We lost our only Spanish-speaking employee a while back, so it was only a matter of time until a young mother called us about her child, having no one around to help her communicate in English. That happened today.

Fortunately, she had a few words of English, I have a few words of Spanish, we got the problem taken care of. At least she seemed to understand what I told her and seemed content with the information I provided.

Like an idiot, I stumbled along that way, instead of zipping over to Babelfish or another good translation website! How dumb is that?!?!?

Well, my excuse is this: there are very very very tight restrictions on 'Net usage at my workplace, so I hardly ever poke around online. It just didn't occur to me...

At least I made the attempt! None of the other girls will even try. They all speak slowly and loudly into the phone when a Spanish-speaker calls, telling him (in English) no one there speaks Spanish, and that he needs to go get someone who speaks English to help him.

So, anyway, just off the top of my head, below are the phrases I use on the telephone all blinking day long every day. It's too much to hope that the other girls might actually try to use it... But at least I'll have it.

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USEFUL SPANISH PHRASES:

Medicaid Card
Tarjeta De Medicaid

Medical insurance
Seguro médico

Linked here to us / Linked to another doctor
Ligado aquí a nosotros / se ligó a otro doctor

Usted llama Medicaid.
You call Medicaid.

The telephone number is on the Medicaid card.
El número de teléfono está en la tarjeta de Medicaid.

Tell them you need to change to Doctor Sal Giuseppi.
Dígalesle necesidad de cambiar al Doctor Sal Giuseppi.

You call the previous doctor.
Usted llama a doctor anterior.

Tell the previous doctor the child needs a referral to see us here.
Diga a doctor anterior las necesidades del niño una remisión de vernos aquí.

Is the child ill?
¿Es el niño enfermo?

My name is ___________. What is your name?
¿Mi nombre es ___________. Cuál es su nombre?

What is your child's name?
¿Cuál es nombre de su niño?
Are you the parent?
¿Es usted el padre / madre?

Does the child have fever?
¿El niño tiene fiebre?

Do you need an appointment time to see the doctor?
¿Usted necesita un rato de la cita de ver al doctor?

How old is the child?
¿Cómo viejo es el niño?

Does the child need vaccinations? Innoculations?
¿El niño necesita vacunaciones? ¿Innoculations?

Does the child need shots for school?
¿El niño necesita los tiros para la escuela?

Your son / my son
Su hijo/mi hijo

Your daughter / my daughter
Su hija/mi hija

Your baby / my baby
Su bebé/mi bebé

I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish.
Estoy apesadumbrado, yo no hablo español.

You must find someone who speaks English to help you call us.
Usted debe encontrar a alguien que hable Inglés para ayudarle a llamarnos.

Fever
Fiebre

Coughing
El toser

Sneezing
Estornudo

Dripping nose
Nariz del goteo

El vomitar

Diarrea

Burn, from fire
Quemadura, del fuego

Burn, from the Sun
Quemadura, del Sol

Burning / stinging / pain during urination
El quemarse/picadura/dolor durante el urination

Bite / Sting from an insect
Erupción Mordedura/picadura de un insecto

Bite from a dog / cat / animal
Muerda de un perro/de un gato/de un animal

Wound
Herida

Injury
Lesión
Bleeding
Sangría

Pain
Dolor

Body parts:
Piezas de cuerpo:

Head
Cabeza

Eyes
Ojos

Ears
Oídos
Nose
Nariz

Mouth
Boca

Lips
Labios

Teeth
Dientes

Gums
Gomas

Tongue
Lengüeta

Throat
Garganta

Tonsils
Amígdalas Pecho/Pecho Parte posteriora

Chest / Breast
Hombro / Brazo

Back
Codo

Piezas femeninas/exterior: labias, vulva
Piezas femeninas/interior: vagina, útero/matriz, cerviz, ovario

Piezas masculinas: pene, escroto, testes

Lungs
Pulmones

Abdomen

Estómago

Intestinos

Digestión

Recto

Anus

Thigh / leg
Muslo / pierna

Knee
Rodilla

calf of the leg
Becerro de la pierna

Ankle
Tobillo

foot
Pie

heel
Talón

toe
Dedo del pie

Dizzy
Mareado

Asma

Respiración de la dificultad

Muy importante

Urgente

Emergencia

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If you spot any problems -- If I used an archaic word, for example -- please reply \& let me know. Thanks!

I'd already dropped off my husband at his job, before dawn. I brought my son to school and tossed my work clothes into the van. I called Grandpa from the road to tell him I was on my way, and I called the lady at my office to whom I report my schedule, to tell her I'd be late.

Then I got to the in-laws' and found Grandma in pain, of course, but coherent and dressed in the Xmas nightshirt and extra-warm fuzzy robe and pretty pink underwear I'd recently given her. (You know how the older generations like to dress up for the doctor. My poor doctors have to be content that I take a bath before I see them, never mind me wearing coordinated clothing when I'm sick.)

So -- off they went to the emergency room, and I trailed along in my vehicle. (Would you believe, even with Grandma's mobility issues, she can climb her little stepstool high up into Grandpa's big diesel truck pretty well, but can only crawl and struggle into my mini-van \"by the hardest\", as my Daddy says?)

I left there, picked up the Spouse, who'd anxiously left the shipyard and started walking down Grand Caillou to meet me, he was so anxious. (He has been sure for the past 20 years that his Mom is hanging by a thread, and he's right, when you consider all her health problems.)

Back we went to the hospital ER, where I saw the cardio people hooking Grandma up to the usual octopus of monitoring wires, and the radiology people wheeling in the portable X-ray machine.

Good-byes all around, me back to work, Spouse out to Bayou Blue to pick up Daughter to feed her lunch, bring me lunch at work, and take Daughter back to stay with Grandma while Spouse \& Grandpa took care of some business.

I got off work at 5, was picked up by the menfolk -- back to the hospital to see Grandma, settle Daughter with her for the night, and Spouse drove Grandpa home to get a decent night's sleep. (Which he only ever does when Grandma's in hospital.) I picked up Spouse -- He and Grandpa were watching the beginnings of the LSU/Ohio game --

Here I am back home at 8 p.m.; Spouse has wandered off somewhere to watch the game; Grandpa is at his house, undoubtedly snoring in the recliner while the game plays; Daughter is with Grandma, helping to ride herd on the hospital staff -- who had, when I was there about 6 p.m., just come to give Grandma a great big dose of insulin but had neglected to feed her all day long. Hmmmm. Well, that's why somebody usually stays with Grandma. She might not speak up for herself about things like that if her pain is distracting her.

I'd already dropped off my husband at his job, before dawn. I brought my son to school and tossed my work clothes into the van. I called Grandpa from the road to tell him I was on my way, and I called the lady at my office to whom I report my schedule, to tell her I'd be late.

Then I got to the in-laws' and found Grandma in pain, of course, but coherent and dressed in the Xmas nightshirt and extra-warm fuzzy robe and pretty pink underwear I'd recently given her. (You know how the older generations like to dress up for the doctor. My poor doctors have to be content that I take a bath before I see them, never mind me wearing coordinated clothing when I'm sick.)

So -- off they went to the emergency room, and I trailed along in my vehicle. (Would you believe, even with Grandma's mobility issues, she can climb her little stepstool high up into Grandpa's big diesel truck pretty well, but can only crawl and struggle into my mini-van \"by the hardest\", as my Daddy says?)

I left there, picked up the Spouse, who'd anxiously left the shipyard and started walking down Grand Caillou to meet me, he was so anxious. (He has been sure for the past 20 years that his Mom is hanging by a thread, and he's right, when you consider all her health problems.)

Back we went to the hospital ER, where I saw the cardio people hooking Grandma up to the usual octopus of monitoring wires, and the radiology people wheeling in the portable X-ray machine.

Good-byes all around, me back to work, Spouse out to Bayou Blue to pick up Daughter to feed her lunch, bring me lunch at work, and take Daughter back to stay with Grandma while Spouse \& Grandpa took care of some business.

I got off work at 5, was picked up by the menfolk -- back to the hospital to see Grandma, settle Daughter with her for the night, and Spouse drove Grandpa home to get a decent night's sleep. (Which he only ever does when Grandma's in hospital.) I picked up Spouse -- He and Grandpa were watching the beginnings of the LSU/Ohio game --

Here I am back home at 8 p.m.; Spouse has wandered off somewhere to watch the game; Grandpa is at his house, undoubtedly snoring in the recliner while the game plays; Daughter is with Grandma, helping to ride herd on the hospital staff -- who had, when I was there about 6 p.m., just come to give Grandma a great big dose of insulin but had neglected to feed her all day long. Hmmmm. Well, that's why somebody usually stays with Grandma. She might not speak up for herself about things like that if her pain is distracting her.

To which I replied,

\"Depends.

Oh, sorry, were you looking for a written-in-stone answer?

There is nothing wrong with the sweet anticipation of something that is supposed to be warm and joyful and pleasant and right.

On the other hand, now --

If you spent all day every day drooling over what you will get to do and what your spouse will get to do, to the point that it drives you into a closet to masturbate 12 times a day, and you lose your job because you are in your closet all day, and you give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome from all that... erm... fun... And then you have to have tendon surgery and you're temporarily disabled and your bills mount up and you fear to bring to your new marriage a mountain of debt so you take your little disability check to the casino and gamble it all away hoping to win enough to pay all your bills off and you stagger out of the casino at dawn on your wedding day having spent your last dime and having no money to pay for cab fare to the church and so have to accept a ride from your gambling companions who are glad to do it but then you have to explain why you arrived at your wedding in the limousine of a drug kingpen accompanied by his Mafia don best buddy and their six outrageously overdressed... ladies... of negotiable virtue... and there's all your family and your spouse's family and all the church people and the preacher and the photographer standing there staring at you with their mouths hanging open as if in a trance and the photographer finally snaps to attention and gets a really good shot of you as you emerge from the limo with the Don and the Kingpen helping you step out and an... escort's... gold feather boa wrapped around your neck and that's the only shot that comes out on your whole wedding day because at that point your underworld friends take offense and beat up the photographer and the preacher tries to intervene and a punch flies astray and accidentally hits him and so your minister stands there marrying you with a great big black eye and a missing tooth and you have to get married in a feather boa and not much else because your smoky whiskey gambling den clothing you wore all the night before was almost all ripped off of you in the free-for-all that developed on the churchhouse steps...

Now, see what evil can happen if you dwell with a little too much drooling on the joys of your approaching marriage bed?

Try to take a lighthanded approach. (Every possible pun intended.)

Read the Song of Solomon. Channel those thoughts into time-tested imagery and keep yer mind out of the gutter. And the casino.

But of course my plan to sort of devote the day to myself went to Hell.

I was gonna style my hair just the way I wanted it, which would have required washing and air-drying and setting and schpritzing and doing all sorts of stuff to it, maybe a total of two hours' work stretched over half the day.

I was gonna paint the toenails and plan the make-up just right, and come up with a sort of decorative henna thing on the backs of my hands and down my face... I was gonna do all kinds of stuff, for myself, it was gonna be MY day from start to finish...

But you know it didn't turn out that way.

The boy needed a trip to the doctor. Not because he was especially sick, but because his stupid school won't believe he was and let him make up the work unless I pay a doctor to see him and tell me to do for him the things I already know he needs done.

The husband called me and actually wanted me to trot all the way across town to being him a doggone fruit peeler for his lunchtime mango.

How dare he. I shoulda told him to gnaw his way through the peeling. I shoulda told them all to be off with themselves.

Hmph.

So, after my final errand pre-Hafla, in the final available half-hour of the day, I threw on several disjointed pieces of costume and about 20 pounds of noisy flashy jewelry, and made up my face rather boringly as I would for any stage play.

I had not arranged anything for my \"props\" -- It was a Basket Dance, and I needed a) a basket and b) something to stuff in it.

I though about sticking Earl the Tomcat in it but I doubted he'd stay. So I just grabbed some silk flowers I'd had languishing in the van since Mama's funeral, tossed them in there, and off we went.

Us beginner types had a lot of fun and seemed to pull off our dance well.

The \"performance troupe\" (more advanced dancers and instructors) had a couple of dances, one more traditional, and one avant-gard thing, set to some scary industrial-construction-site music -- both were beautiful.

Of course none of MY guests took any photos... not even with their cell phones, dang it. But I should have access to some other photos and certainly anything that gets put up on the group's website.

(Gaaaaawd, I hate MySpace... I hope there's more available soon than the cutsie little MySpace site that Happy Shimmies had before their recent re-organization...)

Will definitely share piccies when I get my hands on some.

And of course you know I didn't get to rest on any laurels or anything. Hubby loaded me and the boy into the van and off we went to get some groceries he needed, jingling and jangling with every switch of hip and flash of half-exposed phosphorescent belly. Thank goodness this is South Louisiana; there's always some sort of costumed event going on, so I wasn't especially noticed.

Grandma Carolyn is doing very well. That cut across her forehead was bone deep; the staples are out now, and all the swelling around forehead and eyes, etc., gone down days ago.

You can tell how big a flap it was, cut loose, though. No doubt that would have been hanging over her eyes if she'd not been pressing the wound up and closed when I saw her that night.

She sits in her wheelchair a lot. That's probably a good thing. She doesn't enjoy her new stand-up recliner very much -- you've seen the commercials for those on TV -- not that she doesn't enjoy the way it would help her up if she needed it, but the chair itself is rather firmly cushioned. Not all broken-down and with hollows and lumps in all the right places to feel comfortable to her, like her old chair. (Grandpa gleefully got rid of the old chair -- which was, really, a love seat. Next on his agenda is that tatty old sofa...)

Things are working to eventually have the in-laws sell or donate or sign over -- however is easiest, best, quickest to do it -- the house to Mike. That's Grandpa's hard work, and Grandma \& Grandpa's life together, that bought and paid off the mortgage on that little house, and the Spouse is their only child. All those half-brothers from Ma's first marriage would each get an interest in the house if she and Grandpa died, however. Hubby would get Grandpa's half-interest plus an additional fractional interest just like all his half-brothers, as the inheritors of Grandma's half. So, Hubby would be in majority control -- but would still need all those brothers, and all the offspring of the deceased brothers, to agree and sign off to accept their portion of the money if Mike wanted to sell the house, or forgo interest in ownership and let him alone.

He'd rather abandon his interest in the house altogether, than to wrangle over the details with any of those relatives, some of whom have had significant drug and alcohol abuse problems, and some of whom are \"long lost\", nowhere to be found.

And frankly, although I understand the reasons behind community property laws and inheritance laws the way they are here in Louisiana, in a case like this they sure are a pain in the bee-hind, and not especially fair. So I am glad that the in-laws approached their son and me about buying the house.

Also about moving into it. It needs major cosmetic renovation, and some practical remodeling. Grandpa, for example, wants to cannibalize a closet, a hallway, some unused space in the utility room, to make two full baths out of the 1.5 baths the house has now. Also, he'd like to get rid of the bathtub and have a walk-in shower, or even one of those walk-in bathtubs with a little door, have you seen those advertised?

I really really really do not enjoy a consolidated household. We lived with them a couple of different times over the years, as a very young newly wed couple, and when the kids were in their middle-school years. I couldn't take it. Well, I did take it, but I didn't like it much. Hubby finally had enough of it, and we moved out.

Nothing to do with them. They are great people. Couldn't ask for better in-laws or more supportive grandparents for the little ones. It's just the consolidation of households, I guess, being irritating. Lack of privacy. The amazing little things that get so irritating that you want to scream. Like the 5,000 decibel level Grandma seems to enjoy TV at.

I don't want to blend the households, to move in there again, until the remodeling is done and over with. And neither my Spouse nor his parents wants us to sink a lot of money into remodeling until our control of the future of the house is cemented -- not until Hubby owns it!

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November 2, 2007:

Louisiana is not only a community property state, but because of the roots our laws have in the Napoleonic Code (IMO that's why anyway) -- even if the in-laws tried to arrange a will to leave the house only and completely to Hubby, it would either be easily overturned, or at least it would have lots of ways to contest it and tie things up in a wrangly probate for years. They already have a basic will; that isn't gonna be enough.

All Heck could break loose if some one or more of the potential inheritors wanted to contest it -- and who knows how some of those wacky folk might react?

Even if they none of them wanted any interest, it would still take all sorts of hunting down of heirs and advertising for the long-lost ones and waiting waiting waiting to be able to tie up ownership tight and un-contestable.

And, if I am gonna move in there and take over the burdens and bills of that household and help with Grandma (she fell AGAIN this morning - only a bruised knee this time, but she panicked so badly she had to take nitroglycerin) --

If I am gonna do that, there HAS to be at least some basic remodeling done. It ought to have been done anyway, long ago, but they are very independent people, especially Grandma, and used to freak out and have a fit if you went over and tried to help around the place -- couldn't even throw out 20 year old phone books without a major hissy.

And while we would undertake the effort and expense for the in-laws, even if we were not planning to live there or own it or anything -- if that's all that was needed -- I still have no desire at all to undertake the effort and expense to do it up right, only to have Grandma keel over in 6 months for example, just as I finish sinking thousands into the property -- and then I'd have the newly refurbished house lying there in the water waiting for the sharks to circle in for their share.

In other words, we need to arrange things as the in-laws would like -- it's their suggestion -- and as we would like, all four of us --

1. Hubby needs sole ownership (well, by default, I guess I'd own it too.)

2. It needs to be done in such a way that we don't buy it -- we don't have the cash to make a fair price, and the condition it's in right now would not attract a good mortgage. So if we did purchase it it would be for a token amount. Actually, we'd be buying it with our agreement to take it off in-laws' hands and to remodel and live there and help take care of Grandma, all stuff we have a hand in anyway -- but Hubby owning the place would help to make it a break-even deal, or at least not too much of a financial loss.

3. The house needs to be owned -- whether by Grandpa solely, because Grandma transfers her half-interest to him -- or by Hubby -- in such a way, with such timing, and by such an arrangement of donation or gift or purchase, whatever -- However it's done -- It needs to be done in such a way that the action would a) guarantee Grandma and Grandpa could live there; and b) would not interfere with the Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security aspects of their income \& health care, should either need to be transfered into a nursing home.

I got my cousin the \"domestic lawyer\" to recommend her best choice of a real estate practice in town to get advice from. I will be calling them this afternoon.

What time is it --

\<\<stares bleary-eyed at the clock upper right screen, girl, yer memory's toast...\>\>

Aaaagh, after 1 a.m.

Just got home from the hospital. Grandma (mom-in-law) fell again.

This is nothing new -- I've probably told y'all before, she makes an almost weekly event out of a spectacular fall. Only the grace of God and cast-iron dairy-loving bones have saved her from the sadly too-common scenario re: the elderly and their decline to death after fracturing a pelvis...

Anyway, last week she fell and cut her head, managed to give herself a fancy black eye and a terribly squeam-making bloody temple. She hasn't been one to hurt her head in her falls; usually if she has anything besides terribly sore muscles it's been a bruised hip, thigh, forearm, etc.

Tonight she did it again but did it up proper this time. Grandpa called, said Grandma had darn near scalped herself, and he couldn't handle Grandma alone. Moving her when she's fallen, if it's one of those times when she cannot provide any effort herself, is like trying to move a 200-pound sack of Jell-O.

I bet he tried me first but I'd left my phone at home. He reached Hubby's phone as we sat over a very late diner dinner -- so we paid the bill for our half-eaten meal, and burned rubber out of there.

Got to their house, trundled Grandma and her forehead-wide bone-deep blood-fountaining injury to the van in her wheelchair, and took off.

I think the Spouse secretly wants to be an ambulance driver. 25 years ago one of our children was born after a wild ride with him out to that hospital. He flipped on the hazard blinkers and took off the same way tonight.

Totally ignored the Sheriff's Deputy he whizzed past... When the perturbed officer drove up alongside us, out the window flew his arm, signaling the cop to come with us to the hospital, and forth went his football-field bellow: \"My mother fell and gashed her head open. I'm taking her to the hospital.\"

Then off he went, rolling through stop signs and stoplights, at least 10 and sometimes 30 or 40 miles an hour over the speed limit.

And the deputy meekly followed along in our wake.

Meanwhile little round-dumpling Grandma is in the middle row of van seats with me, trying desperately to keep sitting upright. No such luck of course, even with me there to try to support her. By the time we reached the ambulance bay at Emergency, she was hanging half off the seat, poor heart, and I was all over blood.

What luck I was wearing a blood red outfit tonight.

We roared up to the entrance -- Hubby runs in, out he comes with our church-mate Cynthia, who works as an ER aide. We see her more often, bringing Grandma there, than we do at church!

The deputy meanwhile had followed in -- perhaps his presence explained the quick return of Cynthia with the wheelchair, 'cause all too often I've seen battered bloody people sitting around the waiting area for the paperwork process.

Either that, of they simply don't allow bleeding people to stagger around like they used to, due to today's list of bloodbourne pathogens.

Got Ma settled in, with Dad, in an ER exam room; gritted my teeth through the intake nurse asking all the same lame questions they have to ask when you come in. (Why the hell they cannot simply send to Medical Records 50 feet down the hallway for some of that info I dunno...)

I imagine they'll have her for hours and hours, into tomorrow evening maybe -- they'll likely want a CAT scan.

And if they pull the usual lunacy of not listening to the family members present, they will probably try to sedate claustrophobic Grandma with whatever that drug was that drove her psychotic last time.

Heh. Good luck getting a decent scan, people.

I told Grandma that she should get a price list for popular procedures out of that plastic surgeon when s/he comes to sew up her forehead. Not for herself -- for me and my wrinkles.

So -- I have all the towels we threw into the van, and my clothes, and Grandma's nightgown, etc., in a cold wash right now.

Off to bed I'll be going -- by the time I get done it might be 2:30 a.m. -- and I need to be up by 5 a.m. because I'm an election commissioner and we need to be at the polls at 5:30.

I might get a real life one day.

I've taken up my fascinating belly dancing again, after a summer break. A class is only an hour long, but the whole time is spent, between warmup and cooldown, on the dance moves. One single class produces a noticeable tightening/toning of even my middle-aged middle.

Yes, of course, I could do the same movements at home alone... but you know I won't. I need the discipline of a class.

Even the simple fact that one's arms should never, ever flop, lax, makes for a workout. And thinking all the time of something graceful and pretty to do with the hands is a killer for me. After some time I hope it will become second nature and I'll do it without thinking.

Of course, IMO, it beats straightforward aerobics all to heck, because you don't usually get to wear sequins, bells, feathers and beads in an aerobics class. Unless maybe Richard Simmons leads it.

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One thing I enjoy about it, or at least about my particular class format, is the total acceptance of the body we are taught.

Not that we don't need to try to be healthy and fit. And certainly not meaning we have to be 100% natural -- some of us have had breast augmentation! But there's a heavy emphasis on living in your own body, being happy in your own skin, developing flexibility and awareness about what your body can do. I like that.

And if I had any worry about the blinding glare of my fishbelly white belly, well, if I did dress up in a \"nice\" costume for purposes of performance, it would at least have the netting, like one of my instructors did in this video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfl0WmPrfm0

Limit the neon glow of it, you know?

Meanwhile, in the ratty fun costumes I put together for class use, colors battle and odd sparkly things clash and jingle, and the belly is right out there for all to see. Que sera sera.

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The dancing lessons I took as a child quickly bored me. I had no real interest in drill teams or dance squads or cheerleading, as my sisters did. I was more weightlifting and track.

But there was something about the emphasis on the... innocently sensual? That is, innocent in the sense that you're not up there performing virtual sexual intercourse, as with some forms of dance! Rather, you're more like being thrilled with your own femininity and joyfully inviting everyone else to enjoy it too.

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Monday night is \"Happy Shimmies\" night. That's the name of my dance class/group. What a workout that class is! I am always wrung out when I leave (in a good way).

If I've had a hard day, when I walk into the health club I'm a bit slow and heavy in my steps. If I've had a good day, I might be a bit perkier and with a more bouncy athletic step.

When I leave the place, though, after an hour of drops and pops and isolating muscles I didn't know I had -- I glide. The back is straight, the head is high on an elegantly-held neck, the shoulders are back, The Girls are in Battleship Position, the hips have a sort of sway, rippling the filmy skirts I usually wear to dance.

When I got there in the evening, ladies from the Body Pump class (immediately previous to the belly dance classes, same studio) were leaving. The instructor and her friend made admiring noises about all us bellydancers coming in after them.

That particular instructor has been on TV exercise shows, and always leads the crowd in a warm-up before big charity walks and runs. I've been led by her at these events, and have always thoroughly admired her intensity and dedication to spreading the fitness bug.

She's so fit, her hair has muscles. And yet there she was, displaying interest in a decidedly softer-looking bunch and their seemingly less strenuous workout. I'm not sure if that was just a display of \"comrades in fitness\" thinking, or if she really truly has an admiration for the intensely feminine discipline of belly dancing. Probably the latter -- you wouldn't think belly dancing would do a lot for your thighs! It's the soft-kneed, butt-tucked stance. You don't realize how often, how much, you go through life with your knees pretty much locked, your legs perfectly straight, until you have to spend over an hour keeping the knees just a tiny bit bent. Ouch!

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Belly dancing, depending upon the verve with which you approach it and the steadiness with which you rehearse on your own, will tone up every muscle you've got. Fingers, toes, abs, neck, whatever.

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I speak American English and a little Old French, 'Cajun, you know.

I have no idea what the lyrics are in the music I hear at that belly dancing class.

I've heard a lot of \"Krishna\". Let us hope the singer was being nice to Krishna.

There is one English song, lots of dark minor tones and bongo drums, \"black is the color of my true love's heart\", the lady moans...

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Unfortunately, I have to participate in this class in front of mirror walls on two sides. That's OK... I long ago have gotten used to how funny I look. At least that helps me keep up the perpetual smile one is supposed to maintain in performance!

Speaking of \"funny\", I wonder if the instructors would allow me to work out a sort of comedy dance? Standard moves, of course, and needing just as much rehearsal etc. as \"real\" choreography -- but taking advantage of the happy silly appearance of a squatty little grandmother daring to enjoy herself so...

Accepted a position as a trainee with a very very small, private, family-owned company, to be taught how to use a console that looks like an Original Star Trek (LP/vinyl) record player. I was to trace the zigzag inkmarks on circular charts that would come to me from natural gas pipeline gauges, thus providing the companies involved with info. re: flow rates, etc.

(This could probably be done by machines altogether. Boss lady mentioned a few times how she'd written the Excell program for the monthly statements herself, so I felt like asking her why she didn't buckle down and write a computer program to read the charts.

I'm not sure why there is still the human element so intertwined. I wasn't arguing, though -- it was a job.)

A little less than my optimum pay range, but then there were other perks and plans for re-evaluation and raises later on after I was trained. The lady I was coming in to replace was to train me.

This woman is the close friend and savior-of-the-owner. Within a few weeks' time a couple years back, Owner had gone thru the turmoil of sudden widowhood, almost losing her business in the inheritance wrangle with the stepsons.

And Hurricane Katrina hit, wiping out some sources of the company's business, followed one month later by Hurricane Rita, which wiped out more.

And somewhere in the mix the trainer-lady had also lost her husband after a long illness.

So the business owner and her daughter had their business saved from destruction by fellow widow Trainer Lady jumping in and joining them in the long slog of 18-hour days it took to save the business and help their clients survive. (Even now, two years on, Trainer Lady usually gets to work one or even two hours early, and occasionally works on a weekend, with no extra compensation.)

And I'm supposed to be dropped into that dynamic and survive? Eh, didn't bother me, I am a cocky thing. I went, jumped right in. Seemed to fit in OK.

(Or maybe not. The days seemed filled with employees dashing hilarious emails back and forth to each others' offices, and oooh-ing and aahh-ing over each others' catalog purchases as they were delivered. How hilarious that I, a participant in various 'Net-forums and a bloggish person, stood back all business-like while the others Internetted themselves into a giggle-fest.

And I appreciated any humor they shared with me, and I thought their new shoes / new dress / orders of fresh produce were lovely -- I did not exude any surprise or disapproval, because I might have been surprised but I certainly did not disapprove. Small family businesses are like that, I guess.)

(And what was it with the constant references to race race race color color color around there? I was informed before I was ever hired that the only other serious candidate was a Black girl. What that had to do with anything I don't know. If the Boss Lady's reasons for choosing me over her were legit, then she might have shared them with me without any reference to race at all.

They seemed like such nice people. I found out that they give to at least one race-related charity, while I was there -- but these little ladies went all nervine when Black people walked in, and almost daily there was some sort of \"I'm not prejudiced, but...\" type comment in the conversational mix. Not to mention that they made sure I knew where the handgun was kept.)

Yesterday afternoon the boss lady asks the trainer lady to do an evaluation on me. I was not aware that there would be a (supposedly) two-week evaluation. I wonder if the people at the State-connected office where Boss Lady found me knew that? Standard around here is a 90-day probationary period, or at least 30.

So -- after 13 days, only perhaps 5 of them real working days having much of my particular techical/artistic task involved (cyclical nature of the information arriving) -- and the work I did get to do, I wasn't allowed to do without trainer lady hovering and clucking and twitching the whole while I was in her files and using her machine -- stating verbally all the while that she did not mean to hang over my shoulder --

I was informed that I had not picked up all the nuances of the position. The complaint seemed to amount to (a) me not touching the exact same paperwork in the exact same order as Trainer Lady, and (b)... um... well, there really wasn't anything else. That was it.

A list I had never been shown listed all the duties I had been doing, with little checkmarks of disapproval from the trainer lady because, apparently, I would put my hands on Date Stamper A before I touched Index File Card B.

I assumed that meant I was to be \"let go\". (Did not bother me a bit, not one twinge of regret. I felt I'd been freed. That must be some kind of sign...)

But then owner lady and trainer lady got to discussing things, and it began to dawn upon them that they'd have insufficient coverage in the office without me, as trainer lady runs off on holiday next week and again next month.

Hee hee hee. I almost did it -- I almost shook hands all around and said, \"See ya!\" But, no, I offered to stick around at least another week to help out.

I had been turning down interview requests from other companies since I started there. (Of course, that's how you make some of these recruiters take an interest in you, go take another job. It's like making it rain by washing your car or scheduling a picnic.)

So, now, in my final week, I will openly take all such calls that may come in and go ahead and schedule interviews during my lunch hour, after work, the next week, etc.

Let us hope said calls do continue to come in!

She was hospitalized for most of three days, the middle one off at a New Orleans hospital, to see neurologists. There, for something like six hours, my husband had to literally hold her down.

This sweet little Pillsbury Dough Grandma, this angelic pray-er for people, this example of gentle Christian forbearance, spent six solid hours biting her son, punching her son, trying to use parental authority to send him away.

She was recovering already from the visible manifestations of her stroke/TIA, but perhaps her mental clarity (or lack of it) was still a factor. When the docs gave her a sedative to calm her thrashing about (which was mostly her usual \"restless leg syndrome\"), so they could get a good result from the MRI they needed, it worked very well, knocked her right out, put her right down -- for about 45 seconds.

At that point she woke up in the \"cave\", the tunnel of the MRI equipment, and went totally bat-poop.

Hubby had *told* them she was claustrophobic.

So he spent the next several hours stopping her from slithering off her bed. (Well, there were rails, I'm sure, so she'd have a hard time getting to the floor foot-first. She'd more likely have hung her legs up in the rails and dived head-first to the floor.) She falls weekly at least, and cannot walk without her walker. Only her well-padded frame, her lifelong love affair with calcium-rich dairy products, and the Lord have kept her 86-year-old bones intact.

They popped a chest-harness restraint on her at first, thinking logically that to restrain her arms and legs would upset her. Well, yeah, it would -- and it did, when they had to go ahead and do that. She had slithered right out of the simple chest harness.

She'd fuss and fight and struggle until exhaustion would claim her -- she'd drop off to sleep in the midst of a sentence, sleep for perhaps a minute, maybe two -- then she'd be right back at it.

Grandpa was there, and my daughter, and I am sure they'd have done whatever was necessary if they'd not had my husband there -- but he took the abuse, being the largest and strongest and most stubborn one present.

Well, the largest and strongest anyway. Grandma, temporarily demented and maybe even psychotic, was the most stubborn.