Jorge 的个人资料Medico Musings照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
|
12月26日 Thank you for your e-mailsChristmas has come and gone, and hopefully all of you have survived the caloric indulgences along with the stresses holidays can bring. We enjoyed our Christmas dinner with family and friends. At last count, no one in attendance had succumbed to my cooking, no harsh words were uttered, and everyone seems to have found their cars, so we successfully navigated yet another holiday gala. True, our singing left a bit to be desired, not so much in volume as in tonal quality, so the Viennese Boys Choir can breathe easy, secure in their jobs for another year. As the year draws rapidly to a close, I thought I'd share the following with you to counterbalance all the pundits who hold forth at this time of the year.
My thanks to all those who have sent me emails this past year........ I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat poo in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, I now have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown); who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. Or from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants to split £7 million with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a customer who died intestate. I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa has granted my every wish. I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day. Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can remove toilet stains. I no longer can buy petrol without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up. I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan . Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my bum. And thanks to your great advice, I can't even pick up the $5.00 I found dropped in the car park because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhoea will land on your head at 5:00pm this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician. By the way....a South American scientist after a lengthy study has discovered that people with a low IQ who have infrequent sexual activity always read their e-mails with their hand on the mouse. Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late 12月14日 GiftsMy Christmas present has arrived early. My favorite poet flew home yesterday to share the holidays with his family and his friends. Words fail to describe my unbounding joy in having him here with us. Though the threads of daily emails and frequent phone calls keep us closely connected, there is no substitute for being able to give him a hug or to see him smile. As we prepare to celebrate another yuletide season, I share with you one of my favorite stories about gifts and giving. The Wise Woman's Stone A wise woman was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. " I've been thinking," he said, " I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone." I hope this Christmas each of you will share something precious to you with one who is in need. " I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do." - Edward Everett Hale 12月8日 Hot FlashThe holiday season is in full swing, the roads are crowded with cars, and the parking lots are overflowing with shoppers frantically searching for that right gift for someone special. We've solved the dilemma a number of years ago by deciding to tell all our friends and relations that the only thing we desired from them was the pleasure of their company throughout the year. For those who felt compelled to give a gift, we gave them the names of our favorite charities, and they can make a contribution in our name. For the most part, the folks we know have responded in kind, making Christmas a whole lot less stressful for all of us. Still, there are occasions when we feel we would like to offer some special acknowledgement to one who's close to us. Perhaps understanding is the gift in the basket of our poet today.
Hot Flash(er)
Once it was every twenty-eight days or so,
the monthly cycles,
imperfect circles
returning to bloat you like a full moon.
Now it's always twenty-eight minutes to go
(trading curse for curse)
before the first
radiant warmth overcompensates too soon
along transcendent menopausal skirt,
where sudden sweats unleash
subtle acts of striptease:
kicking off covers, unbuttoning your shirt--
but only for the murder of some minutes,
perhaps four,
till you're aware
that just as quickly as you were in it,
you're back out again, reaching
for your cover
or your lover's
arm, placing it across you like a wing,
protective, warm, until the next thermal turn
has you flushing,
blood rushing
to your face in a blush of slowest burn.
John Pidgeon
12月1日 AfterlifeAt some time or another, we all entertain the questions, "Is there a life after our bodies die? Do we have an immortal soul? What is this afterlife like?" As our bodies age, the urgency of these questions become more immediate. As we look at the state of the world, regardless of our personal religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) it's hard to reconcile the concept of justice without some belief in another system to counterbalance the one that's visible to us. I won't offer you a polemic on a topic about which so much has already been written, except to share with you the following poem to set your own thoughts in flight.
THIS AFTERLIFE
Children play dead so well
because the past calls them.
Their tiny hands burrow
lightly into the warm sand
at the shore of words.
Remember how you hid
under blankets, how you closed
the eyes of the world?
How you crouched in the closet
thick with wet wool
and camphor at the edge
of the murmuring room?
Ghosts spy on parents
from the corner of the house,
on the bodies they are sent
to fill as they wait
for waves of light
to push them through the door.
Gary Stein
|
|
|
