“Vietnam Reflections” by Lee Teter.
Enjoy today…and remember.
One of my favorite paintings, although I still don’t know what it looks like through dry eyes.
Outside the Baby Bubble
There is no one on this entire planet who could convince me to do this.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Today I learned that my friend of nearly three decades, Carrie Copeland, whom I continue to learn new things about to this day, took this adage to brave new heights, quite literally—and went sky-diving.In other words, she paid $235 to fly two miles above the earth and plummet back down again at 120 miles per hour.
“Enjoy the fantastic view with your feet dangling over 4,000 ft. in the air!” persuades Connecticut Parachutes, Inc. on their website, skydivect.com.
Let me put it to you like this. If someone forced me into a plane at gunpoint, kicked open the door, held the gun to my temple and said, “Refuse to jump, and I pull the trigger. Jump, your trusty parachute will instantly pop open, and you will flutter peacefully to safety, where Ed McMahon will catch you in a trampoline padded with million dollar bills,” I still don’t think I would be able to grow the required set of balls to take the plunge.
(Then again, if one were to see Ed McMahon after skydiving, this would probably not be a good sign.)
I often wonder how many cumulative hours each year people in amusement parks across the country willingly wait in line, fork over their money, and board rides that rocket them hundreds of feet into the air, spin them around or zoom them along rickety tracks looping four hundred feet above the ground, while I’m still mustering the courage to climb aboard the Teacups. Note to my adventurous, thrill-seeking friends: I just don’t understand you.
As a kid, I couldn’t climb a tree, because the panic attacks would set in before the first branch. While ascending escalators, I have to remind myself not to look down. Standing on the second floor of a building, even if I am protected by a six-inch-thick wall of glass, I am dizzily searching for a place to vomit. To me, there is nothing on this planet—and I mean nothing—more terrifying than heights.
If I should die from falling off a bridge, and my death is ruled a suicide, INVESTIGATE. Someone pushed me.
As for you, Carrie, you have been spending nearly thirty years trying to edge me out of my comfort zone. Message received.
Next weekend, I’m following suit by taking Anna out during her scheduled naptime. Now who’s the badass?
This is why I wake up screaming.
You may recall that this week I have been driving a rental, due to Doug’s bad day in the parking lot.
The first time I got into the car was on my way to work. Without taking a moment to familiarize myself with it, I turned the key and drove. Halfway down the street, I realized there was country music spewing from the speakers, and I had no idea how to change the station. (Doug has decided he now likes country, which is grounds for divorce. But I digress.) Teeth gritted, I drove on toward the first traffic light, which would buy me just enough time to figure out the radio.
Every light on the way to work was green. In all my years in the work force, from my first job bagging groceries at Big Y on, this has never happened.
Halfway there, I realized Doug had left the car seat heater on from the night before, and I had no idea how to turn it off. As I fumbled with every button I could find, I wondered what would happen if I crashed a rental car. In that case, I assumed, I’d have to rent a rental for my rental. For the next mile, I pondered the logistics of it all.
With my ass now on fire and country music reverberating in my head, a thought even more horrific than my rental wrapped around a tree popped into my head: what if, in the grisly aftermath, I was wedged within the wreckage, with no way to freely move my arms, helplessly waiting for Life Star—and the radio kept on playing?
I imagined the helicopter landing, paramedics rushing to the scene with their Jaws of Life, yelling over the whir of propellers. “Don’t worry,” they’d shout, as I lie there gasping, lodged in the smoldering vehicle, speakers vomiting with twanging guitars and drawled out tales of lonely waitresses in truck stops, daddies who can’t afford Christmas and cowboys pining away for just one more dance.
“Make it stop…make it stop…” I’d choke, but no one would listen. They’d just keep on trying to pry me out of that car before it spontaneously exploded, oblivious to the real matter at hand.
You people have your nightmares about falling, being chased and showing up at work naked. Let me have mine.
Why do you want to know?
Wondering why the pharmacist always requests my date of birth, address and telephone number whenever creepy-guy-lurking-in-drugstore is staring at the back of my head. Or perhaps it’s the amoxicillin-induced paranoia/delusions of grandeur talking. What are you looking at?