Friday 9/14/07

Greetings one and all. Here's this week's offering ! ! !
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I didn't see her lying on top of the door jamb. I'm sure she didn't see me coming. I unlocked the garage door and when I opened it, she fell.
Plop. Right on top of my outstretched hand. She was too surprised to bite me, which was fortunate.
Big, black, shiny, ugly and virulent, she fell again, right at my feet. I saw, in the instant before I stepped on her, the identifying characteristics of the Black Widow. Squish. Danger over.
The back of my hand instantly swelled up and turned bright red. Even though the Widow hadn't pierced the skin, the poison was working like a nicotine patch.
I ran to the garden hose, and got quick relief. (Well, the concept of me "running" to the hose is humorous, but I did do that.) Doctor Death missed me again. Never know, do you?
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You don't believe in evolution? Think about the ice cube tray. First ones I ever saw were clumsy aluminum devices with levers to break the ice into "cubes."
The next generation was "improved" because you got a "permanent" set of trays, color-matched to your new refrigerator. You know, avocado, or custard.
Now, evolution has brought us ice cube trays made of Rubbermaid-something and the cubes break out almost perfectly. Things change. Things evolve. From the universe itself to ice cube trays, evolution rules. Can't argue with that.
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We think we've found me a good physician. It's been a long time, wading through the medical profession one individual at a time, but this latest fellow will be all right. Not hurried, inquisitive, attentive, informed, gentle.
I'm thankful he didn't enter me in the diagnosis sweepstakes -- not yet, anyway. No insert-and-puncture biopsy, no inflate-and-photograph. Not yet. He's deliberate, and I like that.
However, here are words he didn't know: retinoschesis and infantile paralysis. Go figure.
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(Editor's note: The following story is true. You may have read it before, but we think it's worth repeating.)
Of my own volition, I decided to make coconut banana bread. They had a fair price on a nice hairy coconut at Safeway, so I got the bananas to go with it and by and by the bananas began looking rusty enough to serve my needs.
We had a family potluck coming up, and we wanted to take a loaf of "bread" to our friends at the Samaritan Center. It was time to put on my baker’s hat.
You know the drill. Turn the oven on to 350. Grease the pans. Get the Better Homes and Gardens recipe book open to page 71. (I know the recipe by heart, but the book is part of the ritual.)
I took a skewer and poked out the coconut’s "soft" eye. But the milk won’t come out at all when he’s only blinded in one eye. So I got the Big Hammer and tinked on the other eye until we had success.
Once the milk was drained into a glass I picked up the hairy guy and the Big Hammer and went outside to perform the coupe de grace.
These days, in case you hadn’t noticed, Dole brand coconuts are offered with a "convenience groove" around them, to facilitate cracking. I placed my victim on the tree stump I use when a situation calls for concussion.
I held the coconut on the stump, in my left hand, carefully spreading my thumb and forefinger. (You think I’m going to hammer my thumb, don’t you? Wrong. Read on.)
Now, the Big Hammer is an old-fashioned claw hammer with a wooden handle, not good at all for carpentry because the balance is just wrong. But it works for cracking coconuts.
Having spotted the convenience groove, I line it up perpendicularly to myself, aim carefully, and bring the hammer down. Forcefully. Let’s get this done in one swing, right?
Well, the convenience groove works. The nut cracks right along it, following around the hairy little guy exactly as planned. The crack opens up just enough to admit the flesh of my left forefinger.
Then the crack instantly closes up again. Right where the FBI would fingerprint me, the coconut has me in his firm grip.
Ouch. I lift my hand, and suddenly it is as if I have elephantiasis of the finger. I don’t know how much that coconut weighed, but he sure felt heavy hanging his full weight off my tender pink finger.
Do I call for Laura? Run inside? Dial 911? Naw, I’m too tough. So I run around in a little circle, trying to decide what to do, holding the weight of my One-ton Elephantiasis Finger Coconut in my right hand.
The hammer! I’ll use the hammer! Back to the tree stump. Back to the hammer. Crack! It worked and I was free. And except for my pride and the adrenaline coursing through my ever-hardening veins, a quickly forming blood blister was the only damage.
Without further mishap, the coconut banana bread came out fine. Aw, fresh coconut is way better than that dried up fluff from the bakery section. Except perhaps for the hazards of coconut cracking.
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Word of the week: Accident. Latin, from accidens, falling, pluperfect of accidere, to happen. A happening that is not expected, foreseen, or intended. An unfortunate occurrence or mishap; sudden fall, collision usually resulting in physical injury. In law, an unforeseen event that is not anyone's fault.

Next week's word: Euthanasia