Thursday, November 30, 2006

Ferris Wheel in the Parking Lot

I need to put up Saturday and Sunday of our Minnesota trip on the blog. I've decided to put those up on the Family Blog--you know the address--check it Friday--as I'm trying to figure out just what I want to do with this blog. The first few days, it's a kick to have web-publishing capabilities, but then real life kicks back in and it's hard to stay the course. Add in grading, teaching obligations (they Expect Me to Do Something at the front of the classroom), and a general feeling of exhaustion and it's tough to do more than the minimum. 
 
 
Before Thanksgiving, I was pretty much burned out and at the end of the rope. But that night, after forty-five minutes in traffic coming home, there was a ferris wheel set up in the parking lot across from the Post Office on Chicago Ave. I pulled over, watched it for a while, and thought, okay. Life's not so bad if there's ferris wheel waiting for you. 
 
 I felt I should head to Urgent Care. Oh! the doctor said as he looked in my throat, Oh! Oh! as he checked my ears and promptly wrote me out a slip so I could contribute to Big Pharma's coffers. Tonight we went to the Senior Center to get the flu shots. In one room the Seniors were all in their Christmas party clothes shuffling under a spinning mirrored ball while the singer on the stereo crooned away. In another room, a group was quietly sitting, led in meditation by a saffron-robed monk. Both groups were looking festive. And in the last room, a crew of Nurses-In-Training were waiting by their supply of little round bandages and boxes of syringes. "We get our clinic hours this way" the young girl said. I winced as she jabbed. We stopped by Target on the way home and now the Christmas tree's up in the living room, awaiting some Christmas Magic.

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