6/28/09:
A couple of weeks ago a co-worker told me about how her significant other was out watering their plants that morning when a hummingbird came by, went in and out of the spray, and then came back and bathed in the spray. Cool!
This evening (since it has been so very dry here) I was out watering and had the hose nozzle set on "shower". I noticed a robin bobbing in the grass over in the yard a bit and thought he was likely checking for worms in the wetness, but then I noticed him looking and looking at me. Hmm, I thought, I wonder if he wants water? I turned smoothly and sent the spray over to where he was standing... he stayed there, standing in the rain I was making. The robin hopped out of the spray and back in, sticking his head up like he had not had a shower for a long time, then he flew away. I hope he comes back.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.— Wendell Berry
6/27/09, entry two, an apropos rerun from 9/9/07:
I have been writing cindysworld for six years this month, and as time goes on it is harder and harder for me to remember if I mentioned something here before, or if I just mentioned it in real life.
As many of you know or can imagine, working in health care is challenging. Health workers are witness to lots of pain, suffering, loss and death. Until fairly recently what is now called secondary trauma or compassion fatigue was not even recognized. Health care systems are incorporating some programs to address secondary trauma's impact on their workers, at least some are and this is good.
I haven't done much searching, but I have not run across anything about workers' trauma from being party to the denial of health care. The US health care system uses denial of care in order to funnel money from people paying for insurance to the pockets of insurance company executives and shareholders. It is an interesting dance to participate in, working and advocating for patients while being aware some options are closed off to them by the insurer they chose to pay their hard earned money to. I have had clients whose Medicare "supplemental insurance" would not pay for nursing home care regular Medicare would. Surprisingly, I was irate. I wanted to call 911 and report the insurance company was stealing my client's Medicare benefit. But I did not call the police because I was in the middle of the dance, the dance of pretending the patient is the hospital's customer when the insurance company actually is the one to be kept happy, preferred provider status and all. Some revelations make you want to cry with joy, some just make you want to cry.
The United States ranks 42nd in life expectancy for many reasons. I think you already know what I think one of the reasons is. I went to see Sicko the other night, simply expecting to see a movie preaching to the choir, preaching to a convert, and wondering which of the five million facts presented in the movie was the one that was wrong. I was not prepared to see insurance company workers crying about the truama they have inflicted, I was not expecting to cry myself as I saw health care workers in other countries simply doing the work they, like me, were called to do. They did not have to find out what insurance patients had, they did not have to get permission from an insurance person to treat the person in need. I saw a world where hurting people were cared for because they hurt.
We are a rich, rich country. We are not helpless babies, doomed to be victims of a ruthless predatory system. We are participating in a health care system that is the way it is by our own choice. It is up to us. Our health care system is the choice of our democracy, it represents who we are. Most people profess to believe in heaven, and in some sort of judgement. I always wonder if God will have Ricky Ricardo's accent when he says "you got some splaining to do!"
Make sure you click on the "megatron" device picture above. Later man.
Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!— The Queen, Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass"
6/27/09:
For some reason the topic of deportation and government agents came up when Jay and I were talking earlier this week. I recalled a couple of occasions of interest to this topic from my past work life and Jay said I should write about them as he was pretty sure I hadn't— he knew I had long ago lost the ability to distinguish between stories I have told on my pages and stories I have told.
The first story is of a patient who had been committed to the state hospital I was working at because she kept contacting a man she had met on vacation and stalking him. I can't recall that she actually threatened or attacked him so in looking back it is surprising that she was committed at all. The more interesting part is that she spoke no English and had flown here from Europe. The woman had met the American man while they were both on vacation in Europe. Apparently they became quite friendly with each other during that time and then the man came home and thought that was that. However, the woman had other ideas and came over here to see him several times, each time being sent away by the man and each time she became more insistent in her contacts. By the time I met the woman she was quite focused on the gentleman, had spent her last franc to seek him out once again and had no way to get home, even if she wished to. I spent quite a bit of energy calling US Immigration multiple times. They were familiar with the lady and put me off, saying they could not just send her back with no money and place to go and they had no more budget to anyway. I was able to call and speak with one of her family members over there with the assistance of an interpreter. The family member expressed frustration in dealing with the woman's fixation on the man here but did say she should return to her home country and she could stay with them. Cool beans. The people at US Immigration had gotten to know my name as well as that of the young lady in question because I continued to call, emphasizing the expense she was causing the state. Finally one day Immigration called me and said they had funding to pick up the woman and have an immigration official accompany her to her home country. Ah, the intricacies of discharge planning never cease.
The officials who came to pick up that lady looked very official. I was familiar with that official look from watching The Blues Brothers movie and because I had met a man from the US Secret Service a year earlier. That agent had come to interview one of my patients who had written a threatening letter to the President. The agent had on a black suit, white shirt, really narrow black tie and carried his hat since we were indoors. When he introduced himself and flashed his badge I think I said something like "Oh yeah, you look the part". He must have been tired or something 'cause the agent didn't even respond. Nothing eventful happened and I let the agent out of the locked unit when he was done. Not everything interesting is exciting.
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.— Thomas Szasz
6/24/09:
What day is this? Stress seems to zap me of my ability to orient myself to the correct day of week. Is it Friday? No? Hmm, are you sure? One of these days I will get it right...
I finished a library book last week, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's A Stroke of Insight. I'm pretty sure I wrote about Jill before when I had seen a video of her talking about experiencing a stroke, a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain, in 1996 and at the same time observing this happening to herself as a neuroanatomist. Jill's recollections of her experience and what she has learned are inspiring and thought-provoking. Here is a sample:
Some of us have nurtured both of our characters and are really good at utilizing the skills and personalities of both sides of our brain, allowing then to support, influence, and temper one another as we live our lives. Others of us, however, are quite unilateral in our thinking- either exhibiting extremely rigid thinking patterns that are analytically critical (extreme left brain), or we seldom connect to a common reality and spend most of our time "with our head in the clouds" (extreme right brain). Creating a healthy balance between our two characters enables us the ability to remain cognitively flexible enough to welcome change (right hemisphere), and yet remain concrete enough to stay a path (left hemisphere). Learning to value and utilize all of our cognitive gifts opens our lives up to the masterpiece of life we truly are. Imagine the compassionate world we could create if we set our minds to it.
I give the book two thumbs up and highly recommend reading it— see if you can find it for free at your neighborhood library.
Remember back in 1999 when a scientist at the South Pole discovered she had breast cancer and she treated herself for months before she could be air-lifted out? Yes. That is her in the picture up to the left, one of the many inspiring women of the world. Her breast cancer returned and Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald died this week at 57. Click her picture for the NYT obituary.
The human world grows into itself unevenly, just as we individuals find our own ways so unevenly. It took the US a long time to figure out what "all men are created equal" meant, even when we knew in our hearts that it was "self-evident". Some of the rest of the world is still working on the concept that women are part of that equality equation. The US has made great strides toward equality but continues to struggle with other significant concepts that define our culture, like free enterprise vs regulations/rules, health care tied to jobs vs health care tied to nothing... Women are not all alike, the world would not necessarily be a kinder place if they were overtly "in charge", but if all the world valued women as much as men it would look different than it does now in its testosterone-laced state. Two heads are better than one, right? Just like in my own individual life, so it is for the world: some lessons have to be learned more than once. Ciao.
Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes.' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.'— Clare Booth Luce (1903 - 1987)
[Jay says this is a good page for being written by a woman...]
6/21/09:
Happy Father's Day!
My dad always had a big garden every year as I grew up. We would have tons of strawberries, sweet corn, peas, beets, beans, and potatoes. The field across the street out our back living room window is planted in potatoes this year and right now the plants are in full bloom. A lot of potatoes are grown in this valley, some plants have white flowers, some pink. Jay said we should have a potato flower festival, like we have with tulips each spring. People could drive around and look at the fields of potato flowers. When I told my dad Jay's idea on the phone today he chuckled.
I took a picture of the potato field out our living room window. You can see it by clicking on the close up of potato flowers to the right or clicking on the picture up to the left of mature potatoes all dressed up...
Different things are flowering every day now, check it out and enjoy. Ciao...
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.— Rita Mae Brown
6/17/09:
Jay and I visited my family in Michigan earlier in May, timing our visit to be there over Mother's Day. We accomplished a lot of visiting, seeing quite a few people. We did not get pictures of everyone we visited but did get a few. The picture to the left is of my mom opening a present from my sister Linda. Mom liked that little bear a lot. If you click on her picture you can go on to 4 pages of Michigan pictures and my clever captions. :)
It is always interesting to go back to Michigan as the weather is so different from what my body is now used to and so much has changed. I felt sad a number of times driving about the countryside, seeing so many houses and buildings I remembered deteriorating or gone, new ones popping up all over the place. Property people had poured their lives into is now turning to dust. But all was not for naught, as those efforts have given us today, where and what we are now.
The world turns, life goes on and our individual time here is certainly limited. When I was young the world felt so permanent, the years have wrought a shift in that perception and it is clear that change is the name of the game. The past is what is permanent, it is without change. Life is like a big, nebulous puzzle we are all putting together— a newfangled one whose final shape and picture is unknown as we go about defining and creating the future. What more serious choice do we have to make than to decide what the puzzle we are building will look like and be. The thoughts of the ages invade even vacations...
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.— Viktor E. Frankl
6/13/09:
It is very pleasant summer weather here, mid-70s with morning haze and afternoon sun, although no rain means everything is dry and we are watering a lot. The field of potatoes across the way has a big farm sprinkler going, as do some other fields not normally watered this time of year.
I headed down to Seattle today and met up with my old friend Deb, visiting Carol at University Hospital. I am not sure how many times Carol has been in the hospital so far this year but she is doing well now. She will be starting her serious stem cell transplant work soon, eventually being hospitalized in isolation for 3 weeks while her immune system is shut down and rebooted. Carol is the most positive person I know, always inspiring me to be better at that myself.
I figured out how to work my camera timer for the picture to the left... my technique needs some work. It links to a pic of Carol and I, while Deb's underlined name links to one of her and Carol.
Hope you are enjoying a nice Saturday and some sun. Later man...
All real living is meeting.— Martin Buber
6/12/09:
Happy Birthday Daddy!
Today is my father's 80th birthday. He is a regular fix-it man and enjoyed working on race cars as I grew up. My dad does not have the BBQ to the left, but I think he would like to take a close look at it. I thought about going back to Michigan for my father's 80th birthday but it did not work well with my work schedule so my sister Linda and her husband Jerry plus my brother Don and his wife Terrie will take my parents out to dinner to celebrate this very special day.
My dad does not look his age, he is doing well and my mom enjoys marveling at how pretty his wavy white hair looks every day. Our/their house there on Ackley Road has a large lawn and my dad keeps it looking great, the grass green and pretty, the flower beds full, lots of trees with new ones planted all the time, and a fun set of bird feeder you can look at from the dining table, catching sight of the many birds that count on the offerings there. Happy Birthday Daddy, thank you for all these years of love and caring.
I have been neglecting getting pictures from my Michigan visit posted, however if you click on the BBQ picture you can see a nice photo of my folks and us kids taken in their living room. Ciao...
What you do speaks so loud, I cannot hear what you say.— Ralph Waldo Emerson
6/7/09:
My parents' cat Clover was in the cat hospital a week ago. Clover is part Siamese and came to live with my parents "temporarily" about 14 years ago— in cat years he is about the same age as my folks. Clover has what you might call a strong personality, and definite ideas about how things should be and if you should touch him or not. He is not real cuddly but has gotten friendlier in these later years to those of us who are not my mom and dad. Clover is a big part of my parents' household and good company for them both. I'm not sure what all was wrong with Clover but after a couple of days my parents insisted he come home, and he did, along with medicine only my dad can get into him. He is doing better this last week, although slowed up a bit. Getting old is not for sissies. If you click on the catnip alert you can see a picture of me and Clover sharing a good time together last month
Work has been busy as they moved into our permanent site while I was on vacation and there has been much to be done. Jay and I worked on putting in some fence panels today— manual labor it took us a while to get around to. The fence panels used to be in the area our addition went and we are putting them along the sides of the yard. We have several yet to go and also plan to put a short, maybe picket, fence across the front yard too. Many things seem to be growing or blooming on a different schedule this year and this weekend we noted one of our apple trees sprouted one cluster of blossoms, which is many weeks later than the others. Our poppies have started blooming and some other flowers have started up, despite the very hot weather we have had— up to 90 degrees last week, so we have done a lot of watering for this time of year here. The yard (meaning my flower beds) has started to look better, recovery from last year's construction coming from lots of manual labor on Jay's and my part. The picture of me running around the room links to a very nice poppy painting you might enjoy. More later, hopefully something interesting...
People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.— Bob Hope
6/1/09:
Welcome to June in my world, Cindy's World.
A number of years ago I worked with a gal who enjoyed some of my stories and things I said. One day after I made some quirky statement she said I should write a comic strip and call it "Cindy's World". I was intrigued and the remark stayed with me...
The month of May came to a halt with many world happenings still in process— economic meltdown and the restructuring of economic ideas, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., nuclear proliferation barreling full speed ahead, conservatives outspoken against the idea that one's gender and race/ethnicity would be a consideration in choosing candidates for the highest court in the land (where were their voices when ONLY white males were nominated?), the US health care system dragging on the economy while being the most expensive per capita, and, capping off the month, a law-abiding doctor who performed abortions murdered by a, well, a murderer. Excellent, we'll see what solutions June brings us closer to...
The pics leading the page at the top link to NY Times picture pages, while the last of my 5/28/09 flower pics to the left links to a Time video of WWII vets going to DC to see their war memorial. Click and enjoy, see you later...
alphabet [excerpt]
3
cicadas exist; chicory, chromium
citrus trees; cicadas exist;
cicadas, cedars, cypresses, the cere-
bellum
4
doves exist, dreamers, and dolls;
killers exist, and doves, and doves;
haze, dioxin, and days; days
exist, days and death; and poems
exist; poems, days, death
— Inger Christensen, Translated by Susanna Nied
Jardot's World: June Edition, 2009
All pictures on my page link to
somewhere... go ahead, click!
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