Here I am four days later. I was scheduled to work twelve hour shifts on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then I also agreed to work today [Friday] 12 hours also. A marathon. It's also like time travel through the week. When all I do is work, and sleep, and spend 30 to 60 minutes each night on my eCornell course, the rest of the world slips by and I sort of wake up at the end of it disoriented to any events which may have occurred as I passed by.
One of the nurses at work, her ex-husband was one of the police officers slain recently in Tacoma. I don't know what to say on the card.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Where's My Mind?
My mind these days is generally absorbed by two things: working 3 12-hour shifts per week, and studying my online eCornell course on plant-based nutrition. It is supposed to be able to be absorbed in 3 hours a week, but really there is too much information for me to truly assimilate that fast. Also the discussions are extensive.
I'm in the middle of the middle class, "Diseases of Affluence," and the course content is getting pretty serious. Read up, if you will, on Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and his work on reversing heart disease through diet. Heavy stuff.
Anyway, I don't have so many neurons available for blogging. Bear with me.
I'm in the middle of the middle class, "Diseases of Affluence," and the course content is getting pretty serious. Read up, if you will, on Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and his work on reversing heart disease through diet. Heavy stuff.
Anyway, I don't have so many neurons available for blogging. Bear with me.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Source
I think I want to start a new blog i.e. rename my blog. I noticed from Sitemeter that a lot of people are ending up at this site looking for information about wiener or weaner pigs. I feel a little sorry for them. What a cruel joke, to look for something serious like how to raise pigs, and end up with this nonsense! ; >
I would call the new blog The Source and it would be a synthesis between two of my favorite interests, faith and religion. The Source spiritually because of God being the source of life. The Source physically referring to the sun as the source of energy, which is utilized by plants during photosynthesis, which makes the energy, along with all the protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, carbohydrates and oils we ever need, available to us by eating them.
I have heard, "eat close to the source", i.e., eat foods still recognizable, whole foods. The source being the sun.
Whenever I can figure out how to link this site to the next, and design my new blog, I'll be set to change.
I would call the new blog The Source and it would be a synthesis between two of my favorite interests, faith and religion. The Source spiritually because of God being the source of life. The Source physically referring to the sun as the source of energy, which is utilized by plants during photosynthesis, which makes the energy, along with all the protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, carbohydrates and oils we ever need, available to us by eating them.
I have heard, "eat close to the source", i.e., eat foods still recognizable, whole foods. The source being the sun.
Whenever I can figure out how to link this site to the next, and design my new blog, I'll be set to change.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Trip to Pullman, Part 2
So we drove to Elberton and my brother John and wife Sally and the dog and the well-upholstered cat and the wood stove and the cheese and crackers and pickled green beans and two kinds of bread, and visiting. On the walls are several Appalachian dulcimers and other instruments my brother has made, with beautiful cut-outs and inlays of his design.
Then we drove to Pullman and visited Mom at Glen Haven adult family home, this very stellar institution. I don't think I've ever seen an AFH west of the mountains to match it. Glen Haven is run by people in long term care who bought a large house, made it into 6 bedrooms, with paneling and wood ramps and railings, and decided to do it right.
Several days ago they had rearranged Mom's room for easier transfers, and with her memory loss she no longer recognized her room. She thought she was in the hospital. So they wheeled her back into the living room, quickly rearranged the room the way it had been, circled her around in a Politically Correct Fire Drill and brought her back into her room. "Oh, thank heavens I'm home again!"
I gave Mom a stuffed woodpecker which makes a recorded "flicker" sound, a sprig of dried elderberries and one of rose hips, and a dried leaf, and photos of Jerusalem, the Jordan river, Haifa, and Pearl and me camping at Neah Bay. Pearl sang "What A Wonderful World," and we sang the Persian birthday song: "Mubarak, mubarak, tavalud-at mubarak . . . "
My sister Carol and her husband Perry from Bend were there, also. My sister Jean and her husband Kris and their son Andrew from Bellingham arrived, also. Then we all went to make the best of a restaurant with "Grill" in the name; a salad with black beans but denuded of its chicken and cheese; and a baked potato.
During the dinner we ended up discussing end of life issues; a family in Margaret's neighborhood: the wife with Alzheimers and the husband with cancer, and their return to Japan so relatives could care for the wife on his passing. Hospice cases I have known, including one where Grampa died on Grandson's birthday, and I suggested that it was also Grampa's birthday [into the next world] and how this comforted them. We had an incredible talk.
In the morning John and Sally arrived, also, and after a group cluster f*** getting Mom into a car, went to the Hilltop Restaurant, where we met my lovely cousin Bob [in my mind, always "Bobby"] and his wife, and my also lovely aunt Ginny. I took some photos, and Margaret and Pearl, Enayat and I drove back early, leaving them to their whatever-they-ate-and-talked-about.
We had a great drive to Seattle and a great drive to Tacoma, I thawed out some soaked beans, and I made beans and rice which I ate all week at work.
Then we drove to Pullman and visited Mom at Glen Haven adult family home, this very stellar institution. I don't think I've ever seen an AFH west of the mountains to match it. Glen Haven is run by people in long term care who bought a large house, made it into 6 bedrooms, with paneling and wood ramps and railings, and decided to do it right.
Several days ago they had rearranged Mom's room for easier transfers, and with her memory loss she no longer recognized her room. She thought she was in the hospital. So they wheeled her back into the living room, quickly rearranged the room the way it had been, circled her around in a Politically Correct Fire Drill and brought her back into her room. "Oh, thank heavens I'm home again!"
I gave Mom a stuffed woodpecker which makes a recorded "flicker" sound, a sprig of dried elderberries and one of rose hips, and a dried leaf, and photos of Jerusalem, the Jordan river, Haifa, and Pearl and me camping at Neah Bay. Pearl sang "What A Wonderful World," and we sang the Persian birthday song: "Mubarak, mubarak, tavalud-at mubarak . . . "
My sister Carol and her husband Perry from Bend were there, also. My sister Jean and her husband Kris and their son Andrew from Bellingham arrived, also. Then we all went to make the best of a restaurant with "Grill" in the name; a salad with black beans but denuded of its chicken and cheese; and a baked potato.
During the dinner we ended up discussing end of life issues; a family in Margaret's neighborhood: the wife with Alzheimers and the husband with cancer, and their return to Japan so relatives could care for the wife on his passing. Hospice cases I have known, including one where Grampa died on Grandson's birthday, and I suggested that it was also Grampa's birthday [into the next world] and how this comforted them. We had an incredible talk.
In the morning John and Sally arrived, also, and after a group cluster f*** getting Mom into a car, went to the Hilltop Restaurant, where we met my lovely cousin Bob [in my mind, always "Bobby"] and his wife, and my also lovely aunt Ginny. I took some photos, and Margaret and Pearl, Enayat and I drove back early, leaving them to their whatever-they-ate-and-talked-about.
We had a great drive to Seattle and a great drive to Tacoma, I thawed out some soaked beans, and I made beans and rice which I ate all week at work.
Trip to Pullman, Part 1
Last Friday I worked 12 hours and didn't have time to thoroughly plan our trip to Pullman and Mom's 90th birthday [and Enayat's 25th ; > ] So Saturday morning I planned to take the train over, and our plans changed as time went on and we talked about possibilities and discovered whether Enayat could be ready in time to meet us, as he really did want to come.
My sister Margaret offered to give us a ride from Pullman to Seattle on Monday, which opened up everything. So we all [Pearl, Enayat and I] drove up to Seattle to the King Street Station and took the Amtrak to Spokane, having a wonderful ride, and ending up in the Days Inn overnight. My plan then was to find a rental car to travel down to Pullman via Elberton, the tiny ghost town where my brother and his wife live.
Finding a rental car available for a one-way trip to Pullman from downtown Spokane on a Sunday--ah, there's the rub. After a lot of calling around it boiled down to either waiting until 5:45 PM and taking the bus down to Pullman, missing a lot of visiting, and still not having a car when we arrived, which was affordable. Or, spending $233 for a rental car from the Spokane Airport [plus taxi fare] for a car overnight to Pullman. $233, I kid you not. Train fare for one person from Seattle was only $46. Good grief!
I fell into despair. My lack of planning. We were lost. Pearl was rubbing my back and telling me everything would be okay; sang me "What A Wonderful World," and I made a decision. We were there to visit. I would bite the bullet and hire the rental car, which I did. I called a cab, and was brushing my teeth, and the cab was pulling into the parking lot, when my sister Margaret called from Othello, wondering how we were getting from Spokane to Pullman, and she could come to pick us up in Spokane.
A miracle.
My sister Margaret offered to give us a ride from Pullman to Seattle on Monday, which opened up everything. So we all [Pearl, Enayat and I] drove up to Seattle to the King Street Station and took the Amtrak to Spokane, having a wonderful ride, and ending up in the Days Inn overnight. My plan then was to find a rental car to travel down to Pullman via Elberton, the tiny ghost town where my brother and his wife live.
Finding a rental car available for a one-way trip to Pullman from downtown Spokane on a Sunday--ah, there's the rub. After a lot of calling around it boiled down to either waiting until 5:45 PM and taking the bus down to Pullman, missing a lot of visiting, and still not having a car when we arrived, which was affordable. Or, spending $233 for a rental car from the Spokane Airport [plus taxi fare] for a car overnight to Pullman. $233, I kid you not. Train fare for one person from Seattle was only $46. Good grief!
I fell into despair. My lack of planning. We were lost. Pearl was rubbing my back and telling me everything would be okay; sang me "What A Wonderful World," and I made a decision. We were there to visit. I would bite the bullet and hire the rental car, which I did. I called a cab, and was brushing my teeth, and the cab was pulling into the parking lot, when my sister Margaret called from Othello, wondering how we were getting from Spokane to Pullman, and she could come to pick us up in Spokane.
A miracle.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Empty Tamales
Last week at work one of the young ladies took orders for fresh tamales made by her mother for $1 apiece. I asked if they could be made without meat; sure! So I actually ordered ten, as I'm crazy for tamales but commercial ones all seem to have meat, and I certainly don't know how to make them.
Came Friday, and by pure luck or the grace of God I'd brought a ten dollar bill with me, because I'd completely forgotten the day of the tamales. So in comes Lia with the steaming, warm bag of fresh tamales, and I'm thinking, "Oh, boy!"
At lunch I get out the first tamale and open up the corn husk wrapping. Corn meal, delicious, warm, and wrapped around . . . nothing. No beans, no sauce, no vegetables, zippo. I guess she figured that if no meat, I didn't want anything in them.
I was telling the other nurses about this later in the day, and we started to wonder about Lia's mom, making ten empty tortillas, one after the other, and imagined what she must have been thinking. "What kind of a moron wants ten empty tortillas? Oh, well, these vegetarians . . . eight, nine, ten . . ." We laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.
Came Friday, and by pure luck or the grace of God I'd brought a ten dollar bill with me, because I'd completely forgotten the day of the tamales. So in comes Lia with the steaming, warm bag of fresh tamales, and I'm thinking, "Oh, boy!"
At lunch I get out the first tamale and open up the corn husk wrapping. Corn meal, delicious, warm, and wrapped around . . . nothing. No beans, no sauce, no vegetables, zippo. I guess she figured that if no meat, I didn't want anything in them.
I was telling the other nurses about this later in the day, and we started to wonder about Lia's mom, making ten empty tortillas, one after the other, and imagined what she must have been thinking. "What kind of a moron wants ten empty tortillas? Oh, well, these vegetarians . . . eight, nine, ten . . ." We laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Plant-Based Nutrition at eCornell
I'm taking my first online college course at eCornell, Plant Based Nutrition based on The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. There are recorded lectures by the author, which so far have covered the same material as the book. The great, stimulating part of the course are the online discussions. Whoo! It's exciting to read people's history, many have been eating just plants for a long time and have lost a lot of weight, reversed diseases, e.g. migraines, and so forth, and are very fit.
I feel kind of bad that I'm kind of fat and slobby in contrast, but that's where I am. I did have an agency nurse that saw me for the first time in several months notice weight loss I hadn't noticed. The concensus I'm hearing is that the more you avoid certain foods such as meat, dairy foods, and fats, the more you lose your taste for them, and that they can actually be physiologically addictive.
Great quotes: 1] "Spaghetti is easy. Cancer is hard." Dr. Michael Greger. 2] "You don't see a lot of lions sitting around eating canned rabbits."--Emel, class participant.
I feel kind of bad that I'm kind of fat and slobby in contrast, but that's where I am. I did have an agency nurse that saw me for the first time in several months notice weight loss I hadn't noticed. The concensus I'm hearing is that the more you avoid certain foods such as meat, dairy foods, and fats, the more you lose your taste for them, and that they can actually be physiologically addictive.
Great quotes: 1] "Spaghetti is easy. Cancer is hard." Dr. Michael Greger. 2] "You don't see a lot of lions sitting around eating canned rabbits."--Emel, class participant.
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