Orange Jell-O Makes the Food Pyramid

If I'm doing as well as I hope I am, and trying to see into the future is as difficult for me as understanding the here and now for the most part, with a small amount of luck it's very possible I'll be getting out of the hospital tomorrow but Thursday is a more likely bet says the paperwork from my insuror.

One of things I realized when I was given my surgery date was I might possibly be unable to help my wife celebrate her birthday, which is this Thursday. By the time I realized the implications of the surgery date, the process of clearances and permissions had already started and trying to get all of that rescheduled would have taken an act of Congress (and they're a little busy right now helping rescue stupid and greedy bankers from their own cupidity).

Of course, as was the case yesterday and will be for the rest of the week, I'm writing these in advance, since I don't think either of us would enjoy very much what passes for musings in The Shape I'm In or the shape I expect I'm in. I'm thinking if you stop back on Saturday and there's a blank spot or Friday's observations staring back at you, it's a safe bet that either I now have something more serious than a clunky left knee, or the knee and all the body parts have been recalled by the manufacturer. That, in a way, would be very fitting, though I hope that cup can be passed, if you follow my drift.

Today, with luck (though I'm never sure which way) I'll get to eat real food if you define 'real food' as orange Jell-O, except for reasons I don't understand (costs, perhaps?) the stuff with the foil top in the plastic see-through cup is not Jell-O but a gelatin product from someone else. I love Jell-O--no joke, I really do and my daughter, when she's home from college, and I make these amazing kinds (all sugar-free because I am blessed already with a sweet enough personality) that combine kiwi and/or strawberry and/or flavors and colors not ordinarily found in nature. I hate the waiting-for-it-to-set-part, though the good news, I guess, about the hospital gelatin is that it's already set.

As a matter of fact it looks like it's been set for years and that you could use it as building material if you had to. You know how scientists tell us cockroaches could survive a worldwide nuclear attack? I think they'd be eating orange hospital gelatin. The color is nearly identical to international emergency orange, which tells me somebody back in the factory has some decency and compassion. If only they had some taste buds. No amount of alcohol would make this stuff an acceptable shot, and the good news is that in the hospital that's exactly the quantity of alcohol you'll get. As for wrestling? That's what the nurses usually have to do to get us to eat it. Why do you think the windows are locked? The doctors hate scraping this stuff off their windshields and from four floors up, it gains velocity in a hurry and the splatter pattern is surreal.
-bill kenny