Friday 8/17/07

O.K. Kats and Kitties.

Hop aboard the Wayback Machine. Set the dial for the summer of 1955.

The Fullsize Hodges (Mom and Dad) herded the Pintsize Hodges (Dick and me) on a vacation which included Marineland in California.

We got to see a real live halibut, both eyes on one side of his head. It made me want a grilled halibut steak. I knew from Dad just how to cut those steaks...

We got to see dolphins performing circus tricks. We got to see killer whales sashay and look mean. Octopus. Squid. Lobster. Clam. Eel. Shark. Grouper.

The porpoise show was the best. They were smallish porpoises, air-breathing mammals in amongst the gilled, scaled, finned fishes of the sea.

Their attention was riveted on a dead shark, so dead that it sank to the mud on the bottom of the tank. For hours, the porpoises repeatedly swooped down under the shark body, hoisting it on their snouts toward the surface.

We returned several times to watch this strange behavior. Finally, we asked a uniformed attendant what he thought this might be about -- are they just playing with a dead body?

No, the man said. Porpoises breathe, and they think the trouble with the shark is that it isn't breathing. So they are trying to take it to the air.

One of the smart-aleck Scouts in the group (probably Dick) remarked, "Oh, they are trying to resuscitate it." Exactly. Resuscitation.

Webster's New Collegiate says resuscitation means to revive; especially to bring or come back to life or consciousness; said of someone dead or in a faint; to revive a partially asphyxiated person.

If one is dead or in a faint or has choked to the point of being unable to breathe, resuscitation is called for.

Turn off the Wayback Machine, toss off the time-warp dizziness, and proceed in real time . . .

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One day last week we were at Northern Colorado Medical Center when a somber but insistent voice came over the public address system, accompanied by an ominous beep.

"Code Blue," the announcer said. Laura informed me that means someone is in need of resuscitation. (Patient turning Code Blue?)

About that time I heard a staffer explaining to a little old lady patient, "No, sweetheart. 'Code Blue' is different than the 'Blue Light Special.' "

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During the hospital visits we make as church missionaries, we sometimes see a patient wearing a plastic bracelet marked "DNR."

Ostensibly, the person wearing this item consciously intends to pass along the message, "Do Not Resuscitate."

This bothers me.

Supposedly the idea is that a person hospitalized with an incurable condition doesn't necessarily want to be brought back to life time after time.

I can dig it. Say, for example, that whatever my own illness might be finally takes its toll and I stop breathing. That's O.K. with me. I hope I'm ready for my Meeting with Jesus, but still, it's O.K. with me.

Try this fictitious example: Girl Scouts come down the hall in the hospital, giving away pecan sandies. I take one, some of it goes down my Tuesday throat, and I choke.

Code Blue. Oooops. This patient has a DNR bracelet. So I die while everybody looks down at me, smiling. I die because of a nut shard in my Girl Scout Pecan Sandies, a death having nothing to do with my medical condition.

Even though I myself will have given my permission to the staff to let me die while they watch, "somebody else'' still has to decide if it's a cookie crumb in my throat or an actual "E-O-L Issue."

Tell you what. If you see me and I'm Code Blue, slap me sharply on the back, between the shoulder blades. Just in case.

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I've been reading a book about ''modern art'' loaned to me by a friend. I notice it spans the period between 1850 and 1950.

Almost all of the ''art'' in the book is painting. There are some sculptures, but mostly painting, and mostly in oils.

So I got to thinking, do I consider myself an artist? Not particularly. But some of my stuff could be in that book, because I am a painter and I make paintings. There is a definite difference.

A painting made with any medium other than oil is not a painting. It is art. Am I a snob? You betchum, Red Ryder.

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Here's a word for you: Expectorate. It means "to spit." My Grampa Hodge was a Justice of the Peace in Fort Lupton for a time.

I remember him telling how he would "throw the book" at an offender found guilty of public expectoration, spitting on the sidewalk.

Most likely, the laws prohibiting public expectoration are still on the books. Highly unlikely is any conviction for the crime in this century.

It's a very messy, unsightly, unhealthy and thoughtless action. Yet, legal or societal prohibitions against it have all but disappeared.

Watch especially the sloppy young. Hats backwards, sloppy baggy pants at half-mast, you'll often see expectoration -- into the path the youngster is taking. In other words, he gets out of his car, spits ahead of himself, steps in it, and goes into a retail store, sometimes MY retail store.

Where's Grampa when I need him.

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Word of the week: Obsequious. From the Latin, of course, obsequi, to comply with. 1. Excessively willing to serve or obey; overly submissive; fawning. We had an "obsequious" waiter at Cazadores Restaurant. Made the food taste sticky sweet.

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Next week's word: Happenstance.

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What's a ''homeopath?" Well, I'm told it's something other than a guy from your old neighborhood who became a doctor.