Writer's block in the US of A

More juice, please.....

Ok, yeah. I do have writer's block. I posted ALL this stuff from 2005-2006 during July, got it all "up here" on the danged Internet. All ready to blog away, about life in Poland, travel, language studies, the fabulous Mr. D, yadda yadda yadda, you name it.

And now, I find that in spite of all my recent assertions that I am "no longer a perfectionist"...

Surprise!

I am still a perfectionist.

Oops. How little we know ourselves. At least enlightenment is on the horizon, perhaps. Meanwhile, you'll have to bear with me as I hunker down and (gulp) write.

So I'm in the USA, visiting for the first time in three, count 'em, three years. Everything is flippin' huge. The cars, the people, the portion sizes, the highways, the sprawl. It's amazing. For all the talk about downsizing and carbon footprints and the struggling economy, there hasn't been much of an effect, as far as I can see.

I'm most blown away by the sheer volume and ready availability of merchandise. All kinds of merchandise. Hello Kitty stickers and handbags and T-shirts and slippers. Post-Its in every conceivable shape and size. Candles and school folders and clocks and bedding and shoes and underwear and workout clothes and garden tools and craft stuff and storage containers and this and that and the other. And more! Jeez. And this was just at Target. I had to go home and take a nap.

I didn't come over here to shop, though, like all the rest of the Europeans. Even though everything is impossibly inexpensive, compared to Poland and the UK. (Count your blessings for now, America.)

Instead, I came over to Albuquerque to visit my sister, who donated a kidney last month through the Alliance for Paired Donation. To look at her amazing story, check out www.caringbridge.org/visit/marthahansen. Takes altruism to a whole new level. She's completely fine now, and all the other 5 patients are too, which is simply miraculous. This was a historic "first": a three-way paired donation across three states. Leave it to Martha to do something so cool. For my part, I'm just happy that I didn't damage any of her internal organs during all of my chasing her and making her crash into walls during our childhood. I was an awful older sister!

Actually, she really did it just for the attention, but never mind. We enjoyed speculating about how she will now be able to play the "kidney card" in so many different situations.

"Sorry, officer, I was speeding? Gosh, I was just on the way for my post-op checkup after donating my kidney..."

"Gee, could you throw another donut in to make it a baker's dozen? I just donated my kidney last week and I'm feeling a little peckish...."

"Are there any discounts for ... organ donors?"

So many opportunities to capitalize on this good deed.

And since she's still listed as an organ donor on her driving license, we've also been laughing (morbidly I suppose) about the sense of outrage and ripped-off-ness that a hospital may one day feel if they actually do come to open her up and find... ONLY ONE KIDNEY.

"Damn! Who got here before us???!" Maybe her license needs a caveat, like "Warning: Some organs may already be missing."

Anyway, check out the link, and think about being an organ donor yourself. You too can do something amazing.