Category Archives: Life

The Key Thing

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I lost my keys for a full 24 hours. Ever done that? Yeah, it’s not fun. I re-traced my steps of places I’d been, checked pockets and purses, and accused the cats of hiding them. (They may be cute, but they’re sneaky little buggers too.) Eventually I did find them in one of the purses I had searched multiple times. I have no explanation for why they were there except that the cats took the keys from wherever they hid them and put them in the purse. I knew I shouldn’t have let them watch Gaslight.

Once the crisis was averted, I looked for a deeper meaning behind losing the keys. This is what I do. I always look for deeper, hidden meanings in life’s every day occurrences. I took a lot of media analysis classes as a broadcasting major and we always looked for hidden meanings in commercials, newscasts, you name it. Looking for death masks and naked women in ice cubes in liquor ads wasn’t just a class assignment; it was Friday night entertainment when drinking with friends!

So, I got online and started searching for information on the symbolism of lost keys. Here are some of the tidbits I found:

Losing keys can represent loss of identity or personal power: I lost my job in May rather unexpectedly so, yes, my “9-to-5” identity is no more and it’s an odd feeling. As for personal power, that’s one of those things I always want, but never seem to find… like a healthy relationship. Uh, yeah. Moving on…

Losing keys can represent a loss of security: See job loss above and I’ll raise you dealing with my mother’s major back surgery in January and her recovery, a cat’s major surgery at the same time and hurting my own back. Woo hoo! The bulk of this year has felt like I’m on a 24-hour, 7 day-a-week Tilt-A-Whirl. Hey, little girl on the video. I feel like crying and screaming too. But unlike you, I can make myself a martini.

Losing keys can represent shirking responsibility for yourself: What are you insinuating? I told you the cats took my keys. It wasn’t my fault. Shirking responsibility my as…

As I was saying, I lost keys, I found keys and who really knows the reasons why. It could all have a larger, more cosmic, symbolic meaning or I can just be a pre-occupied 40-something who needs to slow down, watch any movie but Gaslight and enjoy a nice cocktail.

The Ballad of Mole and Yoko

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I have a mole, or family of moles, living under my lawn. Yes, a little guy similar to this one has been busy digging up dirt and piling it on the sidewalk. Gone is the lush, nicely manicured lawn. It has been replaced by patches of dirt. As you may imagine, I’m not happy about this latest development. You see, growing up in San Francisco, we didn’t have a lawn. We had cement. The only greenery was what grew up through the cracks in the cement.

Granted, this lawn is the original one my aunt and uncle put in when they bought the house in 1954, but it’s the principal that matters here. It should be MY choice as to when a new lawn needs to be put in, not some damn mole’s. No matter how cute he is. How do I know he’s cute? Well, I saw him once as I was cursing him and calling him, “That little mole bastard.” I was looking for his little mole holes and aiming the hose nozzle down them when his little head popped up and then back down really quickly. And damn it, he was adorable. So, I put the hose away and went in the house grumbling.

Is it too much to ask that pests be ugly? Rats and cockroaches comply with this rule. A giant Miller moth terrified me in the bathroom the other day. I know he had fangs. I just know it. I like wildlife but I don’t like it in my house, in my yard or under my lawn. Where’s the ideal place for wildlife to be? On my T.V. in a nature documentary.

So, I’m trying to find other ways to make the mole leave. Cursing him, his mother, father and family name hasn’t worked. Getting all Noah’s Ark on his ass and flooding him out hasn’t worked. A neighbor was having the same problem with moles and she bought some device you stick in the lawn that emits sounds underground that drive moles nuts and make them leave. Hmm…I guess that’s why they’ve moved down to my lawn. (Gee. Thanks, neighbor!)

I bought one of these devices but I haven’t put it in yet. I’ve been wondering about what kinds of sounds would drive a mole crazy. I’m envisioning something like the military blaring music at an enemy to weaken their resolve. Didn’t we bombard Manuel Noriega with heavy metal? I imagine prisoners at Gitmo waking up to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” I mean, that song grates on my nerves and I’m not a suspected terrorist.

Can you imagine if this was the sound that the moles were subjected to, over and over and over again? Yoko Ono sounds like some crazed predator who wants to eat little moles for dinner. Hell, if she could break up the Beatles, she can certainly chase my moles away.

MRI Don’t Like This

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I went for an MRI on my back a couple weeks ago and I freaked out. Yes, indeedy. I panicked like the girls I despised in school who would squeal in horror if a ball came near them in gym class. I didn’t scream, but I did ask the tech to let me come out right after being put in. I knew that it was a confined space but it wasn’t until my arms were pressed into my body and I could feel the sides of the tube that I panicked. Luckily, the tech was kind and patient. She gave me some time, a glass of water and promised to crank the air up to help me breathe. So, I took some deep breaths, put in the earplugs, put on the eye mask and laid back down.

Josie, the tech, would talk to me before each test and let me know how long each one would be. I would stammer out, “Oh, okay. Thanks!”, in the cheeriest, calmest voice I could muster. Who was I trying to fool? She had already witnessed my girly freak-out, so re-claiming any cred was futile. Still, I had to do it. There’s something in me that doesn’t like to show others what I’m really feeling. I have lots of suspicions why this is, and that’s a whole other blog post for sure. Let’s just say that making myself vulnerable comes about as easy to me as those word problems we used to get in math class. You know what I’m talking about. Two trains are going in opposite directions? I always went down the wrong track (no pun intended) with these problems. I’d get caught up in the red herrings in the story like the conductor was eating a bologna sandwich. It always pissed me off that x + y never equaled the bologna sandwich.

But I digress. So, during the minutes when Josie wasn’t talking to me, I had to do something with my time to keep from hyperventilating. I tried to do some meditating and focus just on my breathing. That worked a bit but then I worried that I was breathing too deeply. Maybe the deep inhalations would mess up the MRI. Then I started thinking about all the other ways I could mess up the MRI:  involuntary muscle twitching, an itch on my nose, a coughing fit. Obviously, this made me breathe shallower and faster. Not good. So back to deep breaths. Josie told me to imagine I was in Hawaii. Nice thought, but I’m one of maybe two people who have never been to Hawaii. When I think of Hawaii, sure I think of how beautiful it must be. But then I think of humidity, how badly I’d burn, and the stories I’ve heard about flying cockroaches. This brings on more shallow, fast breathing. Okay, cancel Hawaii. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

Before I can find an image that doesn’t contain hacking coughs or flying prehistoric insects, Josie tells me that I’m done. I feel myself sliding out of the chamber of horrors and I’m free. I thank Josie for her kindness and wait for the pictures. I sneak a peek at one of the pictures and I can’t make sense of it. It’s x + y all over again except this time, I’m okay with waiting to find out the answer. But, I do find myself craving a bologna sandwich for the first time in years.