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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| Behind some creaky warehouse door, or in some bin at a dollar store, there hide some things I'm looking for. Yesterday it was vanilla bean Carb Benefits ice cream. I knew it was no longer being made because I wrote Dreyers to ask about it. But now today I was hunting for two products that I also really like, and my stash is about to disappear: Plug-Ins, the little air freshener thingies that are made of gel and go into a plastic thingy that plugs into your power outlet, and Handi-Wipes, I should have suspected that Plug-Ins in their original form wouldn't last. First they were updated by making them into holders for scented oil. That was messy and more trouble than the first kind. Now they're pushing electronic air fresheners that give off little puffs of fragrance at pre-set intervals. Why have something easy when you can gimmick it up and pay more? Now, as for Handi-Wipes, I haven't bought any for a long time. I've been using sponges in the kitchen for wiping the barbecue sauce off the dinner plates before putting them into the dishwasher to have the said sauce permanently fixed. But sponges are nasty, or, at least they get nasty very quickly, even if I toss them into the dishwasher on a regular basis. So I used up an old package of the cloth-like paper towels, and went to buy more. Hunted in every possible section of the grocery store, and finally found one single package left, hidden away beside the napkins. This must be a sure sign of old age. I remember my mother complaining that they didn't make things the way they used to. The new version of that same song seems to be: they don't make things like that any more at all. |
| Bill cooked us a steak for supper, grilled it after I marinated it, and it tasted delicious. As the meat soaked, he cleaned the filters on the fish pond and I put in a load of laundry. We have four new koi, as of this spring, and they are growing fast. They don't come up and beg like the old ones, but they do swim around crazily when we appear. Their names-- as if fish came to their names any better than cats do!-- are Uno, Dot, Dash and Flash. Uno is white, with an orange head, and always shows up first for the food. Dot is white with small black spots and two big red ones, like Rising Suns painted on the sides of Zeros. Dash is white with lots of black spots and one long dash, about an inch long, on his neck. Flash is orange with tiny black freckles and is the fastest. I call him Slurp too, because he sometimes makes a slurp sound when he eats his fish food. We had a bottle of domestic champagne, a sparkling Chardonnay from Barefoot Bubbly cellars, in honor of our new grandson Zachary who will be born in January. Bill's son John is the proud father-to-be, and Trooper Karen is the mom. I mention that because Bill left me a message that Trooper was going to have a boy, and a co-worker of mine thought that 'Trooper' was the name for the baby. Mom is a Trooper with FL State Patrol. After a wonderful, celebratory supper, I swatted a huge fly, a big hairy fly wearing pajamas and planning to spend the night; and I hit him, and I killed him. Victory! (Every little kill counts when you're battling late summer flies. I am not a Jainist.) Now, Bill just brought me a small bowl of our last stashed away container of Dreyer's Carb Benefit Vanilla Bean ice cream. Heaven! Anybody who tried it and liked it should write Dreyer's and complain about their stopping production. And if you haven't tried it, take my word that it's really delicious and write anyway. They told me it might make them reconsider. |
| Here are my pictures of the Puget Sound surprise. |
| We intended to fly yesterday. It would have made the short trip much faster and easier, but the weather didn't allow. The ceiling was so low in Bremerton as to make even instrument landings difficult, and the airlines were reporting some icing. That final fact made the decision firm, although Bill second guessed himself all the way over. Especially when we encountered bumper to bumper traffic for two hours across Snowqualmie Pass. Bill is here for a conference about terrorism, particularly as it applies to transportation. There are lots of trains that go through the area where he works (and everywhere else) that are loaded with anhydrous ammonia and other potentially dangerous chemicals. He hasn't talked much about it, but I think that was the gist of it. I'll find out later. Our motel room had a lovely view, yesterday, from the balcony of the sound (Puget). I told BIll I couldn't hear a thing, and he looked at me strangely. No sound at all, I said. Bad joke. Well, this morning when I looked out the glass door, darned if the sound wasn't completely gone! I was quite surprised. Bill said I evidently hadn't been around the ocean much, which is not true. I've just been where there were beaches, not downtown lakes that come and go, leaving muddy holes. Now how attractive is that? I'll post a picture when I get home. Here's a wonderful surprise I got yesterday. ![Merit Badge in Grace Under Pressure
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| I said I'd only mention today's funeral, of a co-worker of Bill's, if there was something different about it. Well, there was. There wasn't a single prayer, religious song, or reference to an afterlife. Neither of us could remember going to a completely secular funeral before. It was well done, and it was honest. Jess was a public information officer who has worked with FEMA on disasters around the country. He was an Army Ranger, and a heck of a nice guy. The funeral began with the recorded song by Jean Aldean, Not Every Man Lives. It was followed by a three rifle salute and Taps played by a bugler. (The words echoed only in my mind: Day is done, gone the sun...from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky...all is well, safely rest, God is nigh.) The service, in a gracious, old cemetery on a steep hill, reflected who he was. There were people from all over the country there, people who had climbed mountains with him, ones who worked the aftermath of Katrina alongside him, others who photographed Africa with him last year. His death, at 50-some years old, was a shock. He looked to be in great health. He was active and fit. He woke up one morning feeling like he'd slept wrong, like his arm was a little numb. He stretched and stood in the shower, trying to work it out. His wife found him head down, unable to speak. He was taken to the local hospital first. They air evacked him out to Portland OHSU, where his carotids were found to be 90% blocked and he'd had a stroke. Nothing that even that excellent teaching hospital tried could bring him back. He had another clot, and he died. I remember a old woman who came by ambulance to ER with a stroke. Her old husband said she'd fallen out of the chair, and he'd helped her back, but she'd only fallen out again. He didn't know what had happened to her. Another woman couldn't talk, and her husband just thought she didn't have anything to say. (He wished!) Two other people in our small area died from strokes last week, two that were under 50 years old, that is. Don't think you're immune because you're young. If these people had reached a hospital within three hours, a clot-busting drug might have been able to save them. Here are the warning signs of a stroke: * Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body * Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding * Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes * Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination * Sudden, severe headache with no known cause I wish I had something cheerful or funny to end with, but I don't. What I do have is the advice: hug those people you hold dear, and tell them that you love them. We never know if we'll have another chance. Everybody has to die, but some people know how to live. LIVE ON! |
| We went out for our nightly search and salute to the men and women aboard the space station and the shuttle. Sometimes our neighbor comes out to watch with us. Tonight we had two Hispanic women and a little girl who went running home to get her mother. They waited impatiently for the orbiter to clear the trees, and then shouted excitedly as each caught sight of it. The little girl said, "Oh, it's just another star." Bill told her it was about the size of a football field, much smaller than a star, but only about 250 miles high. She was marveling how ten people could be inside the object that looked so small to her, and was thrilled to hear that two of them are women. This information is available at NASA.com, along with the exact times and directions to look for it from wherever you are. Happy space watching! |
| The sun was determined to keep everyone on the hill hot, a reminder of fifty years of wheat harvests. A newly threshed field, its stubble the color of my old blond cocker spaniel, was background for the cemetery, rising at a precarious angle from the solemn green. A hundred people gathered, some breathing heavily from the steep hike up to the canopy that covered the family and the grave. Two wagons, pulled by mules, came up the dirt road, one carrying the casket. The other held a tub of ice and bottles of water that were handed out to the waiting crowd. Each mule wore six brass bells mounted on a bar a foot above their necks, attached to the harness somehow. A barbershop quartet sang the opening hymn, The Old Rugged Cross. A neighborhood dog barked through the whole performance, but too far away to disrupt anything. Someone's car alarm went off for awhile. An old man behind me, who probably couldn't hear, talked in loud stage whispers. "Those people are talking more about themselves than about Junior," he said. It all felt honest and good. Okay, those were all the cool parts. The rest was just funeral, with too many long-winded speakers, and some teenagers singing a sentimental, popular Christian song, not quite in tune. I reminded myself that they were somebody's grandchildren, and hoped they were family, given the quality of the performance. Here's why I'm sharing yet another funeral with you. Many young people have never been to a funeral, in this day and age. More and more people elect not to have one, and the ones I see most often (given the nature of my job as a hospice chaplain-- not just for the fun of it!)-- are pretty predictable. Frequently, the pastor has never met the deceased, and the deceased had no favorite hymns to choose from. That's the kind of funeral (or memorial service) that, if it's your only experience, you may well choose not to go to another, or have one for someone you love or for yourself. And that would be a pity. It is a shame not to honor people's lives with some sort of tribute, and to gather people to comfort the family when it's over. The man whose life was celebrated today would have loved it. He would have been proud, and his family was able to share their pride as well as their sorrow. Funerals are for the families and friends, of course, not the deceased. I've talked several dying people out of telling their families they don't want anything. When people do that, families sometimes feel guilty about going against their will. Just slipping away, unheralded, doesn't save anybody any pain. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox for now. We have another BIG funeral to go to this Saturday, but this time it's personal, not business. It's a friend and co-worker of Bill's, a man in his 50's who died an unexpected death from a sudden stroke. I'll try to spare you from the details though, unless there's something really unusual. Now I'm ready for my gin and tonic. Cheers! |
My car is home where he belongs, with a nice new bumper ready to do battle with whatever telephone pole jumps into his path.  While he was supposed to be getting fixed the first time, the time when the body shop ordered the wrong part, I had a snazzy little red Mazda to drive. Yesterday I had a Cobalt, with, would you believe it, crank-up windows. I didn't even know they still made the things! It required a regular key in the lock to open too. Wow, I guess I'm really spoiled. The Cobalt did have an interesting feature though. On the steering wheel there was a button marked 'Info,' which, when clicked, gave a readout beside the odometer. The info it had included the outside temperature, how hot the coolant was, how old the oil, how many miles to the gallon you were getting, and your fuel range, plus some things I've forgotten. I love the fuel range one. I would no longer have to wonder if I could get home where the gas is cheaper before filling up. The best mileage I saw on it was 25.7, but that wasn't really out on the highway, so that's pretty good. I must say, I enjoyed driving a smaller car again, especially when backing up in a crowded lot. The heat is back to the mid-nineties again, and we're invited to an outdoor birthday party tonight. Ugh. It's one of those hot days where I'm glad the new patient I just saw for the first time happened to be somewhat religious. Otherwise, his answer to my question, What gives meaning to your life? might have been, "A cold beer!" |
| When we came back from our trip to California two weeks ago, I had a day to do the laundry and then to re-pack for a conference in Albuquerque. This was sponsored by the NHPCO, the national hospice and palliative care organization, and was a first for them. This was the first national conference they've held that was designed specifically for social workers, chaplains and other therapists instead of concentrating on the medical model. It was stimulating and refreshing. Arlene, the 71-year-old social worker whose house burned down last summer, and who lived in a tent most of the winter, went with me. We had a grand old time running around in a town new to both of us and surrounded by people whose values and skills we shared. One of the nine breakout sessions with 8-10 topics for each one, and wished we could have gone to many, many more. A few of the topics were not particularly relevant to us, living in this area of the country with this population, but there were plenty we would have attended if we could. Several were on spirituality at the end of life; one on the ethics of hydration from various religious perspectives. There were sessions on music therapy, using mandalas with patients, touch therapy, the labyrinth, all sorts of things, familiar and exotic. At a session titled Beyond Emotional Support: Taking a More Assertive Approach to Care, the speaker began by talking briefly about the many complaints common to people in our vocation. She handed out the following Assessment Questionnaire. Please respond to each of the following statements with an answer of T for true or F for false. 1. _____ People do not value or appreciate me or others in my discipline. 2. _____ I understand my job and have practiced for years and resent continuing education that is not advanced enough. 3. _____ There is not enough time to accomplish much. 4. _____ Team meetings are generally a waste of time. 5. _____ Documentation is a waste of time. 6. _____ I don't think I, or others in my discipline, are as important as those in other disciplines. 7. _____ I think what patients/families really need most is someone who listens. 8.______I don't feel a connection with my team, and that is okay. 9. _____ My agency does not understand who I am and what I do. 10. ____ I know my role better than anyone and don't need to be asked or told what to do. 11. ____ I often see mistakes other team members make but feel it is not worth while speaking up. 12. ____ I feel overwhelmed and under paid. 13. ____ I tend to keep quiet unless someone asks me specifically for my input. 14. ____ I sometimes feel set up by not being given necessary information. 15. ____ My problem is that I care too much. 16. ____ I often feel left out of conversations. 17. ____ I often feel underutilized. 18. ____ Patients and families are usually not open or willing to talk about dying. Etc. She asked us to fill this out for ourselves, and to know that any place we marked the answer as "True", we had a problem. The problem was our own, not anybody else's, and we needed to find a solution to it. If people don't value what we do, then maybe we need more education, more skills. Or maybe we need to explain our goals and interventions better, contribute more to the discussion in team meetings, chart more descriptively, etc. In other words, quit whining about it and do something about it instead. Since you all have heard me whine about some of these same issues, I thought I'd share this with you. Maybe you'll find it relevant to your own jobs as well. |
| For a funeral, today's was beautifully done. The baby, less than a year, died of a very rare cancer of the brain. His father was a smoke jumper, and the fire department from two towns was there en mass. They stood in solemn rows on each side of the arc of steps into the church, and the service was begun by the color guard presenting the flags. The rule in the baby's home was to surround him with love and happiness, and the parents and family and all who visited were able to follow through. The presence of an older sister, not quite three years old, was a cheerful note always. The tiny coffin the size of a toy chest was loaded onto the back of a fire engine, and the family rode in the front seat. At the graveside service that followed, flowers were handed out to everyone to deck the casket with. The family had sunflowers, and as the little girl waited for whatever would happen next, she played with her flowers. Holding hers up to her mother's, face to face as it were, she said, "What is your name?" We couldn't hear all the dialogue, but it was clear that she was pretending that they were little girls. As people filed past with condolences, she picked up on the activity and began to instruct all comers that it was time for hugs.  |
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