I was talking to a friend this morning and we were wishing that we could write a screenplay. We talked about the funny things that we had been through and after we hung up, I started remembering Lister Hill. Lister Hill is an indigent clinic here in my town. All of the very poor and mentally ill people came there for medical help at that time. I worked there as a very young nurse back when I was going to "save the world". The first memory that I had was what happened one morning. A woman ran in to the clinic and grabbed my arm. She was screaming, ' come with me, we can't wake grama up!". I ran with her outside to where the car was parked. There were five other people in the car, slapping on grandma, talking to her loudly and trying to get her to wake up. It didn't take me very long to decide that grandma was dead. She wasn't going to wake up and she sure wasn't going to eat that box of fried chicken livers that was sitting in her lap. One of the granchirren ( Southern for grandchildren) had decided that grandma was hungry and poked a liver in her mouth. There sat grandma, in her Sunday finest with a chicken liver dangling from her dead mouth. I very somberly leaned back out of the car, tucked my stethoscope back in my pocket and said " I am so sorry, but Grandma is dead". The family looked at me in shock and the daughter said " Ok, Thanks. We gotta go get a nap" and off they drove. My second memory is of a woman named Roberta. Roberta was as crazy as a loon. Had seen the shrinks and refused to take her medicine. Roberta came in crying one morning. Sobbing as if her heart would break. All the other nurses scattered and left me with Roberta, whom I had never met. I asked her ( in my best save the world nurses voice) " Honey, whats wrong?" Roberta immediately shoved a small paper bag in my hand and started wailing " I have cancer !!". I looked in the bag and it was full of pubic hair. I went to find my boss and the other nurses and found them down the hall doubled over with laughter. Roberta had been coming in for years. She shaved her pubic hair and wanted it examined for cancer. Everyone else had gotten used to putting Roberta in a room, going on a smoke break, than coming back and telling Roberta that "IT" checked out fine. Roberta would leave happy until her hair grew out and then come back and start over. Poor Roberta. My last memory to share today is of a man named David. A scary memory. David hobbled in one day and told me that his leg hurt. I got an xray and his leg was broken. I went back into the exam room and told David that his leg was broken and we were going to have to put a cast on it. David got off the exam table, yelled " OH HELL NO!" and limped out. I followed him yelling ," come on David, you HAVE to have a
cast". I followed him all the way outside and onto the sidewalk, trying to convince him to come back in. Thank God, David ignored me. He walked across the street towards the bank and stabbed a man to death that was outside standing in line at the ATM. That man's family successfully sued the State and got millions because David had been released from the State Mental ward the previous week and prounced cured. I had to testify in court about that. It was a horrible, dreadful thing. I guess that David must have thought that maybe I WAS only trying to help him. He could have stabbed me to death in the exam room. Those are a few memories that hit me today. two made me laugh and one made me sad. It's a bizarre world sometimes.

There is a hunger
often associated with pain,
That you feel
when you look at someone
you used to love and enjoyed
loving and want
to love again
though you know you can't....
That gnaws at you
as steadily as a mosquito
some Michigan summer
churning his wings
through your window screen
because the real world
made up of baby clothes.....to be washed
food..........to be cooked
lullabies....to be sung
smiles....... to be glowed
hair.....to be brushed
coffee ......to be drunk
books ......to be read
tears ....to be cried
loneliness.....to be borne
says you are a strong woman
and anyway he never thought you'd really miss him.
NIKKI GIOVANNI

Munchausens Syndrome is defined as a Psychiatric disorder in which those affected feign disease, illness or psychological trauma in order to draw attention or sympathy to themslves. I have a friend that I KNOW has this disorder. I have known this person since 1978 when we went to nursing school together. She has had THIRTY EIGHT surgeries and has told folks that she has had MS for years. The problem with that is that she only haas symptoms when she needs to get out of doing something and she has never been on any medicines used for MS. Yesterday, she "developed" colon cancer" and started telling me about her "chemo".She told me that she had been to the Cancer Center here in town. I said, Oh really, who is your doctor"?.... Long pause and she said" I forgot his name. I have it written down IN THERE on a peice of paper". I said, I'll wait. Go get it". She told me that she was very busy ( hello! you are on the phone) and couldn't get it now. Then I asked." what kind of chemo are you on"? She forgot that too. I blew up. I really did. It's enough that there are people that have MS and cancer and are really suffering, this girl is afraid that her boyfriend isn't paying enough attention to her, so she invents horrible diseases for herself. Now, I'm a nurse. I know people that have mental disorders are sick. I know that. I am feeling guilty for blowing up and telling her that she was lying and she needed to get some help. I may have lost her friendship but that may be ok too. It's been a long time since I could beleive anything that she said, and that gets old. Life goes on...

In my perfect world, I would have a little bitty house in an acre of wooded land with a stream running not far outside the back door. I would have a big pile of books to read and a canister of tea. I would be in Northern Arizona or New Mexico around Taos. I could drive to town to eat at the dinner once a week and go to pottery classes. I may or may not turn the phone on. I would have a rocking chair and watch the sun go down. Having said all of that, I found a website with the perfect, tiny house for me. I want the B-52 Bungalow. Take a look. Go to http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com. ( sorry, that I don't know how to just make that come up.) Anyone want a tiny houses community?

Whoopi Goldberg started her hosting position this morning on THE VIEW. As far as I'm concerned, she has about as much class as Rosie and that's not much. Someone brought up Michael Vick and she defended him. She actually said " where he comes from in the South, dog fighting isn't that unusual". Co- Host Joy Behar looked at her with a horrified look and Whoopi said " for many people dogs are sport". Give me a break. I am from much further South than Micheal Vick and I don't know ANYONE who considers dog fighting " not that unusual". I also don't know anyone that considers dogs "sport". What a bimbo. That comment made me furious. I am going to have to quit watching TV or reading the news because that's one more person on my list to Boycott. Do ANY of you agree with her? And Why?