Ode to Those with Senioritis

It's not a life-threatening, life-alerting, or inoperable state of being, which probably makes the following thoughts silly.  But Senioritis is for real, friends.  And I have a nasty case of it, brought on by today, knowing that 47 of us are in the 4th turn and sprinting (at ludicrous speed) down the final stretch to REAL LIFE again.  "Us" would be my fabulous 46 grad-mates, and I, today starting our final semester on campus before the ceremonial Unleashing of Us Unto Clinicals this coming January.  It's also our last few months together before scattering back to the places we came from, or want to go.  And because I'm a mushball when it comes to certain things, that realization makes me teary.

So, today was Day 1 of this final term, and....now that we can all read each other's body language and exchange thoughts via Willy Wonka-like teleportation.....

An Ode to Those with Senioritis.  It's actually more like a prayer, because I really want "us" to understand the power of senioritis for both good and evil these last few months.  Mainly for good.  Even though I don't get the word "senioritis" since we were taught that "itis" medically indicates inflammation so, having senioritis means we're, what?.....SuperPuft graduate students ready to tear up Forbes Tower and spit it out?  Um....maybe. 

But onto the Ode (humbly)....and thanks to (or forgiveness from) Janis Joplin.....

"Oh Lord, won't you help me, and my forty-six friends?
We're so done with this process, and can't wait for it's end.
We've worked hard for this learning, and so much does depend,
So Lord, won't you help me, and my forty-six friends?

Oh Lord, won't you help us, keep a grip on our minds?
Forbes Tower has done sucked them, during these 80-hour week grinds.
We might need an ass-kick, to so help us remind,
Why we're doing this, not for money, but some joys we will find.

Oh Lord, thanks, you brought us, to something real great
We count on that, really, so we can't negate,
That senioritis, is temporary, and so worth the wait,
For the feeling, we'll be having, sliding into home plate.

Everybody!
Oh Lord, thanks for helping, me and forty-six friends.
We're so done with this process, but we're glad to depend,
On each other, for some laughter, which will help us defend,
Senioritis, and frustration....which will leave come year end!~"
So, bear with me......

Let's prepare this ship for light speed.

Dark Helmet: No, no, no, light speed is too slow.
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed, too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to ludicrous speed.
And, we're gonna be thankful for it all.

The Ballad of Yucca Plucca

The last time I competed in an Olympic-length Milk Dud relay I was nine, named Ima DeFastust, and finished a dissatisfying 5th place.  Even Yucca Plucca finished ahead of me (THAT day).  For the uninitiated, Yucca Plucca was the Romanian athlete persona my middle sister created for herself that day, and the Milk Dud relay was just one of various Summer Olympic events that my sisters, cousins and I created one summer at my grandparents' house.  This side of the family is Irish and Ukrainian and, God love the whole bunch of them for letting us ravage the house and neighborhood to accomodate our nuttiness.

This weekend I realized not much as changed.

We reunited to celebrate my Aunt's 80th birthday and, even without two key factions of the family, proved that nutty family chemistry is just about as timeless as things get.

My 80 year-old aunt?  She can see about as well as a 10-year-old boy swimming underwater with his eyes open, but yesterday, she pulled a Betty White during a very confusing football game and bounced right back.  And that was after her one wine cooler of the year.  The football game itself was epic and full of NCAA violations but, a vision of flying sweat played with a sad little purple football.  And only one injury required homemade sutures and a bandaid.  Success!  Aside from the game, we continued many family customs such as buffet line wrestling and, created many new ones involving Battleship Bingo, bongo drums, and ceiling fans.  All I'll say about that is.........engineers?  They don't sometimes think so fast on their feet.

It wasn't quite Festivus. It was much, much better.

Just replaying the day with my Mom now, I realize it's not what we do when all of us are together that makes such a difference.  It's that we always somehow end up turning a standard-issued activity like a reunion picnic, into many funny little pockets of opportunity for intimacy, or challenge or exploration.  Everyone can expose themselves (not THAT way!) and be appreciated for their singular gifts and inclinations.  Judgement never enters.....that was bounced at the front door.  And the elders can sit back and say, "....would ya look at that?  We DIDN'T screw up!!!" 


No, you didn't screw up.  You allowed a climate where Yucca and Ima and the others could be made and do their thing, who would go on to create Dr. Awesomes and Ian The Destroyers and the others, who will do their thing and....

It could not have been a truer commemoration of we ,and our quirky family chemistry.  Not to be trite (but I will be), it binds us no matter how much time passes between sightings, and welcomes newcomers with abundant laughs, warmth, and love.  And plates and plates of protein.

Uconventional holiness, embodied in four generations.  And I couldn't be more thankful for it.

So Yucca Plucca and comrades?  The next Milk Dud Relay starts in 94 days.

And it is ON.

Girl vs. Men vs. Food

So, you love your family, don't you?  On this thought I'm not really referring to your spouse and children but, to your original family unit....parents, siblings, your extended family....even toothless Great-Aunt Ginny.  I love mine, though everyone has scattered so far that there are cousins I potty-trained with (and, they were BOYS) that I haven't seen in over ten years.  That just doesn't seem right after years of bonding over basement horror movies, fried chicken picnics each summer at Kennywood, sitting at the kiddie tables every blasted get together, and general shared hooligan activities.

But that seems about to change.

Because my Mom's half of the family unit is in town to mark my Aunt's 80th birthday, and to eat bodacious quantities of family reunion-type food.  How do I know this about the food?  Because most of these family member people are men who were once boys who had Paul Bunyan-sized appetites, and could down a plate loaded with 6.7 pounds of Thanksgiving yumminess in under five minutes.  How do I know this?  Because I timed them.  And I never made it to the table to start eating my first plate before they finished their second.  Either I was pathetically slow at the buffet table or they were freakishly fast eaters of mass food quantities.  I, was not slow.  I, never got enough dark meat. 

They totally missed their calling as competitive eaters.

So I've been training for this reunion.  Oh yeh....the girl whose own mother introduces her to eligible men as "my daughter? she eats like a lumberjack"....plans to get my fair share of reunion food bounty and ensure that all children under 18 get theirs, too.  It's a risky strategy I can't share here, just in case competitive eating strategy hackers are creeping on this blog and, you know, then somehow plugging into my cousins' fancy Matrix phones to hijack the plan.

Because this little post, is the center of the universe.  Teasing! 

Truly, all kidding aside, I'm so excited to be with everyone again that I almost can't stand waiting a day to reunite and, hopefully, spark the desire to make certain we actually live as a unit.....even across thousands of miles.  Because there's nothing quite like the connections with people who really know what makes you tick.  And love you anyway.

And who don't mess, with the girl who eats like a lumberjack.

The Truth in the Universe Part 2 (or...why dogs rule)

When I finally grow up, I wanna be a dog.

Used to be that being called a "dog" meant that you were a "good dancer".  Ahem.  You know what I mean....your awesome dance moves made up for whatever was lacking in the physical attractiveness department.  Part of a Seinfield episode defended Tommy Tune, who might not've met match.com's "hunk" requirements but DAMN, he could dance.  Once, my 6th grade crush, Rick Norton, called someone a dog during a ridiculous Metric Olympics on our junior high ballfield.  He wasn't talking to me (of course not!) - I think he meant our To-Remain-Unnamed gym teacher - but after that I spent eons worrying that during Mrs. Creamer's science class, RN would woof every time I bent over a microscope. 

Now that I'm a happy long-time member of the "Science is Sexy" sphere, I don't worry about what Rick Norton thought.

But back to dogs.  I've always been a dog person, which I guess is something like saying "I've always slept on the right side of the bed", or, "I've always rolled the toilet paper from the underside" (fodder for t.p. WAR!).  Anyway, being a dog person definitely comes from my Mom.  Dogs follow her everywhere.  As a girl, a little furball stray followed her home one day and, my Mom being the most adorable creature ever, convinced my Ukrainian grandmother that nothing would be better than to take in a ravenous puppy, name him Nicky, and feed him for the next 12 years.  Later, neighbors' dogs used to follow us during our walks around my old neighborhood.  Just because my Mom is so damn cute.  And probably also because our dog Chips had peed on my shoes.  But whatever....we were absolute dog magnets, and still are.

Now, I have two, adopted from the same shelter.  The oldest is Dog #1 (Snoopy), and he's ten.  His housemate is Reesie.  She's six but she's NOT, Dog #2.  Despite my habit of calling her that.  Lately I've been watching them more closely, partly because I'm not 'working' 70 hour school weeks again til September, and partly because, Snoopy just got bad news from the vet, which has been upsetting to my family and me.  Snoopy doesn't have a clue that he's sick so....sssshhhhhh.  I don't plan on telling him.

Because as I'm typing this he's gathered the disgusting gnarled rawhide leftovers he's stolen from Reesie or, has dug up from the yard where he buried them hmmmrmphhh months ago, and is laying on them, like they're going to hatch and multiply.  So it's happened.  Snoopy's finally eaten enough bird road kill for his DNA to have mutated and..........

It doesn't matter. 

He's having a ball, thinking he's clever for hiding these disgusting bone things from Reesie.  He's having a ball peeing on whatever he wants to (OUTside) because his pee-er works again.  He's having a blast because it's wakeup time and that's when you squeak every toy in the toy pile because......we're awake!.  He's having a blast because food is GOOD and he's good at eating it.  His naps rock, and back-scratching on tree branches rocks, and so does looking for backyard frogs, and so does licking the beer bottles in the neighbors' recycling bins. 

So that's like, a 48-minute snapshot of his day today.  The best 48 minutes of his life, until his new 48 minute clock starts.  Then who knows what'll happen then, but it'll be the BEST. 

Not to oversimplify things or to generalize, but, this is why I think being a dog is so appealing.  It's been written elsewhere and probably more eloquently, but dogs seem to epitomize what the Jesuits call the "eternal now".   They're usually occupied only by where they are, what they're doing, and who they're with at this moment.  They seem to glean everything they need to know about how they're doing, from right now.  And right now they know they're (hopefully) safe, fed, and loved.  If they are momentarily confused or anxious or ignored, those moments pass (not always free of angst), and then they aren't.  If they were mistreated before, they don't hold it against who they're with now.  Really, who knows if they worry about the future but, if they do, they don't let it curb their utter absorption with now's enjoyment, now's learning, now's circumstances.

Their brains may be littler and have less capacity than ours, but I think that's pretty damn smart.


So maybe that's how it should be.  We adopt our dogs, but maybe then we should adopt their "eternal now" minds and trust that right now is good, and full of simple things to relish, and circumstances to teach us or provide us the things we need to move along and experience the next 48 minutes, and the 48 after that.  And unlike dogs, if our circumstances aren't what we hoped they be, then we should fill ourselves with what we've got now as we prepare to change them.  Because we can.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1836 (YEARS before I was in 6th grade), "every moment instructs, and every object: for wisdom is infused in every form". 

Oh.  And, the toilet paper goes UNDER.