Mudra

Friday night, my brother Marc was in KC for an art show, so he picked me up on his way back, and we rode out to the Blue Room on 18th and Vine to catch Roger playing with Rob Scheps and Jerry Hahn. Interesting history --Jerry Hahn is the father of a guy I dated in college named Paul. If I hadn't dated Paul, I wouldn't have ended up in Miami, and my life would have taken a completely different direction. In fact, you can trace a direct line from the Rocky Horror Picture Show to my meeting Roger. In a weird way, my kids are indebted to Tim Curry in fishnet stockings.

I wish I could have gone see my sister Laura play at the Stiles Winery in Excelsior Springs, but Lilah had a soccer game, and I had a mid-term that I had to study for and take over the weekend. It was an online test covering 8 chapters and 10 weeks of lectures ---so even though there were only 18 questions, they could have been on anything covered within those ten weeks. And the test had a time limit of 40 minutes. I missed the question about what a "bibliographic stance" was.

On Sunday I was working half the afternoon on a paper due that night, so Roger and I had just enough time to run to the Nelson to catch the 3:00 session of Julie dancing in a special show titled "Mudra: Telling Stories through Indian Art and Dance." My co-worker Julie has been taking Indian dance classes (and belly dance) for quite a while now, and she was very impressive on stage, dancing with her dance instructor and another student. She wore an elaborate dance costume that her instructor brought back from India, with jewels on her head and flowers in her hair, dramatic eye-liner, face paint, and red paint on her hands. She was quite good, and I was so glad I went.

For supper, we had been planning on eating at Stroud's with Rob. Going to Stroud's when Rob is in town and stuffing ouselves with pan-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and buttery-sugary-crusted cinnamon rolls is a tradition. But Rob had other plans, so that fell through. We hadn't had time to do any grocery shopping for days, so for supper I turned to some leftover baked potatoes I had and made Baked Potato Soup. This recipe is insane. It calls for three cups of milk plus A QUART of half and half! This is for five baked potatoes. I only use a cup of half and half, and even that seems like too much.

We also had leftover meatloaf from the night before. I got this recipe from Mom and I call it "Mom's Meat Crumble," because it's not quite as solid as other meatloaf, but it's actually quite good. Mom told me she only puts egg, onions and tomato sauce in her meatloaf. Well, last time we were out at her place, she made meatloaf but had even forgotten the egg, but we had all liked it. So to make Mom's Meat Crumble you just mix two pounds of ground beef together with onions and a can of tomato sauce, and there you are.

By the time supper was over I was exhausted --up late Friday night going to the Blue Room, up late Saturday night and up early Sunday morning studying, studying and writing my paper all day...so I collapsed in a supine sort of way on the bed.

Then my friend Deana called. And what a story she had to tell. Poor thing got bucked off her new horse during a trail ride. Everyone said, "You have to get right back on, to let the horse know who is boss, " so Deana got back on, and got bucked off again. This time, she was thrown against a tree and broke a rib. After a few days convalescing, she went back to work, but was still in miserable pain. She's a nurse in an ICU, so one of the doctors there offered to give her some kind of rib block, which means sticking a needle in her and injecting some pain killer. Well, it worked great the first time, and she felt much better. So the next day or so the doctor offered to do it again, but this time he "nicked a lung", as she put it, and her lung started to collapse, only she didn't know it right away, until she became so short of breath she had to call someone on the floor and say, "This is Deana but I'm not calling as staff, I'm calling as a patient. I need help now." So they picked her up with a wheelchair and took her for a chest x-ray. She was sitting waiting for the results, expecting to be sent home, when she sees these nurses coming in with oxygen and an IV, and they're telling her she has to stay there overnight because they need to re-inflate the dead space in her lung before her whole lung totally collapses. So she spends a couple of days in the hospital with a flat lung, and this was while I was out of town last weekend, so I couldn't be any help to her.

She's better now, but she's feeling more vulnerable, and I am wishing I could get this damn school over with so I can be a better friend. But the next three weeks I've got this final hill to climb --comprehensive exams this week, where I am supposed to "synthesize" all that I've learned in writing four small papers, and a final project for my collection class, more teen lit books to read, another paper for Internet Reference...so I will continue to be self-absorbed and cranky, until that magic day in May when it suddenly vanishes like smoke, and for a short time, I will feel like I have all the time in the world.

Perhaps then I can create a dance using mudras to tell the story of my school work vanishing like smoke, and my time being like a bird that was in a cage but is finally set free.

--picture above is of Samarpita Bajpai, Julie's dance teacher