Ten-Finger Exercises

beautiful day for a drive

It was a beautiful day for a drive, or staying home and working in the yard, or about anything else you can think of outside.

My new patient complained that she hadn't been outside her house in a year and it was all her doctor's fault, but I'm not sure if either of those statements was true. The nurse told me I'd really like her, and maybe I'll learn to. Today I thought she was a cantankerous, angry, bossy old lady. She yelled at her caregiver about everything and made little side comments. "I don't know why he didn't turn that TV off sooner. I told him three times." She had told him to turn it off before he left.

Maybe it was a case of seeing myself a little. I know I've said things to make myself sound smarter than someone else, just like that. And I've bragged about some product that I used and wouldn't have any other, for the same reason-- to look savvy. Her beverage of choice, two glasses in the morning and two in the afternoon, is Liebfraumilch; but, she says, since she can't get it around here any more she drinks Blue Nun.

I think I've pretty much grown out of that habit, to need to look smart, but not entirely. I don't do the put-down thing any more, well not very often. Maybe just a little returned one-upsmanship with my husband occasionally. She, on the other hand, had all the exasperated sighs and mutterings down pat, and I didn't find her pleasant or amusing. I wonder why the nurse thought I would?

Speaking of husbandly things, maybe some of you have had versions of the following conversation:

"Do you think we have a picture frame that will fit it?" Bill asks.

"Fit what?"

"I want to print out the picture you took and frame it." He sounds testy by now.

"What picture do you mean?" I haven't a clue.

"The one of me, that I have to give to Josephine."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Weren't you listening? I need that picture for the play!"

Oh, Josephine is a character, and Bill had me take his picture the other night in his admiral's hat, but I thought it was just because he liked the way he looked, or wanted to show it around for publicity for the play, or who knows what. I didn't know it was to be a prop.

That was this morning's interchange. A few weeks ago we had a similar one on a different subject but instead of ending in, "You never listen," or words to that effect, it ended with his loud, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

At that particular time, Bill did an odd thing. In a very nice voice he said, "I think I understand why you talk to me when I can't hear you. You don't pay any attention to the ambient noise." And he gave me some examples of the ambient noise in his room that I should have noticed. Knowing full well that he talks to me from his computer room when I'm doing the laundry, or running the disposal in the sink, I asked if he didn't possibly think he did that too. No, he said. He pays attention to those things.

You can maybe guess how frequently in the past two weeks, instead of running in to where he is to hear what he's saying, I've answered his indecipherable sentences with, "Ambient noise, dear!"