Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Thirteen Prezzies
Today, a patient gave me THE best gift, ever. I don’t receive many gifts; a few cards at Christmas, the occasional box of chocolates, and that’s usually it for the year. (Some cool cards, by the way. A heartfelt card is worth ten boxes of chockies.) I’ve had some good prezzies and some bad prezzies. We’ll save the best and the worst for last.
Tiring day, by the way, which goes a long way toward explaining tonight’s quickie post.
1. Sees Candy. I loathe seeing these around Christmastime. Really hard to get excited about all those empty calories and all that mediocre chocolate. Potential gift-givers, one word: Godiva. No, no, make that two words: Jacques Torres.
2. Plants. You might think I’ve killed off all of the “housewarming” plants we received when we moved into our new office digs in ’01, but you’d be wrong. Those plants won’t die. I even tried dumping one on my office manager the other day. Scared the piss out of her, but the plant survived.
3. Cool black and white photos. We have a few Ansel Adams-quality black and whites hanging in our office, the work of a physician’s assistant from our area who, very sadly, died of leukemia several years ago. Occasionally, patients bring me photos to add to the collection. And you know? They’re usually damned good.
4. Painted rocks. Crafts are a big deal out here. I have yet to receive a quilt, but I have lots and lots of painted rocks. And shell-people, too. And . . .
5. Wood carvings. One of my favorite patients passed a few years ago. Amazing guy; due to anxiety, he took on one hobby after another and excelled at all of them. He became a master gardener and grew the best roses in town. And he learned how to carve wood.
I have two of his wood carvings, both of them caricatures of doctors. We have them front and center on our reception desk.
But most people bring food, like
6. Smoked salmon (caught locally and home-smoked), or
7. Canned tuna (caught locally and home-canned), or
8. Crab, my favorite, but they always bring me more than we can eat!
9. Desserts are fun, too. One gal makes this surprisingly good dish in which she lines a baking dish with Saltines, pours hot caramel over it, then melts chocolate chips on top of the piping hot caramel. The caramel cools into a brittle-like consistency, so it’s sort of like peanut brittle with Saltines instead of peanuts.
This is way better than it sounds.
10. Fugly ties. Now we’re getting into some of the narstier gifts. Back in residency, one old guy used to come to every office visit with a new tie — and every last one of ’em was Halloween-worthy.
11. Painful artwork. As gifts go, painful artwork presents the bigger challenge than fugly ties. Never wear the tie, and your patient may assume he’s just missing you on the days when you wear his gift. But the bearer of painful artwork expects you to display it prominently and may even ask about it, next time he comes in.
On the other hand, the next-to-the-best prezzy I ever got was
12. The frog pillow. I love my poison dart frogs, and since we keep them in our waiting room, my patients know it, too. One patient sewed me a throw pillow with a poison dart frog patterned material. Way cool. But cooler is what I received today,
13. A one-of-a-kind, made especially for me, framed mosaic photo of Dendrobates auratus.
And if I weren’t so damned exhausted, I’d take a photo of it to show you how truly awesome it is. I’ll save that for another day.
But just let me say . . .
THANKS, STACY! YOU ROCK!
‘Kay y’all, leave me some luv and I’ll pay you back in kind.
Tam needs to sell her house. Beam good thoughts her way.
D.
We LOVE saltine brittle. I make it by caramelizing butter and sugar, then adding roasted nuts. It’s a ‘lighter’ version than the caramel and chocolate one. I can send you the recipe. 😉
Btw, do you put quilts in the same gift-group as painted rocks and shell people?
Good heavens, no! We have a lot of quilters around here. Despite some rather subtle hints on my part (e.g., patient shows off pictures of her quilts, and I say, “Wow, what a nice present that would make for a doctor!”) all I seem to get in return is laughter.
I don’t mind the painted rocks. They’re cute, and we do put them up on the counter for everyone to see. It’s the shell people I object to 😉
Fwiw, you are on my quilt list, it’s just a rather, um, long list. You’ll get near the top, though, then you’ll have to answer all sorts of odd questions. Not that you don’t do that already. 😉
I’ve received a lot of useless gifts from students over the years, but I’d say a recent one is an odd looking beret that is so big, half my head disappeared when I put it on; it was a thoughtful gift though since the student took the time to notice I wear a hat in the winter. Needless to say, I gave it to one of our stuffed animals whose head is a lot bigger than mine.