very brave, and I am very proud of you both. And as a reward, from now on, for as long as you and your family live in that house,” Mr. R said, “You and your family may take any Christmas tree you want from my field.”*
Before becoming heroes, we had managed to get our Christmas trees for the $2 that Dad bartered with with for as long as we all could remember. But our heroism took us to the upper crust of Christmas trees. Because from that year on my family did, indeed, get our Christmas trees from Mr. R’s field. We chose the biggest and nicest of them all, cut it down, and dragged it home.
But (and you know there’s always a “but” or a “butt” in my stories), it wasn’t strictly Kosher.
You see, not a whole lot of years later, in 1972, Mr. Richardson died. He willed the land to the Audubon Society, and ever since then, the Audubon Society has been selling those very Christmas trees. No mention was made, apparently, in Mr. R’s Last Will and Testament, for heroes who got free Christmas trees. No mention at all. Naturally that didn’t stop us. But we also didn’t mention our prior claim to the Audubon Society.
And there was another issue.
If you guessed that my brother, accidentally started the fire, well, I will simply remind you that the Statute of Limitations is 7 years. We’re way past that. The Statute of Limitations is still 7 years on Christmas tree theft, isn’t it?
* I think there might have been other rewards; at least I hope so. Because I’ve always thought of Mr. R as a really nice guy. After all, he let me be a princess that one time, and, honestly, it was pretty cool even if I was more Cinderella than Snow White. So I don’t want to think he was a skinflint who just gave us kids, who wouldn’t be paying for them anyway, free Christmas trees, for saving them. Then again, it was the 60s. Everybody didn’t get a trophy.
FiftyFourandAHalf 