Stay Safe Out There

Since mid-January until the end of February, my immediate and extended family honors the birthdays of ten very special people. That’s a lot of cards, gifts, toasting and consumption of treats– carrot cake is the hands down fave! To cap off family birthday season, this year the Superbowl was held on the special day I share with my twin sister and now my one-year-old grandson. What a memorable occasion it was! 

This past weekend I traveled to Durham, NC to celebrate my birthday as well as that of my oldest daughter. As often happens when we gather around sipping and munching and celebrating, old stories get retold and new ones are unveiled in more detail. 

This year, my daughter spent her birthday in the emergency room with her youngest son, aged three. He’d fallen at school and needed a pediatric plastic surgeon to sew up a deep gash on his cheek. Because of Covid protocols and the potential for other head and neck injuries getting him loaded into an ambulance was a traumatic event for everyone. That one will go in the record books, as well as the other memory we revisited. Two years ago– also on that same daughter’s birthday–my husband went by ambulance to the hospital for post-surgery complications. 

After my daughter and I relived those challenging moments, we enumerated other memories, some laughable and some annoying, about times when immediate family members harmed themselves in more minor ways. Occasions like a year ago when my daughter and her family were staying with me, and she had to hustle me off to Urgent Care. 

I’d fallen during a tennis event and fractured my wrist. Reliving that instant got us digging deeper. We laughed about all the trips to Urgent Care and the ER our family of six sustained over the years: stitches on chins, hands, cheeks, and lips; surgeries on knees, shoulders, gallbladders, and appendix; and broken arms, sprained ankles, scrapes from bike accidents, altitude sickness, allergic reactions… the list goes on and on. (As a side note, most of those above-mentioned mishaps were the result of four growing children with a propensity for risk and adventure, although my husband contributed to the total, too.)

Which leads me to my last little tale. 

Several years ago, I ended up in the ER for a mishap that had nothing to do with sports, adventure, or illness. I had a run in with a nasty smelling trash bin. I can laugh about it now, but at the time that trash bin punched a wicked wallop. 

Enjoy the read or reread below. In closing, I want to repeat one of the all-time great and memorable lines form the long-running TV series, Hill Street Blues: 

Stay safe out there!

Do Not Roll 

Did you realize that there are warnings and instructions embossed onto the lids of the oversized garbage and recycling containers?

Directives like: No Hot Ashes, Arrows Toward the Street, and Do Not Roll With Lid Open. 

Then again, you could be like me, a person whose husband usually wheels out the trash and recyclables, and who never once thought to mention the dangers inherent with the containers. Unless of course, your spouse hasn’t noticed the garbage cans embossed lettering either.

On a warm spring day a few years back, I shoved the blue garbage containers back into their place against the garage. I needed to get the car out and the garbage men had come and gone leaving the cans helter-skelter. In stowing them, I noticed a putrid odor emanating from the bins. I lifted the lids.

Inside, old food and wrappers had crusted to the bottom–no doubt casualties from an improperly tied kitchen bag or two. I will admit to having intermittent bouts of cleaning mania, putting me somewhere on the spectrum. The foul odor signaled that the situation needed to be addressed right away. I pushed the containers over to the house, turned them on their sides, angled the lids open, and fetched the garden hose. First, I sprayed the nasty debris loose and stuffed it into a plastic bag (yes, I wore gloves!). Once the containers were upright, I squirted Dawn into the bottoms, added several inches of water, and let them soak for a bit.

While I was immersed in this cleaning frenzy, my husband came home for lunch. He quizzed me, made no effort to hide his amusement with the seriousness with which I addressed my task, and then he went inside to make a sandwich. He took a seat at the kitchen table in full view of the driveway and my cleaning efforts.

Free of the disgusting, clingy trash and smelling as sweet as my prized lilac bushes, I deemed it time to return the containers to their final resting spot by the garage. I hoisted them from the concrete drive. Since moisture still clung to the insides, I decided that the lids should remain open to promote a full airing out. I didn’t want my squeaky-clean garbage bins taking on mold or mildew after I’d gone to so much trouble. I determined that I should leave the lids dangling open and let the sun dry the innards.

I returned the first can to its corner by the fence without incident. In thinking about what happened next, perhaps it was the successful effort of returning Bin #1 to its resting place that caused me to handle the second garbage can with nonchalance. Or it’s entirely possible that I was distracted, contemplating what else might need a sprucing up while I was in the “cleaning zone.” 

In mid-stride, with my eyes focused on crossing the finish line, the wicked garbage lid flipped up, smacked me in the face, and sent me careening to the pavement.  

I lay there for a few seconds wondering if I’d broken my neck. Very slowly, I lifted my right hand and touched a few fingers to my face. My right cheekbone, the area just under my eye, smarted from the beating handed me by the hard plastic lid. Sharp pain emanated from my temple. I rolled over on my side and gingerly wiggled limbs and digits. Flashes of white light striated my vision.

From the periphery, I made out my husband’s silhouette in the kitchen window. His wild gestures meant, “What the heck happened?” 

By the time he towered over me, I was sitting up, testing my neck and back with gentle movements.

“I think I’m okay, except for the cheekbone,” I said.

It didn’t take much urging to convince me to go to the ER for X-rays. The outcome was no broken bones, just a spectacular shiner forming. 

Since the battle with the blue bins, I do not touch the garbage or recycling containers, and I don’t care if they smell or collect junk in the bottom. If the garbage collectors leave the lids open, I give the containers a wide berth. 

Since that incident, I have coached my family and friends about the faintly embossed warning labels on the containers: Do not roll with the lids open. As far as the two other warnings etched onto the lids, I must admit that I never thought about putting hot ash in the containers. I intend to abide by that one, and you should, too. Burning plastic is very toxic. And the last notice: Face the cans with arrows towards the street, you are on your own with that one. I suspect that it means your trash will not be picked up if that rule is violated. 

Of this I am certain: you are inviting unknown evils into your life when you disrespect the rules of the garbage can world.

Follow Me Here

Lynn Grubb, renown adoption rights advocate, published Julie’s guest blog post, “Caught in the Middle,” on her highly-acclaimed site, No Apologies For Being Me on February 8th.

Julie’s guest blog post about “Secondary Rejection” appeared on Elaine Coleman’s award-winning blog site, The Goodbye Baby: Adoptee Diaries. Check it out, here.

On February 15, Laura Swanson hosted Julie on her Social Work Bubble podcast where they discussed how social workers can best support adoptees in their search for identity and belonging. Here is the link to take a listen.

On February 26th, Iviana Bynum, host of The Grace for Breakfast Podcast, will share a compassionate conversation with Julie about how grace helps us break free from the destructive patterns caused by fear and abuse.

On February 27th, Dr. Meg Meeker will host a conversation with Julie about adoption and parenthood on the Parenting Great Kids podcast. 

On February 29th, With host Sophia Milles, Julie will discuss her perspective as an adult adoptee looking back at how it shaped her childhood on The Healing Hearts podcast.

On March 14th, Melissa Brunetti, host of the Mind Your Own Karma-The Adoption Chronicles Podcast will talk with Julie about her adoption story and its takeaways.

On April 18th, Julie will guest on the Trauma Survivorhood Podcast with Sarah Miley.

To listen to other podcasts where Julie shares about her books, adoption story, and perspectives on all things related to identity, family, and belonging, go here (the media tab on her website).

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