through my yankee eyes

Detour

2011-11-08T08:47:00.001-06:00

I've been going through some major changes lately. (No, not that kind of change. Hopefully I have at least 10 more years before that hits.) It seems like life refuses to follow the plan that I have laid out. Such a stubborn beast life can be.

How is it possible to walk around in a daze yet still be full of new insights? That's how it has been for me this past month.

I'll talk more about all of this later. Right now I just wanted to say "Hi!" and "I'm still alive out there!" for those of you whose blogs I haven't visited or commented on in a long time.

When circumstances take a dramatic turn, I feel like the best way for me to get through it is to focus on something. Of course with the holidays coming that's a little more difficult to do. But anyways, whatever it is that I decide to throw myself into will be shared here because I miss writing.

Talk with you soon!

the thousand year stare

2011-09-27T04:43:00.018-05:00

The thousand year stare
scaffolds up a hundred transparent moments
my attention wanes
and sharpens abruptly.
I flirt with an emerald hummingbird
on the sun's side of the window
but he only sees his reflection, not the ghost
nods goodbye to sample a Gerber daisy
timid
peach-colored
proud
one of two on a stubborn plant.
I return to the kitchen.
Lines ingrained in pressed wood trace my finger
alphabet letters and preschool portraits
smiley faces
pencils tapping out songs leaving stars behind
the cadence of children making music around our table.
Window smudges.
Moss on the gate grows unchecked
the siding glows
this incessant heat
how long will it take to return after I scrub it away?
I remember something my mother wrote
words of tonic water when they finally went down
still undigested
does she resent me for not being her
or for being myself?
The books I ordered should have arrived
it has been nearly two weeks.
Piano lessons, nursery rhymes, the gingerbread man.
Dinner.
Milk?
High-pitched silverware slides
with plates like cymbals
piercing.
My family sings melodies of white noise in the background of my daydreams
I wish I could discern the tune
the fine points, the rough edges
find an intrinsic harmony.

garden haiku

2011-07-29T17:42:00.000-05:00

If you want to start writing poetry, the haiku is a user-friendly introduction to it. With a three-lined verse that contains the syllabic pattern of 5-7-5 and no requirement to rhyme, amateurs can make their foray into this Japanese art form without the emotional and time investment that other types of poetry require. Purists might argue that it's more complex than I let on, and I suppose it could be, but I don't want to scare any burgeoning poets away.

This morning I was inspired by a contest to write some haiku. I haven't written much poetry in the past few years because it takes a lot out of me emotionally, but this was simple and without that commitment. Haiku is like the one night stand of poetry.

garden wanderer
pauses to view robin nest
dive bombing ensues

night time insects cry
katy did, katy didn't
cacophony choir

Feel free to comment with your own haiku or link to your webpage or blog :-)

thoughts on May 21st rapturization

2011-05-21T16:52:00.002-05:00

Well, it looks like the day is finally here--the day that the end of the world begins. I'm still here.

My kids and I have been trying to get through the 3-hour-long Avatar movie. I've been wondering if the rapture will be like that, where your body will suddenly go limp and that'll be it.

If it is gonna happen today, I doubt it's gonna happen to me. My next-door neighbor is still around, and he has a lot going for him. He was named after the Apostle Paul, he told me that he never curses, he hosts the church youth group for a backyard get-together every so often, and he always has a piece of candy in his pocket and a smile for a stranger. I am nowhere near oaiopaslk;jgkl 908t 8gti nlkalhe480ah fgie

ATTENTION HUMANS: THIS IS THE ANGEL GABRIEL. I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO COORDINATE RAPTURE ACTIVITIES. IF YOU HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND, YOU WILL STILL BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR RAPTURED FRIENDS. THEY ARE LEARNING A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM IN HEAVEN AND WILL BE BACK ONLINE IN A FEW DAYS SO THEY CAN GLOAT AT YOU.

YOU ARE FREE TO ROAM ABOUT THE PLANET. LOOTING AND PILLAGING ARE NO LONGER PROHIBITED SINCE THERE'S NOTHING GOOD YOU CAN DO THAT MATTERS ANYMORE. HAVE FUN!

sullen teenage mockingbird

2011-05-11T09:19:00.000-05:00

I won't do it. You can't make me leave this tree. Humph!

argiope aurantia, our charlotte

2011-05-06T18:45:00.009-05:00

This little girl was spotted in our front bushes in May, 2009. She took up residence there and remained for the entire summer. When I arrived home from work in the early morning I would check for her presence in the web. If she disappeared for a day, we would worry that something terrible had happened to her, but sure enough she returned soon after, sometimes in her old web, sometimes in a new one. I guess you could say that she had a high "web-site tenacity," which is the probability of how long spiders remain in their webs before they find another site. This term was described in 1973, long before the internet was around! She had a good food source there, but we think she just liked us. :-)

She ate flies and beetles that ventured unknowingly into her lethal web. After paralyzing them with venom, she wrapped them tightly in silk.

Her abdomen, which was usually flat, grew large and round and stayed that way for days after eating. We came to know when it was time for her next meal.

As time went on, she somehow carved for herself a little depression in the leaves so that she could expand the web out further. After all, she was getting larger, and needed to be able to catch prey that was worthy of her size.

In this photo she holds a large winged insect, perhaps a cicada. We did see a few of those last year.

My favorite photo of her. The yellow and black markings on her legs and abdomen are clear as she rested after a long meal.

Her home began to extend above the bushes.

When the lower bushes were too confining for the size of the web she wanted to build, she moved up and anchored onto the pillar of our front porch and the Euonymus Alatus, or "burning bush," growing next to the house.

One morning, after I did my usual check for her, she was gone again from the web. I searched the bricks and within the leaves. I finally found her on the soffit of the front of the house. I knew it was time to say goodbye. She was drifting away from where we could be close to her and watch the details of her life play out. The mornings were becoming chillier, and I knew that she couldn't hang around forever. It was time for her to build a nest in which to make her egg sac. After laying the eggs, she would grow weaker and eventually pass away.

We had adopted her as part of our extended family, and last summer I found her offspring on some of the bushes. I called them my natural mosquito-killers. This spring we should be seeing Charlotte's grandchildren. I will welcome them joyously into my garden too!

convention of the river spirits

2011-05-05T15:12:00.001-05:00

black coal river

2011-05-05T07:57:00.000-05:00

the strawberry saga continues

2011-04-20T13:40:00.008-05:00

Here we have an intact strawberry, full of hope and promise for a long ripening, and almost ready to give up its juicy sweetness to the humans who planted, watered, and cared for it:

This next one shows that I need to go into stealth mode with night vision goggles in order to witness the precise moment of ripening (before the birds wake-up and have a feast):

Finally, this last specimen has helped me to realize that maybe the farmer's market is a better option:

Hopefully I'll make it there early enough on Saturday before all the strawberries sell out.

pigeon--the other white meat

2011-04-12T09:05:00.001-05:00

According to the rule-out ADHD diet, fresh or frozen pigeon is okay to eat. What a relief!

the ambiguous path of humanity

2011-04-04T13:06:00.004-05:00

I think of the animals, who go about their daily lives in the prescribed patterns that suit them. They obtain their sustenance, reproduce, fight over mates, their food, and their territories. There is the alpha male whom the others respect and fear, but he is not (typically) a tyrant. The animals live how they live without question, with instinct. A bird does not decide that his society is not working for him and go off to build a new colony of birds based upon a new philosophy of living. He will leave the nest to start a family, but the methods of survival remain based upon the threads of instinct that have been woven through hundreds of past generations.

Despite all of the intelligence that humans (in general) possess, we haven’t yet found the optimal way to live; we still fight over the details that should have been worked out hundreds of years ago. Evolution has failed our brains in this way. Perhaps we did have a good idea about how to get it right once, but passed it by with our increasing knowledge and technology, and in gaining that we have lost much of the instinct that drives our survival. We’ve become hammered down by the details and have lost the view of the big picture.

With greater knowledge comes greater indecision about the "right" way to live. As humans, we try to find our guides in religious texts, but there are so many modern questions that these don’t answer unless one skews the interpretation to fit their comfortable point of view. The fact that there are hundreds of religions, sects and denominations shows that we are thoroughly confused. So many choices, so many cultures, so many tints through which to view the world.

Is there one perfect ideology for humans that will maximize our intelligence, needs, and wants, yet still perpetuate our species at a sustainable level while allowing us to respect all others that aren't human? No, there is not, when seen through the lens of time. As technology has grown, so have our wants, so what we think we want is a matter of the reality that we live in. Our reality of today is different from even ten years ago. We are now at the point in time when our needs and our wants have become reversed, with it easier to provide for our wants than our needs (it is easier to go to the store and buy a new cell phone than it is to grow food). I believe that this is a dire situation for us.

Because we are of a higher thinking order than animals, maybe it’s not possible to find that one true path of living that is good (or right) for all, but shouldn’t the one true philosophy, that will bring happiness for all and preserve the earth, transcend politics and opinion? How will we know when we have found it? Or will we only discover it in retrospect, when all is lost?

a side of guilt with mayo on top

2011-03-31T13:06:00.005-05:00

Dearest Kraft Mayo (and all other mayonnaises who are reading this),

I just wanted to reassure you that I value our relationship. What you do for my sandwich, my salad dressing, even my hamburger since I've moved to the South, and in essence, what you do for me as a person, can't be quantified or adequately described in words. My feeble attempts to relate my feelings to you would be a mere specter of the thoughts that swell my heart and make it want to burst in a fit of something other than a blown aneurysm.

My beloved Mayo, I find your ultimatum troubling. Wait! Do not despair! It's just that love, hate--all those superlatives--they seem to be quite too much, and if I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to get into my pants.

Please don't take this personally. I didn't even say that I "hated" coffee back in the days when one plugged-nostril whiff of it made me nauseated. As far as the word "love" goes, well, I love me an ice cream sundae with caramel, real whipped cream and peanuts. You're just not there yet, but there's always room for growth.

What it comes down to, Mayo, is that I like you. That's all I can give you right now. Please do not return this reassurance with a gift of food poisoning. I promise not to let you go. I've become too much of a Southerner for that to happen.

train them up (or down, or sideways)

2011-03-15T20:33:00.005-05:00

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."-- Proverbs 22:6

I thought of this verse today while walking through my garden boxes and looking over the strawberries that I planted about a month ago. My fruits and vegetables are also my children, and even better because they don't talk back or try to sit on and flatten the cat. Although I'd never trade my real kids for an insect-free organic row of lettuce, I swear it.

Strawberries are unruly and don't like to do what they're told. They need to be trained, just like children, although I have a hunch that training strawberries is a slightly easier task.

We have tiny wild strawberries growing all over our yard. For the past couple of years I've fought with the ones that grow through my daylilies. Every couple of months I go out there and yank them up (guiltily), and before you know it they are back again as if nothing ever happened (they are very forgiving, to put it nicely). That's because strawberry plants grow from a bottom crown, and they send out long runners in all directions to make more little plants. When you pull them up, you have to get them at each crown section. Even then, there are always more lurking under the bushes just waiting to creep around the corner.

Those wild strawberries have been a good lesson for me on how to keep the "domesticated" ones under control. (Disclaimer: this advice cannot be applied to marriage.)

So here's what I did:

I made a corral for my berries by using the holes in concrete blocks (I got them for free on freecycle.org--I love that website!).

Three on one side, and three on the other:

I filled the middle of the box with some peat, compost, and top soil to help the drainage issue (when it rains it turns into a muddy pool, since our soil is mainly reddish-colored clay).

Here they are a month later, a little larger, the ground a little greener. I get so used to the brownness of winter that I don't think of it as dreary until I see a side-by-side comparison.

Some strawberry blossoms:

As they grow and send out runners, I plan to turn the strawberries in toward the center of the box to keep them from taking over my yard (although choking out the rampant unstoppable Bermuda grass and wild onions might be a benefit to letting them go crazy!).

I've read that it is best to lop off the flowers the first year so that the plants can spend their youth growing rather than reproducing (sounds like good advice). But I want fresh strawberries this year, if only a few! Call me greedy. And hopefully by next year I'll have a box full of yummy strawberries to pick in the spring and summer!

Chihuly Nights at Cheekwood botanical garden

2011-01-08T10:00:00.000-06:00

We have a membership to Cheekwood botanical garden in Nashville. In November, we went and saw some of the artwork of Dale Chihuly displayed throughout the grounds.

I've had this post in draft since then, but just thought to finish it up when my cousin in Seattle said on facebook that the powers that be are tearing down an old amusement park to build a Chihuly glass exhibit. I value art, and it does have a place in the education of children, but come on now. Where are the priorities???

happy rest of the year

2011-01-01T08:05:00.008-06:00

This was the first NYE that we let little Claire stay up with B, with lots of "joyful" playing and running around. I know that our pets were wondering what was going on as they tried to stay off to the side of the action and avoid a trampling.

I couldn't hear what Dick Clark was saying over all the yelling. The kids don't understand the significance of this man on New Year's Eve. Sadly, I don't think that any explanation I give could bring back the energy of years past when we stayed up late to celebrate along with his spirited voice and personality. Thank goodness we have a DVR, so I could rewind and play it back over and over again.

By the time I was able to partially hear it, we were 3 minutes behind in the program. New Year's was only 20 minutes or so away. The Backstreet Boys/NKOTB combo came on, and I was torn about whether or not to skip past or listen. I don't think my life would have been the less for it if we had fast forwarded, especially since my husband and I spent much of the time in a life-changing debate over the singing career of Marky Mark.

Anyways, today I want to give a shout out to January 2nd, the neglected younger brother of Queen New Year's Day. And as far as that goes, the rest of the year as well.

Here's to a productive, purposeful and peaceful 2011. Let's do this thing!

the after-Christmas before-January-4th void

2010-12-30T21:21:00.016-06:00

Santa has come and gone. Maybe you were lucky enough to get a quick shot of him climbing up the chimney for the kids who demanded "proof" this year:

The gifts have been opened and the torn wrapping paper cleaned out from underneath the couch.

Christmas dinner has been ingested and digested and flushed away, with a few cups of eggnog left in the fridge.

If you contributed to China's economy more than you really wanted to this holiday season and couldn't afford to take a vacation, you have now hit the void. The "Christmas break void" is one of the peaks of a parent's desperation throughout the year (not to rival summer break) to keep the kids busy so that they don't put ribbons and lipstick on the cats out of sheer boredom, but with no money to do anything.

I was able to dig up $20 from a dusty corner this afternoon to take the kids to an indoor family playroom. We did R/C car and helicopter racing, played fuss ball, pool and air hockey, and climbed through a treehouse.

The boy will be a pool shark by age 13 if I have my way
(after we positively ID the cue ball)

Because of poor planning, I wasn't wearing the right pants for the situation. They were jeans, but low riders that didn't allow for bending and crouching. It took a lot of coordinated movements and slick clothing readjustments in order to avoid flashing half the building from up in the air.

My kids spotted friends to play with, so I grabbed the nearest magazine and plopped down on a couch. Finally, a little me time while they were happy and occupied.

The magazine was La Vie Claire. I had never heard of it before, but it was full of gardening photos, so I couldn't put it down.

Lately I've been searching for worthwhile New Year's resolutions, not something thrown lazily together such as "exercise 3 times a week" or "shave my legs daily" (weekly maybe?).

One of the quotes in the magazine was "Do something creative every day." Am I sheltered or something, or do I just spend too much time reading the news? That quote had never passed my eyes before. But I am now making it my own. Resolution #1. Even if it's as simple as taking one photo, because I don't always have time to write.

When we finally returned home, my hands were shaking from a near-lethal cappuccino/Rice Krispie treat/Lucky Charms combination. Maybe that's why I decided to take this photo tonight:

I've been playing around and experimenting with the settings on my digital camera lately (forever an amateur), and I'm fascinated by how a slow shutter speed will make stationary lights gyrate and put them into motion, when in reality they are standing still.

I created this photo tonight, which I have named "Holiday Procession." The streaks are shaped like faces with torsos; the figures march forward two by two in both a somber and celebratory way. The context is yours to imagine.

The Christmas break void has turned out to be fruitful for me. I have gained a little direction for next year--to focus more on creating, rather than sitting for longer than I should as a passive participant of life behind my computer screen.

Now I just need to get up the will to pull out the Play Doh again so that my little ones can enjoy a bit of creativity too (perhaps I have a future fashion designer on my hands, since she has recently discovered that the mushy pink and blue glop adheres beautifully to her pants).

full moon over my house

2010-11-22T14:41:00.006-06:00

Last night, I left work early because I've been fighting off the crud (Is this a Southern word? I learned it here.)

As I got out of my car and turned toward the house, the most beautiful scene was in front of me.

A jet contrail streaked across the sky beside the moon.

The full moon illuminated the details of the clouds, reminiscent of Van Gogh's "Starry Night."

There aren't many nights like this in late November.

tomato with personality

2010-11-18T04:57:00.007-06:00

This year I harvested several oddly-shaped tomatoes. Here's the strangest one of them:

I picked this guy while still green because the temperature outside had dropped below freezing, and some of the others on the vine were already starting to get soft spots. This might have happened because the blossom was set when the temperature was below 50 or so degrees. This was, in fact, a late season (October) tomato, and I picked it this month.

Either way, I'll take this little guy over any of those uniformly round and red and tasteless specimens in the grocery store!

a tampon story

2010-10-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

Before I begin, allow me to divert my 6 loyal readers to an older entry of mine. http://yankeeeyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-woke-up-it-was-misty-morning.html

Please return after the next regularly scheduled posting. I promise that it will be about something wholesome...(maybe :-))

I was recently given the opportunity to review a new tampon for a product opinion panel. Now, this seems a little awkward, in the sense that I can't really do that until I stick the thing inside of myself. Then there's the accompanying mess which is par for the course, and talking about it afterwards is a stretch for me. But look, here I go writing a blog about it.

I began my early days of tamponing with a personal cheering section.

My aunt stood outside of the bathroom door for an hour in her Wisconsin lake house basement to referee the entire fiasco, just so I could go swimming at 13. I ended up staying out of the water.

Many kids from my x'd-out generation were "encouraged" to become independent at an early age. Our parents were very busy working, getting divorced, and listening to Carly Simon, so we had to learn to fend for ourselves with a lot of things. Sex education in Chicago consisted of a 5th grade field trip to the Robert Crown Center for a 3-D movie that described adolescent changes in a comfortable level of detail, while the snickers and elbow nudges were kept to a minimum in the wake of hovering teachers.

One morning, sometime between the night I slept with stuffed animals and the night I wanted to sleep with something other than a stuffed animal, "Love and Sex and Growing Up" mysteriously appeared on my bedside table. It had two sections--reproduction of people and reproduction of animals. I spent the first year I owned it learning about the animals, which seemed way more interesting at the time.

My mother didn't say a word about the subject. A rumor went around in 4th grade that the new girl, who was already towering 2 feet above all of us, had gotten her period. Of course, then we all immediately started to as well.

I didn't have any idea what to do with the period supplies, but I was determined to have my period too, dammit. So I poked around in the bathroom cabinets until I found the bounty. One tampon and one maxi pad. I was set. I would be protected from then on.

I stuffed the supplies in my pocket and brought them out during bathroom break at school. My friends were in there, and I called over the 4-foot stall that I was bleeding. "Where? "I want to see!" Our voices surely echoed into the hall where the boys were standing.

The girls demanded proof, and I was ready for them. I pulled the adhesive backing off the pad and pressed the sticky side to myself. Then I laid the tampon in my undies.

"See," I boasted as I cracked open the stall door. They were impressed to see the clean tampon laying under the pad. I wasn't too thrilled when I had to pull the pad off of my skin after school, though. Luckily, there wasn't any hair down there at that age. I decided that I never wanted to get my period. It was too painful!

Tampon incidents seem to be part of my life. I "lost" the tampon that I was supposed to review while I was at work, which is every woman's tampon nightmare.

I rushed back to the chair where I had just been sitting, terrified that I might find it strewn next to the hard drive on the floor.

Sent a frantic text message to my husband asking if he had seen it laying around the house.

Shook out both legs of my pants while making sure no one was about to come in the break room, just in case a bloody piece of tissue went flying.

I once went to the gynecologist to look for a misplaced tampon, but it was nowhere to be found. She told me that it had probably fallen out. Under no circumstances was I going back to the gynecologist at age 37 to have my hoo hoo searched again.

I whipped open my locker and dragged my bag off the shelf. There in the pocket was my silver ipod nano with its shiny and reflective backside, a perfect mirror. In the dark bathroom stall, I couldn't see much of anything (I'll spare you the details, and by the way, ipods do make excellent mirrors if you ever need one in a cinch. Cosmopolitan magazine can quote me on that.)

I never did find the tampon. Six months later I seem to be fine and without signs of death-bringing infection, so it must've been another case of "it slipped out." I guess this is what happens after you've delivered three 8-pound-something babies.

It's past time for someone to invent a tampon with a GPS or homing beacon. This could turn into a very real public health problem for many women, and as a healthcare provider, perhaps I should lead the way. Needless to say, I gave a decent review, since I really liked the pretty packaging. :-)

explaining death to a 4-year-old

2010-10-18T20:40:00.010-05:00

This morning my husband's grandmother died. I worked last night, so sometime while I was sleeping he explained what happened to my daughter.

Later on before dinner, she hid behind my son's bed. I realized she was crying, and when I asked her what was the matter she burst out with "Grandma died!" So we had our first conversation about death.

"Can I touch her?"

"Yes, but you can't laugh or play around. It's a very serious occasion at a wake."

"Did God take her to heaven?"

"Yes, she's up in heaven with God. Her body will be in the casket, but she's not really there. It's just her body."

"Did they rip her head off?

"No."

She doesn't have a head anymore?"

"Uh, yeah, she still has a head. She just can't talk to you anymore. What made her who she is, how she talks to you, that won't be there. Go on and eat your soup now, sweetie."

She seemed satisfied with this. We'll see how the wake goes.

Rest in peace, Gram.

the healthcare/life dichotomy

2010-09-14T04:24:00.009-05:00

To those people who say that healthcare is not a right, but a good or service to be bought...and that life is a right, as in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I would like to know what you see as the delineation between health and life.

If, as a nurse, I saw you on the street bleeding, and I walked away mumbling that "healthcare is not a right because you can't pay me," and then you died, would I not be guilty of taking away your right to life?

If you become incapacitated with a fatal form of cancer that has a good chance of remission with treatment, but you are unable to work due to the illness and lose your insurance, thereby being unable to cover the doctor's bills, have you lost your right to healthcare? Even if being denied healthcare also deprives you of your right to life?

What about in the case of a mother who considers aborting her fetus because she is single and can't afford to raise the child, who then decides to keep it...and then the baby is born with a congenital disease that requires surgery to survive? Why, according to the religious and governmentally-conservative person, did this baby have the right to life in the womb, but not once born?

The other night at work, I had a conversation with two Christian nurses. When I mentioned universal healthcare, the responses were "It's theft," and even worse: "People die, that's life." Would you feel the same way if you were put in the situation of having no insurance and no money to pay for a doctor? Would it be okay to let you die?

Charities will never be able to cover healthcare for all. And while I agree that government-funded insurance is a redistribution of wealth, there is a moral imperative that goes beyond what Old Testament Christians like to cite as the breaking of the 8th commandment. It's Jesus' call to care for your fellow humans--"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Surely this should come before the redistribution of wealth from the taxpayers to the military machine that costs us billions each year.

Healthcare and life are synonymous. You can't have one without the other. Even the person with a common cold could die if it progressed to a systemic infection. There are so many seemingly minor things in this world that would kill us if we didn't have medicine and surgery. Where exactly should the line be drawn on who gets treatment? Or should the line be drawn at all? And if the line is drawn, are we not essentially forming the "death panels" that were feared during the healthcare debate?

snafu haircut

2010-09-13T09:11:00.006-05:00

It's not a good idea to give your child a "really quick, probably only about 5 minutes" Picture Day haircut after you've been up all night at work.

In my confused state, I buzzed the top short and left the back long, when I normally do just the opposite.

I have crafted the Pre-Mullet.

being a nurse

2010-09-12T23:18:00.010-05:00

I think I'll just hang out here alone for a little while before I go visit my blogging friends, now that I've verified that they're all still alive.

I'm back in school, so I've been thinking a lot about the ins and outs of the nursing profession again. All the hollow shells of academic theories that I learned back in Chicago, I'm now finding the snails that live inside.

When people ask me "what's the most f%cked up situation you've ever been in?", I could probably name a lot of things outside of work, but I think they mean as a nurse.

It's really difficult to pick a single story that tops them all, because every patient encounter I've had has its own strange idiosyncrasies, and how can you rate them? (I guess it would go like this: on a 1-10 scale, with 10 at the top of the f%cked up factor, 1 would be getting a spot of blood on my uniform, 10 would be the patient puking up blood all over the floor and my shoes just before he codes)

I think the better question to ask a nurse is "What is the most rewarding situation you've been in?"

That gets us thinking past the exhaustion and frustration, and we remember how we picked up on a subtle clue that portended early sepsis, effectively saving a patient's life. Or the time a patient in the ER thanked us for treating them with the dignity and respect that they deserved.

We remember that the work we're doing is not in vain. Focusing on the positive might just be the solution we need to keeping more good nurses around.

breakfast thoughts

2010-09-12T08:25:00.008-05:00

Hello,

I've been up all night at work looking at photos of babies born without brains and reminding myself that the words "autosomal dominant" are words that I should never forget.

I think I'll make some banana pancakes, on that note.

It's still randomly in the 90's here, yet my yard looks and smells like autumn. I'll know it's really fall when the spiders hide away. Charlotte's babies have come back to haunt all the corners of the house this summer.

Happy Sunday, happy Day After September 11th, happy respite from blogging, happy Bisquick in the freezer so I don't need to dig out the cookbook.

signs all around us

2010-06-10T00:25:00.029-05:00

It's true, our American political landscape is littered with on-the-down-low corporatists who seem to despise the common man.

Our oceans are filling with oil, and natural resources and possibly unknown species of deep sea fish are being destroyed daily.

I worry for my children's future and their right to live on a planet where they can breathe clean air and drink non-toxic water.

Combine that with the usual annoyances like bikini razor burn, oily skin and pimples at age 38, and an informidable flea takeover of my house since we brought home two cats.

It can be upsetting...sometimes infuriating. (I keep finding little curly black pieces of flea shit on my kitchen table after I've shooed a sleeping cat off, and it's grossing me out. This seems to be one of the joys of living in sub-tropical Tennessee.)

But life doesn't stop. It can't stop, or we've lost the battle. I won't stop being silly here, or anywhere, although sometimes I may get into a little ranting funk. But lucky for everyone who reads this blog, I usually reserve my diatribes for facebook, where I think I secretly enjoy aggravating online "friends."

We can't allow ourselves to quit looking at the world with a sense of wonder. Anger and disappointment aside, there is something new and beautiful to be discovered each day.

Now I know I'm seriously late with posting some Nashville flood photos. But does anyone care anymore? They're interesting photos, if for nothing more than historical significance.

But today, I have something more timely to share with you--signage highlights from my recent trip through Virginia on our way to D.C.

If you want to see stuff like this, you have to get off the highway...there's just no other way.

Every state likes to act all normal from the safe and impersonal confines of the high-speed roads, but once you get to really know that state...well, you know what I mean.

Okay, this one isn't weird. It was late afternoon and we had just arrived at the Virginia state line. I found the cloud behind the sign to be breathtaking. I love cumulonimbus. No, the rest stop didn't smell bad, so I still had breath to behold the cloud. Although Tennessee has much nicer waysides--ours smell like potpourri and ham, and they have rocking chairs too, just like at Cracker Barrel!

I did not note any sort of crumpacking factory in the area. Apparently, in the early colonial days of Virginia, there was a Dutch Crumpacker dynasty going on, with family members soldiering and farming and all that good colonial stuff, later emigrating to Indiana where they became all political. Are you questioning whether or not I need to get a life? Because I am.

I begged my husband to stop so I could get a photo of this sign. What sort-of name was that for a state park anyways? I thought it was pretty funny. I guess anyone would think that if they didn't know the story behind the name. It's actually very sad. This story would make a good bluegrass or folk song.

The Legend of Hungry Mother

Legend has it that when the Native Americans destroyed several settlements on the New River south of the park, Molly Marley and her small child were among the survivors taken to the raiders’ base north of the park. They eventually escaped, wandering through the wilderness eating berries. Molly finally collapsed, and her child wandered down a creek until the child found help. The only words the child could utter were "Hungry Mother." The search party arrived at the foot of the mountain where Molly collapsed to find the child's mother dead. Today that mountain is Molly’s Knob, and the stream is Hungry Mother Creek.

(copied from http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/hun.shtml)

Southern food and gasoline in one place! Sure beats the usual gas station taquitos.

Have a great week! I'm off to stir my enchilada sauce :-)