July 30, 2014 "Zujeily"

First Words

      …thoughts of an anachronistic, solo pediatrician

                    by Glenn Feole, M.D.

        "Be careful too that the reading of your story makes the melancholy 

        laugh and the merry laugh louder," Cervantes, Prologue to Don Quixote

Contact: ishmaelish36@gmail.com

Blog site: ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

July 30, 2014

Florida, The Gulf: 5

Chief Complaint: (written on the chart before I go in the room)

     “co,ld sxs”

Interesting Name:

     Zujeily

Anecdote:

     After I had a particularly aerobically demanding visit with a three year old, the child turned to his Mother and pleaded, "I want to go home and relax."

      Westport, Connecticut   1990's

Poetry:

Evasive Maneuvers

I grew up hiding from the other children.

I would break off from the pack

on its patrol of the streets every Saturday

and end up alone behind a hedge

or down a dim hallway in a strange basement.

No one ever came looking for me,

which only added to the excitement.

I used to hide from adults, too,

mostly behind my mother's long coat

or her floral dress depending on the seasons.

I tried to learn how to walk

between my father's steps while he walked

like the trick poodle I had seen on television.

And I hid behind books,

usually one of the volumes of the encyclopedia

that was kept behind glass in a bookcase,

the letters of the alphabet in gold.  

Before I knew how to read,

I sat in an armchair in the living room

and turned the pages, without a clue

about the words that were pressed

between D and F, M and O, W and Z.

Maybe this explains why

I looked out the bedroom window

first thing this morning

at the heavy trees, low gray clouds,

and said the word gastropod  out loud,

and having no idea what it meant

went downstair and looked it up

then hid in the woods from my wife and our dog.

   by Billy Collins, from Ballistics

Coup d'essai:

"…a knight errant without a lady is like a tree without leaves or fruit and a body without a soul," Don Quixote, Cervantes  Part I, Chapter I, p. 34

    The chapter goes on later to explain that he once knew "…a very good-looking farm girl, whom he had been taken with at one time, although she is supposed not to have known it or had proof of it.  Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and she it was he thought fit to call the lady of his fancies…he resolved to call her Dulcinea del Toboso."

    When I once asked my Uncle Ray (the quiet jazz pianist from Texas) if he had many girl friends growing up, he said, "Yes, Glenn.  I had many.  They didn't know they were my girlfriends, but I had many."

Favorite Musician/song:

   "How to Destroy Angels" Remix by Deadmau5

You can listen to this at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7KMBo_v1IU

    I was driving to the clinic last night at 11 p.m. and was listening to ECHOES.org on NPR.  It was a driveway moment as I put my head back and just absorbed this song, sitting in the dark, deserted parking lot for 15 minutes.  I usually carry a pen in the car for just such moments but I couldn't find one…a comical scene as I scurried into the clinic, unlocked the doors, grabbed a pen and ran back to the car just in time to hear who the musician was.
    This reminds me of the present I got (Daft Punk)…which I will tell you about tomorrow (saw well as  the group Jaw Gems).
    In any case, I love the eclectic sounds of drum sounds, all different and creative, the all-pervasive keyboards in the background.

Favorite Book/author:

Bronte, Emily

    Wuthering Heights

          What a family…the Bronte sisters.  Now that is one dinner I would have liked to attend just to hear the conversations between them.  A lonely childhood as I recall reading about but redeemed by the absence a television…rather, long walks on the moors and writing fantasies.

Favorite Movie/DVD:

The Birdcage, with Robin Williams

     Hilarious and gentle in many ways.  The ending scene with Gene Hackman dressed as a woman trying to escape by dancing his way out of the gay bar (to the song We Are Family) is one of the funniest around.
     Gene Hackman…his part in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven was very powerful (also one of my favorite movies).  I think my favorite quality in a human being is humility and I recall reading an interview recently in Time Magazine where Gene Hackman says that he never watches himself in his films; it makes him uncomfortable…nauseous.  Ha.  They were filming a movie in his hometown down south and he had not been in any recent movies.  He went up to one of the film people on the street and asked if they needed any extras.  he told him no.