Getting Down to Monkey Business
This just goes to prove you’re never too old
I had a successful career throughout my working years. Still, it wasn’t until I began working in Psychiatry in 1985 that my professional life really blossomed. After a short time in my job, I joined the fledgling Administrators in Academic Psychiatry or AAP. My boss became the organization’s president a year after I joined. I got elected to the Board as a member-at-large the following year.
Soon after that, the organization started a newsletter, The Grapevine, and my boss became its first editor. I was the assistant editor and helped by typing the articles and sending them to our parent organization, Medical Group Management Association, for layout and production. A few years later, he left Michigan and his post as editor-in-chief and another member took over the role. I continued to assist with article preparation, and with the help of someone at MGMA and some classes, I learned the basics of layout and design.
Because our acronym is pronounced “ape,” one of the members with an artistic bent decorated the T-shirts we gave to our members at each conference with a monkey. And when I became the newsletter editor in 1994, I began using the monkey as a logo on the “Monkey Business” page, highlighting new members and other organizational news. I was newsletter editor “in perpetuity” until I retired in 2012. So, there were many opportunities to use monkeys in The GrAAPvine (I changed the spelling of the name when I became editor-in-chief).
I was also known as the unofficial AAP “social director,” organizing side trips, matching up “buddies” to new members, and helping at the registration desk at conferences. Every name tag I made had a monkey on it. Someone once told me she kept all of her name tags and there were no monkey repeats! And I did that for lots of years!
So, it wasn’t a stretch to bring monkeys into my personal life. People called me “the monkey lady” and gave me monkeys as gifts. I have stuffed monkeys, a monkey clock, monkey dishes and mugs, even a monkey potato peeler. Each room in my house has “a touch of monkey.”
But, the most dramatic uses of monkeys in my life are my five monkey tattoos! I admit to being a disappointment to my mother — repeatedly because she forgot that I had one each time she saw me (she died before the last four). I got my first tattoo in my early 60's in Sacramento (as a late response to a midlife crisis?). I arrived a day early for a board meeting before the AAP conference. I was walking by myself when I saw a sign for “River City Tattoos.” I went in without the intention of actually getting one but wanted to look through the artwork they had of monkeys. They had none but an artist started sketching one when I told him what I was searching for. I didn’t feel at that point that I couldn’t get it, hence my first tattoo — on my left ankle. It was the talk of the conference!
I got the next two tattoos at home at The Lucky Monkey Tattoo Parlour. I got them there just because of the name! My second one is on my back and it’s the AAP Monkey Business logo.
The third was just something I found on the internet. I wanted it to be small (it’s about the size of a quarter) and it’s on my breast. I call it my “titty tat!” (My daughter hates that!)
My fourth tattoo is on my other ankle. I got it spur of the moment in Austin, Texas when I went with my friend for her tattoo appointment! It’s a chain of monkeys from the game Barrel of Monkeys.
It took several years to get the fifth (and probably last) tattoo. Although I had the picture for several years, I couldn’t decide where I wanted it. I finally decided to put it on the inside of my forearm. So for my seventieth birthday, I went to the tattoo parlor with the picture and got my largest tattoo yet! (See the picture at the top).
I don’t know if I’ll ever get another tattoo, but I’m sure I’ll be the sexiest old lady in the nursing home!
