Reality Show

Last week I went to the pediatric cardiologist with my best friend, Suzanne, whose 5-yr old daughter was sick a few months ago with a scary illness that can cause a lot of long-term problems, like heart disease, over time.

Suzanne asked me to come because she says she feels totally helpless now when it comes to Krista. As if to prove she once had the ability to manage the universe, she often reminds me: "I wrote a birth plan."

As Krista lay on the examining table, her feet in their jellies angled in a relaxed V, the cardiologist, a sensitive-looking man with a long nose and pale hair, squirted some gel on her chest. “We’re going to make a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich out of you,” he joked.

“But I like ba-lo-ney.” Krista frowned at her mother, like: 'What a loser.'

The doc laughed and placed the transducer wand in the gel and turned on the ultrasound machine, which revved like an airplane before takeoff. As he slid the wand around Krista's chest, murky images of her heart appeared on the screen like the answer from a Magic-8 ball.

“Coronary artery looks good,” said the doc in that noncommittal way they use before they've collected all the information. “There’s the left atrium, the left ventricle."

I watched the dark, hollow chambers loom and dissolve on the screen and a valve open and close like twinned pinball paddles as the chambers filled and emptied. The doctor marked the outermost edges with the pointer and pressed a button on the machine to capture a picture of Krista's heart at the precise moment when one chamber was nearly empty and the other nearly full. This was not the fanciest machine--not like the 3-D one they used when I was pregnant with Trey--and though I couldn't see the blood moving through Krista’s heart, I knew it was there.

Suzanne stood like a steeple next to Krista, squeezing her daughter's hand.

"That's all," the doctor said and gently wiped the gel off Krista's chest. Suzanne helped her sit up and put on her T-shirt.

“Things look good,” the doc said and looked at Krista. “You’re a lucky girl.”

Then Suzanne asked the question she didn't want to hear the answer to: “Will she be okay?”

The doctor turned off the machine and replaced the transducer in its holder. Then he opened his palms like a benediction. “We don’t know. She's at a higher risk for heart disease and stroke. It could affect her kidneys….” He glanced at Krista. “Can't say. We just have to watch it."

Although this news had chased away my friend's fear for the moment, the uncertainty of her daughter's future smudges the joy she believes she's entitled to. This is Suzanne's reality, no matter how she wants her life to appear. It's her reality show.

Freaks, what's yours? Let's get real.

Please Be Seated

As I sit here in the airport waiting for my flight to Indianapolis, which is delayed for an hour because of “severe weather,” I wonder: Is anyone besides me convinced that airport seats are deliberately designed as devices of torture? I can just imagine “Acme Chair Co.,” run by sadistic engineers who perform consumer tests by observing people sitting in their chairs in a glassed-in torture chamber...er, test lab. They lure unsuspecting people with the promise of fifty dollars if they'll just sit in an Acme chair for an hour. Who wouldn’t say yes to that?

But ten minutes in, the test user’s back muscles spasm. She shifts in the chair.

“Don’t move!” barks the voice from the speaker.

Two minutes later, she bangs her elbow on the armrest. “Arghk!”

“Silence!”

Twenty more minutes go by, and the molded plastic seat is boring into the poor girl’s spine. "Can I get up for just a second?” she pleads into the empty room.

“Never! You want that fifty bucks, don’t you?”

“I can’t stand it anymore! I’ll die if I have to wait in that chair another minute.”

On the other side of the glass, the Acme engineers are high-five-ing each other, slapping each other silly, and uncorking the champagne. “We’ve done it again,” they announce to the VP of manufacturing, who’s stepped in to watch the test. “The perfect design. We’ll have this in every airport in the world by next week.”

Izzi-Freaks, sitting here waiting for my flight to board, I’m surrounded by tortured people who can’t wait to be released from their seats, from this airport, the past, or the anxiety of where they're headed.

The gray-haired executive next to me is practicing what sounds like a speech to shareholders, apologizing for this quarter’s slump. He’s terrified of getting kicked out and losing all the perks that come with his position. He’s waiting for applause or a cardboard box. I thought the girl on my other side was crying to herself until I saw the hands-free wire of her cell phone hanging from her hair like a slender braid. She’s crying to her boyfriend, petrified he’ll see his old girlfriend while she’s gone. She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

(Insert note here: I don’t eavesdrop on purpose, but how can you help it in these close quarters?)

Freaks, everyone’s waiting for something. What’s your painful chair, and what are you waiting for? Post your comments, and pass the ice pack.

Purse Pups

What's this one about, Freaks? Everywhere I go, I see puppy faces peeking from purses...er, pet carriers...held close to the elbows of their adoring owners, with their heads bobbing like a revival. Do these dogs serve any purpose other than to accessorize their owners? Surely, God had something more worthy in mind for them.

What do they think about while bobbing around Union Square, in Carmel, or at the ballet?

• Put me down--a hydrant, a hydrant!

  What good are crabs? They don't even have bones.

  Why don't they just find taller dancers?

My Auntie Lu is the most awesome gardener in the world. Her fingers are so green that she can grow saplings from buried two-by-fours. Every August she sells LuLu Squash--summer squashes shaped like all kinds of weird things, like cubes, hearts, and crescent moons. The squashes form that way because Auntie Lu grows them from seed in containers of the same shape.

Given that these pooches spend so much time encased, I wonder if, like LuLu Squash, they could grow into the shape of their purses. Interesting product idea, Freaks! Make a note: you could have cylindrical pups (they roll), pyramid pups (they stay put), pups shaped like locomotives (when your tot is out of batteries), and pillow-shaped pups.

What about you, Freaks? Are you grooming yourself to accessorize this world, or are you letting God form your character into the shape it should become? Post your comments, and we'll have a bow-wow.

Arf!