CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

It wasn’t until my short stay in the hospital that I realized what a food diva I am. The hospital sits exactly one block from the house where I stay in Berkeley in one direction and one block from the Whole Foods in the other direction. Most days I bypass the hospital and head directly for Whole Foods, but when the hospital captured me, I had to give in to my hostage surroundings.

After surgery I was put on a clear liquid diet. You might have thought this would be an easy no brainer. Clear liquids. Who woulda thought that clear liquids could be a problem? I usually don’t tell people that I am a vegetarian anymore, because in reality I’m not, I eat chicken and fish, not a lot, but I won’t turn it down. So in the spirit of being a good and unfussy patient I said that I just don’t eat beef and pork.

My first clear liquid tray came late in the afternoon with black tea, gelatin, beef broth, and apple juice. What I saw was caffeine, beef marrow, boiled Bessie, and juice from a fruit that prior to the surgery would have given me intense stomach cramps. Oh boy …

When I talked to the nurses about the tray, they were very confused. Gelatin is vegetarian, isn’t it? Caffeine won’t keep you awake! Anyway, my eating status changed two more times to Vegetarian and then Asian Vegetarian. The next few hours entailed about three nurses running around the hospital looking for all kinds of things that I could possibly eat. Which really didn’t produce anything that would be considered appetizing. We came to a settlement on popsicles.

What I really wanted was a big comfy bowl of Miso soup. Which I got when I walked back into the house twenty-four hours later.

After my surgery while I was in bed doing the recuperating thing, I was sort of sitting up and looking out the window. There was a really beautiful view of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, Mount Tam, and the bay out of the window. As I was sitting there, I had this intense feeling of a pair of really big, strong arms around me, like I was leaning on a friend and they had their arms around me from behind.

It must have been the medication.

“Well, what would you expect after I starved you for over 36 hours and then stabbed you four times?”

My surgeon. What a jokester. I was trying to get a clue as to how long I might be laid up after my recent surgery. I have no clue about these things, because 1. I never get sick, and 2. I just don’t understand the concept of recuperation.

“But I’m supposed to start a job on Monday.”, I whined. I haven’t had a job in two years, so I was acting particularly pathetic.

Today is that very same Monday and I’m sitting at the desk at home writing blog posts.

I’ve always had very good health karma. Besides the teeth thing, but all things being relative and considering the state of my teeth DNA, I’d say my teeth karma was pretty good too. But the karma ran out last week. It’s great to have things go out with a bang. Just to let me know that hey baby, this phase is over.

Something new is about to begin.