Blue Jello

In spite of insurance intrigues you don't want to know about regarding Tuesday's lunchtime car crash, my blood pressure was good enough for my dear gynecologist today. It's always great to see her, even when I receive lectures about weight, blood pressure, self-exams, tetanus boosters, cholestrol, exercise, calcium, and mammograms. She's been my doctor since 1990 when I had three sons under age six, and she had her first baby. She has helped me through depression and panic disorder, health concerns when I learned of my husband's extracurricular activities, and this bizarre, never-ending phase of Merry Peri-Menopause. She laughs when I mark my marital status as "Divorced, Thank Heavens!!!" Each annual visit is a time to assess my year and chart my progress as a strong, self-confident, healthy, and happy woman. I am grateful for her.

Only three lap swimmers at the pool tonight. The water was so still and clear I felt like I was gliding through almost-set blue jello. I'll probably dream tonight of Jacques Cousteau, and of my first real job in the basement hospital kitchen during the mid-Seventies. The aquatic center and the hospital kitchen share a subterranean feel, fluorescent lighting, concrete walls, bleach smells, and strange acoustics. Jello at the hospital was usually red, and never blue. My first task was to slice baking sheets of jello into cubes, and dish the cubes into dessert bowls. Lucky patients, and unobserved kitchen employees, got real whipped cream on the jello cubes. We felt sorry for patients who couldn't have whipped cream, or worse, got fake dietetic gelatin cubes. We didn't understand the full-time employees who took as long as possible slicing and dishing the jello cubes to fill their eight-hour shift....