Regret: Everybody's Favorite Thanksgiving Side Dish

Hello, and happy early Thanksgiving to you! This is an unusual blog entry for a few reasons. For one thing, I am typing right now with a bag of frozen cranberries on my head. What? Why? Both good questions. Yes, it is true. I do have a bag of frozen cranberries atop my head. No, not because I am a die hard fan of lame Thanksgiving side dishes, and not because I don't have air conditioning on this unseasonably warm day before Thanksgiving in Los Angeles. No, dear reader, I have a bag of frozen cranberries resting on my head for an entirely different reason.

A few minutes ago, whilst putting a compact rolling duffel bag into the upper regions of my closet after our trip to Denver this past weekend, I stepped up, up, up the step ladder... and cracked my head on the bottom of the door frame. Yes, 'twas painful. Yes, my cat watched as I cursed once, stepped down from the ladder, and proceeded to lay myself on the floor and wait to pass out. No, Whisky (my cat) did not call for help. And yes, she's still watching me as I type this, in awe of my ways.

This has happened before, by the way; my hitting my head on the door frame while ascending the step ladder to put a bag away. So, in addition to being mad at myself for allowing it to happen again, it made me wonder: do we ever learn from our mistakes? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think the simple answer is... yes and no.

One thing I've gotten better at as I've grown older and slightly wiser is saying to myself, "Well, X might not happen if I do Y, but it definitely won't happen if I do Z." It sounds simple, but it took me many years to learn this. Earlier today I said/thought to myself: "I probably won't electrocute myself or chop off my fingers if I don't unplug the immersion blender before cleaning it, but I definitely won't electrocute myself or chop off my fingers if I do unplug it." And yet later that same day, the step ladder incident occurred.

In case you're wondering, "why frozen cranberries?" Well, I should tell you that I have used this same bag of frozen cranberries many times before to ice my wounds. There's no special reason why I use this particular bag, I simply don't have an actual ice pack, and I never have occasion to use them for their intended purpose (consumption). Also, it works better than a bag of ice because it doesn't get all melty and drippy, and the cranberries mold to my head. Unlike, say, frozen peas, frozen cranberries do not clump together. And using frozen asparagus would just be silly.

Another reason why this blog entry is unusual is because I am putting very little effort into it. It's mostly stream of consciousness, which is kind of fun more me. [Typo there, speaking of stream of consciousness, but I like it so I'm leaving it.] Maybe it's because of the blunt trauma inflicted upon my skull in recent minutes, but I am not going to write and revise and revise and revise as I usually do. No, today I am simply going to write it, proof it, and publish it.

And having said that, I'll conclude with a hope that in the future I'll say, "I might not hit my head on the doorjamb if I step up the ladder without thinking about it, but I definitely won't hit my head if I don't put the luggage away."

Happy Thanksgiving! And this just happened: My wife Sarah came home and said, "Are you eating cranberries?" No, dear, I am not. You married a lovable dummy who may or may not ever learn from his mistakes. Oh, and happy birthday!

Please note the offending doorjamb in the background.

What I’ll Say When I Call My Wife

I haven’t called my wife yet, but when I do, I’ll say something like, “You know that old homeless guy in our neighborhood? The one with the beard who’s always sitting on the bench listening to a handheld radio or reading the newspaper? I think I just saw him die.”

“You saw him die,” she will ask.

“Well,” I’ll say, “he may have already been gone by the time I got there. The paramedics were in the middle of resuscitating him, but it wasn’t working. I even heard one EMT say on the phone (to a boss or somebody) that they had been working on him for over fifteen minutes.” I might also add: “It’s very sad. He was a sweet guy. Always kept to himself…”

But then I’ll put a positive spin on what I witnessed by telling her the exact same thing I told a surly female police officer at the scene: “I’m glad we live in a society that makes such a noble effort to save a man’s life. Doesn’t matter that he’s homeless or rich or whatever.” Surly Officer agreed with me. She even added with a profound lack of emotion, “And we’re lucky to have the resources that we do. One minute this guy’s on a bench reading the paper, the next he’s in a state of the art medical facility.” We were less than a mile from Cedars-Sinai, and I guess she was optimistic about his chances, or she was trying to make me more optimistic.

Truth is – and I will tell this to my wife when I call her – that he was not declared dead at the scene. As I said, they were trying to revive him on the sidewalk for more than fifteen minutes, and they kept trying as they loaded him into the ambulance. A few minutes later, when the ambulance sped away, its sirens were blaring, so who knows, maybe there’s a chance that he’ll make it. “If he was already dead,” I’ll ask Sarah (that’s my wife), “would they still put on the sirens?” Although it’s also possible that the EMTs just didn’t want to sit in the back of an ambulance with a dead homeless guy for any longer than they had to. Are EMTs like that? Even the ones who try for more than fifteen minutes to save a man’s life? My wife won’t know the answer to that, but I’ll ask her anyway.

I don’t know if I’ll need to add this next bit when I talk to my wife because she will be busy at work, but in future conversations with her about the incident, probably over dinner, I’ll say, “It made me think of Painter Bob.”

Painter Bob is another homeless friend of mine who I talk to all the time. Truly one of the most upbeat people I have ever encountered. Whenever I offer him food or money, or a guitar or what have you, he says, “miracles, miracles!” I often think of Bob when I’m lying in my comfortable bed at night, especially when it rains, or when I cook a meal in my kitchen... I’ll tell my wife that I want to say to Painter Bob, “I don’t want to see you go like that, man… Let’s get you off the streets and into an apartment.” But I don’t know what we/I can really do for Bob, who’s 77, from Chicago, and painted the homes of many celebrities back in the day. But at least I’ll tell my wife that I’m always thinking of ways to help him… But I digress.

I thanked the EMTs for their heroic efforts, and I also thanked Surly Officer, although she wasn’t doing much except keeping looky-loos like me from getting too close. And I’m not proud of this fact, but I also took a few photos, discreetly, of course, in case I ended up writing a blog entry about this episode later. When my wife gets home, I’ll ask her if she thinks it’s in poor taste. And later, I will ask her if she thought it was a good blog post. Too weird with all the mixed tenses? Perhaps. But alas, I will ask...