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| One of my heros...sitting in his favorite chair. |
I bet you have never been sick of museums. Personally, I have not...but my girls, my girls.....
I had the fantastic opportunity to chaperone my daughter's middle school music department trip to Washington, D.C. last week. Not only was it exhilarating to be there (I'm a real patriot -- and easily moved) -- but I thoroughly enjoyed having 7-10 girls at any one time -- 11 and 12 years old -- to redirect, inspire, observe, corral, keep safe, get on and off the metro, supervise, put to bed, manage money for, etc. etc.
The girls were a real joy...but because they were childen, they did things that children do (i.e. sliding down the wall in front off the Treasury building, giggling and talking to the Presidential squirrels in front of the White House). Some of the things that children do, in addition, are (1) get overexcited, (2) eat too much junk (3) eat too fast.
Most of my girls did all of this -- regularly.
Beginning after we saw the Hope Diamond, after we ooo-ed and aa-ed in the Ocean exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History and while we were sitting on the stairs of the museum waiting for another group, this is what I heard: "Mrs. Coff, does gelato have milk in it?" I did everything I could not to burst out laughing. Of course gelato has milk. It is ice cream. I said to this girl "why do you ask"?
"Well," she said, "you know that I am lactose intolerant, right?" I nodded my head. "Well," she went on, "Gabby told me that gelato doesn't have milk so I had it for lunch and now my stomach hurts".
Oh man, I thought, the teacher who is supposed to handle all medical problems was way across town listening to the school band play at the Pentagon. I had two choices....one of them required gathering girls and scrambling across town...and the other would take about thirty seconds and might obliterate the need for the first choice.
I asked this girl if I could maybe touch her leg in one little place just three inches below her knee. I told her that in the work that I did, it might be able to help her situation. She agreed to try.
I took my middle finger, applied it to the point Zu San Li, Stomach 26 ("leg three measures") and pushed just a little bit...applying about five grams of pressure. After about ten seconds I asked her how she felt...and again after twenty seconds....
After thirty seconds the pain was gone. She was up and about again.
Of course she told the other girls in the group. I tried to act as cool as a cucumber...and oh so detached about it.
Wonder of wonders, two hours later, on the train -- the next child began to look green. Ok, here we go again. I told this child that I would be happy to help her stomach pain in the same way, by touching the same place on her leg as I did for her friend -- and she agreed.
Over the course of two more days we had five more stomachaches in my group -- and five more quick acupressure "cures".
Soon the girls were calling me "Mrs. Magic Hands".
But frankly, I am not magic (ok, I might be, wink wink) -- it is just that Chinese Medicine rocks.
2 comments:
i wish you were my next door neighbor for around a hundred reasons.
"Mrs Magic Hands"? I second that!
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