Oz Medicine

(Disclaimer:  This post has nothing to do with 'Dr. Oz' or his TV show, which I have only noted in passing while channel surfing.)  

For those of you a bit surprised about the inclusion of a mid-week posting this week, I have to tell you that you're not the only one.  It appears however, that there may some potential side effects to living in the "Land of Oz" (aka Kansas) that some of us may be particularly susceptible to; and I now appear to be running the gamut of these conditions.

As many of you might know, I recently completed what I now like to call 'Tin Man Surgery', in which extensive and extremely necessary repairs were done to veins and arteries around an organ that was apparently in absence in one of Dorothy's companions in "The Wizard of Oz" as well apparently as in many Conservatives.  (No, not my brain.  Try not to jump ahead, please.)  In spite of living in the Wiz's balloon 'fly-over country' however, I was seemingly blessed with some local 'rock stars' of the medical profession and the repairs were not only successful, but my expeditious recovery currently has me up for 'Miss Open Heart Surgery 2013'. (You should see the swim suit competition.) 

In the days since my return home from the hospital however, I seem to have traded the condition that I shared with Dorothy's metal companion for that suffered by one of her more herbaceous ones.  I have recently discovered that my interest and ability to write either quantitatively or qualitatively (writing a lot or well) seems have suffered in a corresponding fashion to my return of the good health of that vital pump in what I am beginning to consider might be the possible onset of 'Scarecrow's Syndrome'.  I am now more than a little concerned that repairs insuring that blood is now properly circulating around my heart have somehow diverted this vital fluid from reaching the near perfect vacuum between my ears.  

As a result, these days find me either unable or unwilling to keep up with my former docile pace of two blog posts a week.  As for concerning myself with the discipline of the multiple personality disorder more commonly known as the staff here at JBS where the lexicographers of the SOS Dictionary are concerned, or facing the mess in the locked attic room (that I keep in my mind) better known as the Department of Just Blowing Smoke Security; forget about it.  This combination of raging inability and apathy doesn't even speak to the apologies that I owe Michael Miller and the staff at the Toledo Free Press for failing to annoy them with nonsensical weekly efforts offered for publication in their well-esteemed product, let alone the constant re-writes that follow in vague but futile attempts to make them at least coherent, if not intelligent offerings.

My continued inability to properly identify the cause for this problem, let alone truly accept responsibility for the resulting lack of literary output leads me to believe that yet a third yet undiagnosed malady may be lurking in the wings.  Such cowardice in the face of (and piled on top of) such inexcusable laziness may in fact be an indication of the first stage symptoms of another one of Dorothy's literary traveling companions.  As fragile as my current mental state is however, I'm not sure if I could face a confirming diagnosis and discovering that I might indeed be suffering from the onset of 'Cowardly Lion's Disease' on top of everything else (though that may just be the fear talking).   

This dilemma is further complicated by not knowing which of the medical professionals that I'm working with in the Sunflower State that I should consult regarding these concerns.  Try as I might, I'm not sure how to determine which of their specialties these maladies might fall under, if any at all.  Since most of them have signed off on my recovery (Oh, if they only knew!), and I am therefore not scheduled to visit with any of them any time soon; I hate to bother them with what may in fact be no more than post-operative psychosomatic disorders.  

Perhaps the symptoms that at least I believe that I'm experiencing might not fall under any of the extensive training that any of them have received, and instead another medical professional must be called in.  (I wonder if Dr. House might be interested in taking my case, though I better hurry before he finishes his final season.) 

Now I'm sure that many of those reading this might by now think you have a pretty good idea or two of who might best be consulted (and I might even be tempted agree with you), but instead I think that I would to take these thematic medical complaints to their absurdly logical conclusion.  Yes that's it!  Dorothy did after all have one other companion on her journey through Oz that I have yet to consider ... Toto.  I need to get on the phone with a local veterinarian first thing tomorrow ....

August Terror Alert (Not): RAIN

August is more than half over, and while the heat of summer keeps most of us here at a high simmer, the Department of Just Blowing Smoke Security (DJBSS) continues in its tireless efforts to root out potential threats in this nation. (Though personally I think they're happy to stay locked in their Command Center as long as the air conditioner works.)   And while they continue to be given little in the way of credit for what many consider to be nonsensical labors at best (and even less in terms of financial compensation); most concede that their ludicrous and largely ignored efforts have thus far proven as effective, if not more so, than threat protection provided for this nation by their TSA 'mall cop' counterparts at airports around the country.

The latest threat assessment slipped out from under the door of their Command Center (an attic room that we keep them locked in for their own protection, as well as ours); can however only be considered a fraud perpetrated by the DJBSS as a payback for cutting their Cheetos rations this month (though they still managed to leave enough residue on the Post-It note they used for their dire pronouncement to prove they still have some left).   

The fact that local television weather fornicators have now joined them in describing this condition, one which must be considered so ridiculous or so dire that it could only be possible as the harbinger of the 'End of Days', should be considered as proof.  Oh we're not talking about earthquakes here.  (We have after all read about California, and our panic about such cataclysms only occurs when someone reminds us how close we live to the 'New Madrid Fault'.)  It likewise goes without saying that we're not talking about tornadoes.  (It's a twister, it's a twister! ... Sorry, I had an "Airplane" moment.)  This is Kansas after all, and such minor weather exhibitions are far too commonplace to draw attention.  

It's becoming increasingly apparent though, that the media acolytes of the weather gods here are talking now about something so extraordinary that I still have trouble even conceiving of it.  For those of you who still cannot understand the dire situation here, we are in fact talking about 'water falling from the sky'! Oh sure, water falls to the ground here all the time (it has something to do with gravity I think), but one could hardly expect less in the constant 100 degree plus temperatures that we've been experiencing and the inevitable perspiration falling from people to pavement (where usually begins to sizzle) or the occasional spilled glass of iced tea.  And yes, we do even have in-ground sprinkler systems attempting to keep local yards from attaining the color of the inside of a baby's diaper; but lately we've considered them as little more than auxiliary cooling systems to hydrate dogs long enough to add their contribution to the unending brown nature of the environment. 

I have it on good authority in fact, from no less an authority than the 'Flat Earth Society', that water comes from faucets and taps; and in rural areas, wells. It's therefore obvious that water comes from the ground and not from the sky.  When there are larger concentrations of it, such that the ground can no longer contain it, it forms rivers to carry away the excess.  These in turn can run together into lakes, and sometimes combine into gigantic formations of water known as oceans.  All of these, I might point out are not out there floating in the air, but are sitting on top of the ground, probably until they can be re-absorbed into the earth they came from. Why the vary notion that water could come from the sky is ludicrous!   

It's certainly possible that during the formation of the planet, back in some dim and prehistoric past, something of this nature happened where Kansas is concerned.  The notion of it's happening in modern times was so far-fetched however, that it took me a few minutes just to figure out how to get a result from an attempted Google search of 'Kansas and water from the sky'.  This exhaustive research led to a term I vaguely remembered from my early school science and history classes called RAIN.  Disbelieving my original results, I thought at first that this might be some sadistic and twisted acronym, perhaps for Really Annoying Imaginary Notion.  Additional research however, convinced me that this was in fact a real word (it's even in the Webster Dictionary) describing an event that has actually occurred in places around the world.  Intrigued, I watched a couple of You Tube videos, but afterward couldn't help but wonder if they weren't faked.

The possibilities set me to wondering though.  What would happen if such an event actually occurred?  Would you need protective clothing or devices to keep from getting wet?  Would bits of water that fell from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air cause physical pain if they struck you?  Would the ground be capable of absorbing such water, containing as much as it does already, or would it simply run off into rivers and lakes?  Would people actually be able to drive while such an event were occurring or would they be incapable of seeing or keep from sliding across road surfaces?  Nope sorry, such a thing is just physically impossible; and I refuse to panic local citizenry by spreading such outlandish fables.  (Yeah, like that's stopped me before.)  So in response to a warning which cannot be taken seriously (even with my tin foil hat on), and in honor of the color often used to describe the substance involved, the threat for the rest of the month will be raised to blue.