Root Canal/Appearances

End of March, 2008



A PLANT LADY’S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA


Poem:
VOYAGE
Decades gone, the memories fade.
Here we are from where we were.
There we were upon the verge,
packing up to leave, packing
each a private reason,
each a vision, strangers
from each other as the stars
are to ocean depths. Seekers
drawn by separate lode stones,
disparate but thrown together
on the twisty path. Where are we now
and why, you ask? The answer
is mysterious and vast.


“Do you meditate, dear?” asked the kindly Sikh endodontist as he drilled toward my brain.

His “dear” was not a patronizing or flirtatious “dear” but a sincerely uttered comforting and respectful teddy bear sort of “dear”. (Unlike the “hun” I get from my least favorite Fred Meyer cashier - who is lucky I don’t lob a box of kitty litter at her offensive smirk.) I figured the doctor noticed my pathetic attempt at measured breathing.

“Yes, I do meditate a little - do a bit of yoga - though I find concentrating somewhat challenging during a root canal procedure!” I replied within the confines of the above mentioned brain.

“Ummgh, umgh,” was my audible response through the green rubber dam.

Half an hour earlier I had been sitting in my regular dentist’s chair expecting the replacement of a rather minor (I thought) cracked filling. Now I was a mile away at a specialist who was doing major demo work on my pearly whites. Don’t ever think you know where you will end up when you march out your front door - there are surprises just waiting to leap out of the shrubbery and catch you by the throat. Or jaw.

This was my first root canal (and I hope my last). I knew the punch lines: “I’d rather have a root canal than _____. “ (Fill in your greatest fear.) Surely there must be some mistake, I thought as I drove to the endodontist’s office. I wasn’t even sure what the heck an endodontist was - only that I would be more than willing to postpone finding out. In precisely one hour I was expected at my Senior Center writers’ workshop. It was the last workshop of the quarter so I couldn’t exactly call in sick (especially since I am the instructor). How long did a root canal take anyway?

Long enough. Dr. K. S. J. was the soul of gentle care but as the fourth shot of Novocain found its mark I was ready to go home, curl up in a tight ball and not emerge for a week or so. The topper was the needle through the palate! Man oh man! That must have been developed by the C.I.A. to interrogate suspected terrorists. I was ready to confess to being the shooter on the grassy knoll - had I been able to talk.

At which time my entire face solidified into a concrete slab and I didn’t give a rip anymore. I took a long slow breath, held it to the count of five, let it out to five, held it out to five - imagined a quiet lake surrounded by stately evergreens - breathing 1 and 2 and 3 and . . .

“Turn a little my way, dear,” said the kindly Sikh endodontist. “Now a little wider. Yes, that is good.” The drill whirred and rumbled against the inside of my cheek. Ka-chunk. Something flew off in the general direction of the instruments table.

“Oh yes, I see you have cracked this tooth,” said the doctor. “That is what has caused the problem.” His eyes crinkled with delight above the blue mask. At least one of us was having a good time.

The writers were working on the first story when I staggered into the workshop fifteen minutes late, having stopped at the drugstore to fill the prescriptions Dr. K. S. J. wrote for me - antibiotics and pain meds. Figuring I should pop a pain pill before the Novocain wore off, I opened the stapled paper bag - only to find that the pain pills were missing! All that was in the bag was the bottle of antibiotics.

I excused myself, leaving my briefcase on the table, and hotfooted it back to the drugstore (Okay, I’ll name names: Walgreen’s.). No, they hadn’t seen my bottle of hydrocodone. The only response I got was “Oops, we must have forgotten that one”. Likely story, I thought. They had certainly charged me for it. But in a few minutes I was on my way back to the workshop with a new bottle (I looked in the bag this time) - and a head that was beginning to throb awake.

Now here’s the thing: that the pharmacy “lost” one bottle of meds from the counter where the prescription was filled to the cash register (ten feet?) seems to me suspicious enough but that the lost bottle was a controlled substance sets off my fishiness meter. Of course there was a fifty-fifty chance that if something got lost it would be that bottle - but what were the chances that it not be found on the counter after I left? I’m willing to bet that had the antibiotics been the item that went missing it would have been immediately found. Of course there is a possibility the missing bottle turned up as soon as I left to return to the workshop. Right.

A few alternative scenarios: either the pharmacy crew was a totally incompetent bunch of lame brains - or someone in pharmacy has a little “problem” - and/or the bottle “fell” into a lab coat pocket - and/or someone in pharmacy is doing business on the side. I may be a squeaky clean plantlady but, heck, even I know that stuff has street value. Hmmmm . . .

So when I got home I pulled up the drugstore’s web site and left the customer service people a delicately worded message, detailing all the particulars and asking them to investigate the incident. Response? None as yet. Surprise, surprise.

LATE BREAKING NEWS!! Walgreen's has just called. They are "actively investigating" the Burien pharmacy and thanked me for blowing the whistle. I am hoping it is not a case of the fox guarding the hen house. We will see.

OFFICE PLANTS: Appearances



“I thought it was fake!”

I hear that phrase repeatedly around Geekatopia as I work on the plants. Usually I respond, “The plant is real. It’s the plantlady that’s fake”. That’s good for a laugh but I have wondered what people mean by that comment. Is it a compliment to my care of the plant? Or are they saying that the plants can’t be real because they look too perfect? (Which might refer back to their own plant care fiascos.) Do they think that fake plants are better than living, breathing plants? That can’t be right. After all, why would anyone even think of having a fake plant in the workplace? Aren’t there enough lifeless things in the office without adding more inanimate objects? (Think of that guy in the corner cube who has installed a mini-bar under his desk.)

Fake plants don’t DO anything - certainly nothing positive. They don’t clean the air or provide oxygen. They take up space and collect dust as well as other allergens. They don’t grow - and they don’t provide employment to plant care professionals! And, trust me, they rarely look “real”. Not really. Buy a real plant. Make a friend. Naturally that is my own, very biased opinion.

Resurrection

Week Four, March 2008









A PLANT LADY'S LIFE IN GEEK- ATOPIA




Poem: PLUM

Shooting from the green skin like spears
red with blood, the side shoots spurting into dangerous
forks waist high, head high reaching to directions
I cannot predict or curb, leaves curling under
in an aphid slick, mildew, scale and burn
and all the years’ careful pruning, pinching
those false starts and blind alleys and still
the buds pushing, the wind tearing through,
frost gilding ripe edges before the forecast snow
and the urge again, starting again in the dim
flow of sap through slime dark veins, worms of roots,
birds whispering their purposes on tentative
branches - and I, hardly breathing, believe
that in my garden a golden plum may,
this year, for the first time bloom.

St Patrick’s Day, Spring, Easter - What a busy week!


This week I am tempted to fill the blog with nothing but pretty pictures of Spring flowers. Brilliant yellow daffodils and frilly pink cherry trees have been stopping me in my tracks all over Geekatopia. I haven’t been much use to Molly, my new route partner, what with having to stop at every flower bed to take pictures.

The other day we took our afternoon break at the Bellevue Botanical Garden, drinking in the heady scents and sparkling colors. It took monumental will power to get back to work.


The Earth is reborn - and maybe there is hope for us yet if we can still appreciate its meaning. We silly humans fret and worry about global warming, war, the economy, civil strife, pollution, the end of the world - yet give the sweet soil half a day of warming sunshine and it unfurls tender, confident green shoots ready and willing to do the only thing they know how to do - live fully and well under the sky. We need to pay attention and learn from the miraculous planet of which we are a part.

Roughing it in Restaurants/Palmistry

Week Three, March 2008


A PLANTLADY’S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA

Kentia Palm



March Haiku:
Whirling wind twists
yesterday’s news end over end
toward the misty bay.

This week the Boss Plantlady took me and my new route partner, Molly, and fellow Geekatopian plantladys Donna and Heather out to lunch - all in the name of “team building”. But whatever else you call it, a treat is a treat! She left the choice of venue to me - an easy choice since one of my clients is Newport Bay Restaurant in northwest Geekatopia. I love this restaurant because it has by far the cleanest kitchen of any I have ever seen - and over the years I have seen my share of restaurant kitchens.

Plantladys service restaurants early in the morning before they open, entering from the loading dock at the back of the kitchen, pushing between cliffs of produce boxes and filling their buckets at the deep stainless steel sinks in the dishwashing area. We see kitchens at their worst, when the prep work is in full fury - knives, sauté pans, and vegetables flying through the steamy air, a boombox filling the space with guitar solos at nosebleed volume. It always amazes me that a restful dining experience is born of all this chaos.

It might surprise you to learn that not all restaurants are as squeaky clean at Newport Bay. I am not talking about the obvious gross-outs like backed-up drains and vermin -the health department zooms through every blue moon and shuts down restaurants with that kind of crud. No, I am talking about establishments that seem to have no knowledge of germ theory.

There is one place (that shall remain nameless - though maybe as a public service I should blow the whistle on them) that actually uses leaf blowers to blow the dirt out from under the booths and tables into the center of the dining room where it is then vacuumed up - this process taking place while the tables are already set with water glasses and tableware. Where do they think the dust clouds of shoe dirt will settle? I wouldn’t eat at Restaurant X on a bet.

On one occasion they were actually jackhammering out a clogged floor drain in the kitchen while five feet away the cook was busily concocting the bean and bacon soup. I swear, their menus ought to have warning labels on their grimy covers!

Newport Bay is the polar opposite of Restaurant X. Every surface in their kitchen gleams with cleanly virtue - floors, walls, counters, appliances shining like a summer morning. It is a total joy how neat and sanitary that kitchen is. They have inspired me to completely reorganize my own kitchen - a job I intend to tackle this weekend.

But I digress. Another reason I picked Newport Bay for our team building lunch is that they have lots of wonderful gluten-free selections. They specialize in fish which they cook to perfection - mostly in its pure unbreaded state. It is bliss for someone with celiac to be able to order grilled wild-caught sockeye salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and brilliant emerald green asparagus - bliss to enjoy a fine lunch without worrying about getting sick later.

Coincidentally my luncheon companions also ordered selections that were gluten-free - though they made short work of a large plate of artisan bread set in the middle of our table. I ordered the grilled salmon (of course) and awaited it eagerly while our conversation soared into realms beyond our jobs and palm trees.

At one point I was extolling the virtues of Newport Bay Restaurant, at which time our waiter brought the food - just gorgeous and fragrant (the food, not the waiter). It all would have been so perfect except for the fact that somehow my order got botched somewhere between the ordering and the cooking. There before me was a magnificent salmon, lettuce and tomato SANDWICH!! I had to laugh as I sent it back to the kitchen. It was so ironic that the one person who couldn’t eat bread got sandwiched. I mused upon the strange complexities of life in a wheat-dominated world while I waited for my grilled salmon - as my companions murmured yummy-sounds through their gluten-free lunches. Still, though I had to wait a while, when my meal finally arrived it proved to be well worth the wait - a masterpiece on a plate. Thanks boss!!!


THIS WEEK’S PLANT CARE TIP: Palmistry
Since this week is Palm Sunday let’s talk about palm trees. Up here in the Pacific Northwest palm trees (with few exceptions) live inside bank lobbies, new car showrooms, hospital waiting rooms and office buildings. They are dramatic, elegant creatures that bring to mind warm tropic isles far away from our chilly, gloomy winter days. Warning: if you have one in your office you may frequently catch yourself daydreaming of Hawaiian vacations and Caribbean cruises.

Note: there are many kinds of palms and some plants that look like palms but aren’t palms. To care for your plant properly you really must know what kind of plant you have, so do a little research.

My personal favorite is the Kentia palm (Howea fosteriana - a native of Lord Howe Island down east of Australia where it is considered a “vulnerable” species). I am mesmerized by their wide, graceful fronds, their dark green coloring and their elegant personalities. They are aristocrats, one of the most expensive plants and challenging to tend. And they can be unforgiving if you make a mistake. (Most plant techs have killed kentias learning their ways.)

They are especially slow growing, shooting out only one or two fronds a year. And when they do produce a frond they are apt to shed a lower, older frond to balance themselves out. So essentially they stay the same shape their whole lives - unless you mess up their care in some way.

Kentias do not like their root drying out, nor will they tolerate being kept wet. Easy does it with these palms. The important thing is to assure that their crowns are always above the soil line (the crown is the thick point where the roots meet the trunk) - if they are planted so that the crowns are in damp soil they will rot off and you will have killed your first kentia.

Keep the crowns dry, provide adequate light and a little fertilizer in the growing season and your kentia can live for decades in your home or office. I keep a fifteen year old kentia in my living room that I decorated with lights for Christmas this year. But please don’t be tempted to chop off a few fronds for Palm Sunday decorations or it will be a dozen Palm Sundays before your kentia recovers!

Springing Forward/Feeding Time

Week Two, March 2008




Misty Mount Si




This week’s poem:
MEMORY
It is that crimped silver hair
clinging to your best black
winter coat, the hair
no amount of sticky-backed tape
or stiff brush or shaking
can dislodge - that reminder
that here you are, falling
into time a strand at a time,
strands of DNA weaving
out across the expanse
of an impersonal void -
and just when you give up,
trusting you are stuck
with the certain knowledge
of your disintegration,
a freshening breeze
sings in the wind chimes,
ruffles your coat collar
and instantly it is Spring!


The tree pollen count is pegging the meter this week, clouds of yellow pollen billowing from chilly branches. My eyes burn, my nose has been stuffy for days - if I take an allergy pill I could so easily doze off at the wheel so I soldier on, wondering how long I can go without breathing.

Early hours are frosty but by noon I am shedding the company jacket to enjoy a tentative bask in thin sunshine. A time of bright beginnings. An appropriate time for me to start training a brand new plantlady. Molly just signed on as my route partner this week - brave soul! I have been introducing her to Geekatopia. So far she has held up well through our most demanding, challenging accounts - and was still smiling at the end of the week. Right now she is probably home soaking her aching feet and rethinking this weird plantlady idea - but I sense Molly has what it takes to survive in the cubicle jungle. Monday we will drive out into the Cascade Mountains to North Bend where scraps of snow sparkle on Mount Si - we will tend the Cascade Bank plants but I will make sure we take a few minutes to enjoy the view. And the fresh, pollen-free mountain air. Every job has perks.

OFFICE PLANT CARE TIP: Time to wake up your plants with a little breakfast! They have been resting in hibernation mode all winter, their metabolisms glacially slow. (Yes, even indoor plants know when it is winter and generally speaking it is not necessary to fertilize your plants in the dark of the year - they can’t use it while they are “resting”.)

Notice a few tiny new leaves opening up? A clear signal that your plants could use a light meal - mix the fertilizer at about half-strength to start, every other time you water. Note: always use the kind of indoor plant fertilizer you mix with water and evenly moisten the soil so that all the roots are fed. There are different kinds of fertilizers for different kinds of plants (orchids, african violets, blooming plants, cactus etc.) so be sure to read the labels to match the food to your plants’ needs. And forget about those fertilizer spike things - they don’t release the nutrients evenly and I believe they actually burn delicate roots. Spring ahead!