Random musings

Out of the five different patients I took care of these past few weeks, only 1 is probably going to have a normal life span. Two may very well be dead before the year is out. I thought I was leaving the dead and dying and going to work with the living and recovering. Ah, well.







Maybe it's the reason why I've been exploring my spiritual side. (Do we only have a spiritual side? Who was it that said we're not human beings trying to be spiritual, we're spiritual beings trying to be human? 50 points and an organ donor card for the first person to tell me). Anyway, I know Kim talked about this somewhere on her blog, eons ago, but I stumbled across St. John of God this week. Not literally, because as a saint he's in heaven and I think his bones are probably in a church somewhere. St. J of G is the patron saint of nurses, firefighters and bookbinders, if you believe in that sort of thing. He could also be called the patron saint of aimlessly wandering through life until you finally get your s*#t together. That's a little too long to fit on the medallion, but it suits me. I can't say I'm really down with the whole patron saint thing. I keep recalling my best friend and daughter of a Methodist minister in high school who was constantly chiding my Catholic self for worshipping idols. She also used to wear orange on St. Patrick's day. It's amazing she lived to see graduation, but I digress. Anyway, it's nice to find a saint that wasn't gruesomly tortured to death or did fantastic miracles, like levitate or have the stigmata.







Anyhoo, there's nothing wrong with being pierced by arrows or having your breasts sliced off, but old John seems like a more down to earth kind of saint. So I got one of these. Actually, I got the last St. John medallion they had. Like most of my religious leanings, it falls under "can't hurt, might help". Actually, that's a little flippant, even for me, but like poetry and masturbation, I think religious beliefs are something you save for when you're in private. If you want to know what I truly believe, it will require some wine and a long night of talking.

St. John of God

On a lighter note, we finally made it to the beach this week, LM, Pooter and I. We're trying to pull together last minute plans for the 16 year old's B-day bash, so we went on a scouting mission to Ocean County. First of all, what's up with the Seaside Bridge(or whatever it's called)? One side is high enough for boats to pass under, the other side is a draw bridge. Wouldn't it make sense to make BOTH sides high enough for boats to go under? Or do they just like to stop traffic every 5 minutes in the height of Summer? The world may never know. We did find out that Island Beach State Park allows camp fires on the beach and you can stay til midnight as long as someone has a fishing pole. I know this may astound some of my readers in more enlightened areas, but NJ has some really odd beach rules. Like the idea that you have to pay to go on the beach. I was in college before I realized that many parts of the country think this is sacrilege. So, most beaches are swim between the buoys, no campfire, no driving, no dogs allowed kind of places.

Pooter loves the beach. She stood in the surf, tried to catch a few seagulls, which she calls ducks, and did her darndest to dig to China. We came with about 10 pounds of sand attached to us, each. I have also now lost enough weight that for the first time in several summers, my abdomen saw sunlight. Granted, my belly looks more like this:

And less like this:

But one of the great things about being on the far side of 30 is that you really, truly, no longer give a shit.

If only I had that attitude when I had my 19 year old body, I may have conquered the world. Both the world and myself are probably better off for me being young and stupid and now older and (mostly) wiser.

We also found the best bakery, Park Bakery, in Seaside Park. Have you ever had those little Italian cookies, that look like this:

Right? Everybody has. I worked in a bakery when I was in high school and we bought them from a larger bakery. Most small bakeries do that, they don't make them. Hence, they are usually dry, crumbly things. My grandmother used to bake her own, mmmm. Well, Park Bakery makes their own and they are amazing. I had no idea these cookies could taste so good(sorry, Grandma). So the ride home was spent sunburnt and tired, happily munching cookies. I love summer.