Doctor My Eyes

We were having flashbacks this week to the old Twilight Zone episode called, Time Enough at Last.

Henry Bemis (played by Burgess Meredith) is the only survivor of a nuclear apocalypse. He's giddy to find the remains of the local public library. Reading is his passion, and he's never gotten along well with people. He begins to stack books in piles, planning years ahead. Finally, he sits down and sighs, "Now I have all the time in the world to read." He leans over to pick up one of the tomes, and his glasses fall off his head and break.

He's blind without his glasses.

"That's not fair," he moans. "I had all the time I needed."

Avid readers everywhere felt his pain. Mr. Ginley felt it in a more personal way this week, when his eye doctor diagnosed him with a "palsy of the left third nerve." Meaning his left eye works and his right eye works, they just don't play well together.

Meaning he finds it nearly impossible to read. Or watch TV. Or work on the computer. Or walk in a straight line.

The prescription, the doctor said, is time. Give it time. How much? No one can say.

In the meantime, my husband is trying to adjust to his new limitations. That's tough for someone who is surrounded by books in every room of the house.

He's listening to an audio book, but it often makes him sleepy.

Of course, crossword puzzles, which have also been his passion, are out. We've changed our routine in the evenings, so I am reading clues to him, telling him where the answers are positioned, so he can get an idea in his mind of the layout. I really suck at this, by the way, because I'm subconsciously trying to solve the puzzle in my head, so I have a tendency to jump ahead. It's been a learning experience for me, and a lesson in patience.

I'm proud of the fact that he's dealing with all of this so well. My husband is not patient, but he's been extraordinarily so the past week and a half. Hopefully, he will wake up one day soon, and his eyes will be back to normal.

In the meantime, he is keeping his sense of humor. He often quotes me as quoting a line from True Grit, "I call that mighty bold talk for a one-eyed fat man."

We return to the eye doctor on Wednesday. Hopefully, he will have encouraging news.

Cue Joni Mitchell...Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...

Typecasting

Mr. Ginley and I were looking at our grade school report cards the other day.

We came to the conclusion that every kid goes through their school years with some sort of common thread relating to their character.

I always got, "Doesn't participate enough in class." During conferences with my teachers, my parents would always hear laments about what a good student I was, but I would never raise my hand.

There was a reason for this, of course. I did not want to be the brainy kid. And yet, in later school years, when boys would deign to write in my yearbook it was always something like, "to the smart, quiet kid in my Spanish class."

I was painfully shy. Excruciatingly shy. (Go ahead and laugh, it's true.)  Intermittently throughout my school years, I would come out of my shell, but invariably ducked back in again. So participating in class was something I was desperate to avoid. I'd avert my eyes. Stare at the paper on my desk. Slump down in my seat. Anything to not be noticed and called on.

Mr. Ginley had a mixed social life in school. At one point, his report card called him out as being "a good citizen." But in another year, he was castigated for his shenanigans, and his father penned the response, "This will stop at once." (Knowing his dad, and his belt, it probably did, too.)

I imagine we all had labels. The class clown. The slow kid. The cool kid. The geek. The rebel. The jock. The know-it-all. The snob. The teacher's pet. The weirdo. The show-off. The paste-eater.

Fortunately, most of these labels fall away when we grow up.

How many times have we met someone who was a school mate and been amazed at how unlike their school self they had become?

One of my favorite lines from a movie was spoken by John Candy in Uncle Buck. He fills in for his brother at a conference with his niece's school assistant principal. 

In response to her disparaging comments about his niece, he says, "I don't think I want to know a six-year-old who isn't a dreamer or a silly-heart. And I sure don't want to know one who who takes her school career seriously."

Amen, brother.

Pun with Words

"I brought some thyme in for the Pumpkin Party today," Robyn told me on the way out of the ladies' room yesterday. "Stop by and pick up a bunch."

Thyme in a Bottle

"It's the perfect 'thyme' for it," I quipped wittily.

Robyn rolled her eyes. "People have been doing that all day," she said.

I suppose it's a hazard of working with creative folks. On the other hand, I think punnery is pretty universal. Just look at Facebook. The place is crawling with double entendres and such.

By the way, I just learned something. Did you know there's such a thing as a single entendre? That's when the speaker doesn't even bother trying to be cute, he (or she) just says the bawdy thing outright, no cleverness there.

But I digress.

As one might expect, puns go way back. Like 7th Century BC way back. Sanskrit is rife with them. The Roman playwright Plautus employed them liberally. And we all know what a wacky punster Shakespeare was.

Not to digress again, but I do it so well -- Did you know that "nothing" was pronounced "no-ting," as in observing, and that Elizabethans used this word as slang for "vagina," which gives a whole new/old meaning to the title Much Ado About Nothing. (There's some fascinating stuff online on this topic. The Google will point the way if you want to check it out.)

The 1995 O. Henry Pun-Off World Champion, John Pollack, wrote a book called, The Pun Also Rises. I'm adding it to my reading list. I perused excepts, and I'm ready to book.

Before I descend into a pit of bad puns, I'm going to call it a day. Feel free to comment with your favorite pun. Everybody has at least one.

Beware, however, as malapropisms, while also amusing, are a donkey of another color. We'll talk about that at our next "Come to Jesus Party."

It's a discussion for another thyme.

Un-Zipped

When Diane suggested going ziplining as a sisters birthday activity, I was all in. I thought it sounded like fun, zipping along over the treetops at the Wilds, a nature preserve with roaming zebras and giraffes and rhinos and suchlike.

My sister, Denise, showing how it's done

Alas, ziplining isn't for everyone.

Meaning me.

I had a strong suspicion as we went through the training session that this was not something I was going to be able to manage. Everyone was very supportive, encouraging me to give it a try.

But it wasn't until I got to the tower, was attached to the line, and told to go that pure terror set in. I've never experienced anything like it before, a sensation so primal, I believe it must have roots in a past life or in my ancestry somewhere. I forced myself to grab onto the hardware that carried me to the next post. But then, as I drew nearer the post, the terror thing kicked in, and my gut reaction was to brake a little too early. I made a clumsy landing, shaking uncontrollably.

For the next zip, we were told to "cannonball" so that we didn't stall on the line. As if I wasn't already afraid of getting stuck halfway along. I did as instructed, but put on the brakes too soon. The instructor was calling out to me to "pull yourself along like we did in practice." I managed to get myself close enough so he could grab my hand and pull me in.

That's when I bailed, assuring my sisters I'd be perfectly fine waiting for them on solid ground.

Back-up was called, I zipped down the escape line, and was assured by the guide that I'd done the right thing.

"Some people wait too long, and it's not pretty," she said, comforting me.

The day was so beautiful, I just enjoyed sitting outside and communing with the birds, the sky and the trees. 

I was proud of my sisters, who finished the course with flying colors and a certificate and full-color photos to prove it.

Once the bus returned us to the car, we snacked on apples and hit the road, with a stop at a nearby bird sanctuary. Diane and I nabbed our binoculars, and it was fun to practice my birdwatching skills...an activity which would have been much more productive if the birds had shown up. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful, quiet spot.

Back in the car, yours truly navigated (don't laugh), and with the help of the duo in the back seat, we found an Olive Garden. We didn't know when selecting our restaurant that it was homecoming weekend, and OG, apparently, is the go-to place. We got to see lots of teens dressed to the nines.  Afterward, we headed for C-Bus, and based on Denise's recommendation, stopped off for ice cream (okay, it was frozen custard), which is part of the sisters tradition.

As always, it was great spending sister time. They're good company.

Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me what we do. I just think it's cool that we can make time to spend together.

Especially when we all have our feet on the ground!

P.S. A special shout-out to Mr. Ginley who, once again, filled in for me while I was off having my adventures.