Endurance

Fortunately, the Old Baguette did build up endurance by spurts of power trekking from her room back to her room along the corridors of power at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Upon her release on Monday, she was strong, a caribou ready to stampede. She stampeded. Once inside her stall, she threw off her coat, made a list, checked it twice, and ordered groceries from Lund's. She next opened her refrigerator, grunted, bleated, and made clicking sounds. Tendons were slipping over the sesamoid bones in her feet, as she recoiled in horror from the biology experiments that had been accumulating in her absence. Disgusting! The Old Baguette made further clicking sounds with her caribou feet, as she trekked between the "lab" and the garbage. When the degreening effort was complete, the Old Baguette prepared her evening fodder and took her pills. She caught up on her reading and went to bed early. She needed sleep to have the endurance to trek another day. That day would be Tuesday.





The first nurse came at 8 A.M. and the second at 3 P.M. In between, the Old Baguette took pills and inhaled meds to prepare for a night on the town. She went out for dinner and to the first showing of the film "Bullied," which was produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center and which tells the real life story of a young man who was bullied for being gay. With the SPLC handling the case, he sued administrators at his public school for failing to protect him. He won and got a big bucks settlement. Morris Dees, the SPLC's founder, signed a DVD of the film which I plan to send to our Archbishop with a brief message. "You recently sent me a DVD, so I am sending you a DVD. I took the time to watch your DVD. Please, take the time to watch this DVD from me."





An aside: The Nordic poles work well. The Old Baguette stood in the receiving line for over an hour. While she waited, the president of the Center, Richard Cohen, waited on her. It was so hot. Could he take her coat? He could. Didn't she need a chair? She didn't. Could he get anything for her? Not really. He kept appearing with offers of help. As the French say, "Tres gallant!" People with canes, walkers, and wheelchairs weren't deluged with offers of help. Perhaps they didn't need help. Unlike the Old Baguette, they weren't rambling wrecks from Nordic treks. Will the Old Baguette share with you Mr. Cohen's comment upon hearing she planned to send the DVD to the Archbishop? No, she won't, but she remembers it. It was refreshingly ungallant.