RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I lost a good friend yesterday.

He was a good man.  That doesn't seem like a very fitting eulogy for a person like him, but if you took all of the things he was and added them together, that feels like the perfect word to describe him.  He was GOOD.

He was the former Minister of Music at our church, only retired because he was diagnosed last last year with ALS, an asshole of a disease that progressed so quickly that he literally went from having a slight limp around this time last year, to being bed ridden and unable to talk when I saw him two weeks ago.  He had been an amazing musician (playing piano for many years of his life) a loving father of six (four of which were adopted from terrible homes and addict parents, and who all had varying levels of mental illness,) a grandfather of five girls he loved so much, and he was so funny.  We worked together for five years and made each other laugh constantly, which in my opinion, that is one of the greatest gifts you can give another person.We'd talk and confide in each other. We sang with each other a lot. We got each other in a way our other coworkers couldn't, even though he was old enough to be my father.  We were friends. 

I don't have many friends. That probably sounds kind of pathetic to state it so baldly, but it's the truth.  That is why the friends I do have mean so much to me and losing one hurts.  Part of me feels like I don't have the right to be too sad, because he wasn't my father or my brother, and there are so many others who loved him more than I did that my feelings feel selfish, but he was important to me and knowing he's gone is painful. He's the kind of man the world needs more of. I will miss him. Everyone will.

2) Just for the record, I know that my blog has recently seemed a little bleak and I'd like to apologize for that. I know that you don't come here to read sad things or get bummed out.  In fact, I know that you probably want to avoid getting bummed out at all costs. I mean, why deal with other people's unhappiness if you don't have to, right?  Well, I hope you don't decide to avoid my blog for good.  I don't mean to be bleak.  See, the world is beautiful and it has so many wonderful things in it that when the bad things come, it's like a load lands right on my shoulders and I don't feel like I have a place to put it down, except for here.  So, I'm sorry if I've been harshing your buzz, man. Heh. It just feels like there have been a lot of loads lately and I can only hold so much at a time.  Hopefully there will be less of them soon.

3) Actually a funny thing happened to me this morning.  I had to go to the doctor to finish getting my Hep A&B vaccination (the last shot!) and my flu shot.

Let me just pause here and suggest that you get your flu shot, either at your doctor's office or at a pharmacy. Protect yourself and others! (Shut up! I don't want you to be sick! I like you and don't want you to feel bad, OK?  Sue me.)

Anyway, our particular doctor's office makes you show ID and fill out forms every time you go.  I'm not sure why that is, but it's routine for them to hand you a clipboard after you walk in and tell you to fill out a questionnaire that you hand over to the nurse that takes you back.  Usually it's just one form, but today I got handed a stack of them and was told to fill it out and hand it to the nurse that would be giving me my vaccinations.  Well, ok then! The questions on the papers seemed kind of odd, but I thought that because our current doctor is about to leave the practice (thanks, lady) that perhaps we had to fill these out so that we could be placed with a new doctor that would decide who would be their patents due to the forms.  I literally had no idea, but they gave me forms and told me to fill them out, so I did.  Everything on them was fairly routine until I got to the question "Have you fallen in the past year? What caused your fall?"  I didn't answer that, because I was too embarrassed to tell them I was super clumsy.  Then it asked me if I could call for help if I needed to, and if I had weapons in the home, and if I suffered from dizziness.  There was a long list of questions about depression, and even a section labeled "Geriatric Depression."  I thought, what the hell, man!  I'm only 40!  I reasoned that maybe when you turn 40, you get put into some other kind of category, medically, so I filled out that part too.  The last page was the weirdest, because it had a blank space in the middle and said "Draw a clock face with the numbers in the correct places and the hands pointing towards ten after eleven." WTF?  Ok, I can deal with being asked if I'm depressed, and if I'm clumsy, but this seemed like, borderline condescension on their part. I drew the clock, figuring that maybe it was important for some reason. I even added some little curly-qs around the edges and put the hands in perspective, because why not. It wasn't the best I could do, but darnit, they wanted a clock and I gave them a pretty good clock.

When I was finally called back, I handed the clip board to the nurse and he looked confused and said "Did they give you a Medicare form? What? Why?  Oh, my god, did you draw the clock?"  I told him I did and he started laughing.  Apparently the woman behind the desk was new and had given me the Medicare paperwork that was supposed to go to the older gentleman that had checked in after me. The nurse took my paperwork out and showed the other nurses and the desk people and the doctor. It was, up to that point at least, the best thing that happened to him all morning. He even said that I drew the best clock he'd ever seen!

Then he got to give me a shot in the butt, so I got to make his day twice!  Heehee.

4) I hope you're having a great day, by the way!  (Hug)