GLAMOUR HOSPITAL

So what’s new and different about visiting a relative in a glitzy, high-priced DC-area hospital, a.k.a. Fairfax Hospital?

1. Wheelchair-accessible Healing Gardens inside the hospital. (See attached photo. Despite my dark state of mind, I snorted rudely when I saw the sign on the door saying "Please refrain from smoking in healing garden. . ." It made me imagine the meeting of hospital administrators where they hammered out the need for, and wording of, that sign. Rather than just the standard "NO SMOKING", there was something about that polite verb, "please refraiiiiiiin" that made me think of them gritting their teeth to avoid saying what they really wanted to say on that sign, which is, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING WITH THE SMOKING, DUMBASS, THIS IS A HOSPITAL)

Great landscaping around the whole hospital, kind of a Japanese theme in places.

2. Sushi in the cafeteria. (Although I didn’t try it. . . . I mean, “hospital cafeteria” as a modifer for “sushi” just still didn’t have quite the right ring to it, where I was certain that that was gonna be a winner)

3. Pagers (lighted , buzzing, drink coasters, like you get in restaurants, only not quite so fun) while your relative is in surgery, so that you can go get a sandwich without worrying you’ll miss getting to talk to the surgeon. What a great idea.

4. Free wireless internet all over the hospital! Woo hoo! OK maybe that doesn’t rate a “woo hoo” (wouldn’t it be more fun to be at home on the Internet?) but it was still really nice. This way you can sit by your relative’s bedside and watch them sleep, and dial into your work network on your laptop, and be working online, while still being there with your relative. Or, I guess you could quietly relax with some Internet porn instead if you’re that kind of person. Whatever.

5. "Care managers" who stop by each day and ask both the patient and their relatives if they are satisfied with the quality of their care, or is there anything that needs to be fixed. They leave a business card so you know how to get in touch with them if something comes up later.

Overall I was impressed that hospitals keep getting better. . . now if only airports could be less horrible. . .?

"Sleep number bed" is a loser

Described by my brother, after several years of ownership, as "two troughs separated by a log down the middle." Each party sleeps in their own individual trough, and never the twain shall meet, unless one party makes a considerable effort to fling their body up and over the high log and then risk crushing the other party beneath the sudden onslaught of their full body weight.

If you pump up the sleep number (the firmness is controlled by adjustable air-filled chambers) to higher numbers, you can get the level of the troughs closer to the height of the log, but the outer edges of the bed are still for some reason lower than the height of the log in the middle, so at this setting, you unfortunately replicate a Mt. Vesuvius, mountain-type effect, with the center of the mattress as the peak of the mountain, leading to an unfortunate effect in which each party is prone to slowly rolling out of bed and landing on the floor beside the bed during the night.

And best of all, this is an expensive mattress.

Something I learned: reasons NOT to go into the ministry

From an interesting discussion with, um, an actual insider, a list of reasons why being a minister ain't easy:

1. You don’t have an actual boss per se, instead your boss is a constantly-changing group of volunteers who may or may not have any familiarity with how a business works, how to motivate and supervise people, what health care plans should cost, etc..
2. Everyone you work with feels free to criticize your personal life--are you a model of rectitude at all times? Are you always cheerful, patient, pleasant, kind, moral, thoughtful? Do you buy local, not waste gas, hold open doors for the elderly, observe the speed limit, keep your yard mowed and sidewalks shoveled, refrain from foul language? Do you do so 24/7/365? If not, prepare to receive feedback about that.
3. Everyone who works under you is a volunteer, and they may or may not show up to do stuff that needs to get done. But if it doesn't get done, it's your responsibility and your problem.
4. Your company has no actual budget, so you have no idea how much money is coming in every year. Yet you must somehow make plans to pay yourself a salary, heat the building, buy office supplies, etc.
5. Don’t forget, your company’s mission statement includes a vow of poverty!
6. And on top of all this, you’re required to give a highly motivated motivational speech in front of a crowd, every week.

Germans give great word

"Vergangenheitsbewaltigung": coming to terms with the past, or to master the past.


I'm still looking for the German word (I had it somewhere, then I lost it) which means "sadness at the onset of spring"

Better pre-plan your lucid dreaming or risk painful embarrassments like this one

I have always wanted to be able to engage in lucid dreaming. Meaning, you can enter an alternate universe, where you’re in control! I actually know someone who can do this. When we talked about it, that night, I had my one and only lucid dream. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared, so given an entire universe to control, I was overwhelmed with the exciting possibilities and had something like writer’s block! I couldn’t decide between flying. . .or being some kind of princess. . . so I decided to be maybe some kind of flying. . . princess. . . and frankly it just didn’t work out terribly well. It was hard to concentrate on both at once. So, I wanted to mention this so that if you should so happen to be gifted with the opportunity to have a lucid dream, you will have perhaps have taken the time beforehand to PLAN OUT WHAT YOU WANT TO HAVE HAPPEN, so that you can have a cool, creative dream (go back in time! Hang out with Julius Caesar in Ancient Rome! The two of you can then drive a chariot out to see dinosaurs frolic underneath the enchanted ocean! Then you can go have crazy sex with robots! Whatever!) Whatever you think of beforehand and plan for is undoubtedly going to be cooler and more creative than a . . . flying. . .princess. As in, a princess who flies. What was that, some kind of rejected Mattel spin-off Saturday morning cartoon plot?

Ick-knacks

Our new word for those knick-knacks you get as gifts that you really dislike.

Naked clown Christmas

The City Paper suggested this calendar would make a lovely Christmas present and after perusing their website I have to agree. It would make an good gift for anyone who has been particularly annoying this year:

http://www.nakedclowncalendar.com/blog.html

If you scroll down to the end of that link above, it's worthwhile clicking through on the link to see where folks answered the question, "If you were a Naked Clown, what would your Naked Clown name be?" I think my favorite is Kameer Lilgurl, but there were some other good answers too.

super sedate crowd at the transgender day of remembrance

So last night I went to Baltimore's first observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates people who were murdered because of their transgender status. I knew some of the people who were organizing it and wanted to support them, so that was a big reason for going. How depressing would it be if you held a rally to commemorate your murdered friends and no one showed up?

It was held in the War Memorial in Baltimore. Maybe it was the quasi-funereal nature of the proceedings, maybe it was the enormous and rather daunting architecture, but it was the most sedate crowd I've seen in a long time. Some of the speakers, including the city lawyer charged with defending the civil rights of anyone discriminated against in Baltimore for their transgender status (who knew there was a law against this? news to me. Not in Maryland at large, no, but in Baltimore specifically, yes) were a real rabble rousers in my opinion. The lawyer gave what I thought was a fist-pumping speech about justice and equality which was received with the kind of smattering of polite applause which I associate with the announcement that the mice have been successfully exterminated from the church basement.

------

Anyway, speaking of church basements, they've got what feels like one underneath the War Memorial (where, to heighten the effect, after the 'service', snacks were served. ) Actually it was a bit like a bizarre cross between a church basement and some kind of tiny war museum, including a costume gallery of American military outfits of the past on ill-fitting dummies, and a 3-D mockup of the Korean war memorial with bizarre, decaying fake tiny trees all around it, many of which were keeling over from some tiny version of Dutch elm disease. It was completely surreal and I deeply regret not taking more pictures.

a better protest than I thought

I wanted to go to the anti-Prop-8 rally but had a hard time finding anyone else who was free at the last minute on a fall Saturday. Most people already had excellent and very firm plans such as 'driving father to hospital for organ transplant' or other things which are hard to reschedule. So I feared that I would have to go alone and would be one of about 5 depressed people drifting around the steps of City Hall. However, at the last minute, several people including Spouse turned out to be free after all, and even more happily there were far more than five people present. (as you can see above which frankly doesn't even quite do it justice. It was hard to get a good angle on things.)

Aaaand the after. . . .

Deathhhh to grass

I've been meaning to post this for a while. Since my adventure with Lyme disease, which I may have gotten from my own back yard, I've been meaning to take out as much ankle-brushing grass as possible. And, to my surprise, ripping it out has actually improved the look of the yard. Here's the before (above, from about July, I think)

GETTING OVER COLDS THE NATCHERAL WAY

It’s that time of year again and of course I’ve been stricken. Here’s a few of the things that seem (to help:

1. Vaseline on the nose. . .applied after every Kleenex, gets rid of that horrible red-peeling-hideous-nose phase that used to follow the cold. When I was in high school I used to try to put makeup on top of the peeling nose, which I can tell you was just a truly beautiful, natural look, reminiscent of a peeling barn in the Appalachians, which was formerly red but then repainted white.

2. Throat Coat herbal tea. . . the only thing I have found that actually helps immediately with sore throat. Well, you CAN try those mass-market sore throat sprays (Cepacol?) but they taste nasty and they never really seem to get the spot you want, and then you end up with your entire mouth paralyzed and numb when (if you’re like me) you keep trying to hit the right ‘spot’ and missing.
“(Fsssshhtt). . . .Dammit! . . .(Fssshhht). . . .Dammit! (Fsssshhtt!) DAMMIT!”

Your appetite was bad already, and now your tongue feels like you just marinated it in Pine Sol and Novocaine, so good luck eating lunch.

No, better to stick with the herbal tea. No need to even sweeten it, it’s naturally sugarlicious. Who knows what’s in it, probably herbal coca leaves. Mmmmmm. No, seriously, you can actually feel an immediate improvement in throat pain, try it for yourself. Better than Tylenol.

3. Newest addition, and probably the least effective yet most enjoyed, is SAMBUCUS elderberry syrup, also another health food store find. I like that the bottle here says “Tested by virologists”. Um, aren’t those . . . people who specialize in viruses? I guess they tested it and found there were no cold viruses ACTUALLY IN THE BOTTLE. Well, that’s good.

Anyway, why would I recommend something that I strongly suspect is a total placebo? Well, first of all, I met someone who was formerly a big-deal surgeon who said that this is what SHE takes when SHE has a hacking cough. OK . . . that sucked me in to giving it a try.

Second, it’s absolutely DE-freaking-LICIOUS. Seriously, if I have any left over when I’m done with this cold, I’m going to drizzle it over chocolate cake and serve it to guests. Not kidding! It’s a mix of elderberry and raspberry syrup and it really, really tastes like something you’d find as a dessert sauce served with cake at a fancy restaurant. Imagine my pleasure about ‘having’ to take 2 tsp, 4 times a day. . . oops, actually, let me go break for my afternoon dose right now. . . mmmmm. . . . So, it may not be curing my nasty cough, but it’s definitely improving my attitude.

4. Improved and less scary version of the Neti pot, called NeilMed Sinus Rinse: so, so satisfying. For that annoying, burning, irritated nose and sinus feeling, this really helps. Totally disgusting, I know, but if your nose is bugging you enough, you’ll try anything. I never did get the hang of the Neti pot, always felt like I was near drowning, occasionally ‘did it wrong’ and came up coughing, cursing, and spluttering, and swearing, “Never #$*#&# again!”

This is like a Neti pot for idiots and seems to be impossible to screw up. I had to send away for it because I didn’t see it anywhere locally. One of my friends turned me onto it. (Thanks MB!)

(By the way, when I was looking online about this I saw that a competing brand was advertising with the slogan “The Nose Bidet”. Ummmm. . .that somehow just isn’t selling me on it. . . I can’t explain why, guys, it just isn’t working for me. I just don’t want to confuse my nose with my ass in ANY way, even a loose conceptual basis.)

For those with an interest in drugs uhhhhh I mean drug-related issues

Election results of interest, from JOIN TOGETHER:
1. Measure 2 in Massachusetts, which will decriminalize adult possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, passed by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent, with 94% of precincts tallied, the Boston Globe reports. The Massachusetts Sensible Marijuana Policy Initiative, largely funded by drug-policy reformer and financier George Soros, establishes fines of no more than $100 for simple possession of marijuana rather than the current criminal penalties of up to six months in jail and fines of $500.

2. Michigan's medical-marijuana Proposal 1 passed and was leading by a margin of 63 percent to 37 percent with 87 percent of precincts reporting, the Detroit Free Press reported. The new law will allow terminally and seriously ill patients to use marijuana for medical purposes with a physicians' approval, allow such patients to legally grow and possess certain amounts of the drug for their personal medical use, and create an ID-card system for medical use. Michigan becomes the 13th state to approve medical marijuana.

Nature, still not my friend

Clearing out the yard for a path the other day and found an enormous (several inches) fuzzy black-and-red caterpillar. Picked him up and looked at him closely--big, beautiful. Looking around later online to find out more about who/what he was, I was able to find a great photo of what he looked like HERE:

http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek020608.html

Unfortunately, I also learned, to my shock, that fuzzy caterpillars can be natural-born killers! Read the webpage above for more details. When will my disillusionment with Mother Nature end?

Worst sales promotion ever

I recently got this postcard in the mail advertising a sale on luxury underwear from a shop in DC. I can't imagine how or why they thought it would be a good idea to run the promotion above.
While any store selling bras that cost northwards of $100 is probably staffed by salespeople who already have a tenuous grasp on reality, I can't imagine that there's ANY discount steep enough that would tempt me into participating in some kind of "panty trade-in." Those are two words that just should never, ever even be next to one another in a sentence.

They've sent me copies of this card more than once, indicating that the response to this promotion is perhaps not as robust as they'd hoped.

Best band name ever

For a klezmer band: Oy Division

Airport security farce

Gotta love the new article out in the Atlantic in which author Jeffrey Goldberg took everything incriminating he could think of through airport security: "al-Qaeda T-shirts, Islamic Jihad flags, Hezbollah videotapes, inflatable Yasir Arafat dolls (really), pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Peshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste (in my front pocket), bottles of Fiji Water (which is foreign), and, of course, box cutters" --and had almost nothing taken away from him. Not even the saline solution!

We took our shoes off and placed our laptops in bins. Schneider took from his bag a 12-ounce container labeled "saline solution."
"It's allowed," he said. Medical supplies, such as saline solution forcontact-lens cleaning, don't fall under the TSA's three-ounce rule.
"What's allowed?" I asked.
"Saline solution, or bottles labeled saline solution?"
"Bottles labeled saline solution. They won't check what's in it, trust me."
They did not check. As we gathered our belongings, Schneier held up the bottle and said to the nearest security officer, "This is okay, right?" "Yep," the officer said. "Just have to put it in the tray."
"Maybe if you lit it on fire, he'd pay attention," I said, risking arrest for making a joke at airport security. (Later, Schneier would carry two bottles labeled saline solution - 24 ounces in total -through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. "Two eyes," he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.)

More here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200811/airport-security

Actually, the best thing about reading this article is now I know how I can bring honey and peanut butter with me when I travel. It's really been annoying to me that I've had to give up my breakfast, when anyone can see that very little actual 'security' is provided in exchange. Refillable saline bottles are now my new travel tip for fall!

And other websites for the enjoyment

Someone asked me what I'm doing on the Internet most of the time and I realized my use breaks down into two categories--either I'm looking for new music, or I'm looking for something that makes me laugh. This website falls pretty firmly into the latter category.

It posts signs, products, labels, and other examples from China and Japan with unusual use of English.

For example, the label above. . .

Here's another of my faves recently:

http://www.engrish.com/2008/09/still-tastes-like-chicken/

I don't know why, but I can look at these for hours.

A thing of beauty and a joy forever. . .

. . . is otherwise known as the truly fabulous music website AURGASM (I know, goofy name). The site posts complete tracks of music, is very well curated to showcase a wide range of styles and talents, never lists more than 2 tracks to an artist, and gives you the chance to read a short description, then listen to the whole track. Then, if you like it, you can download it for free! This is now my premier vehicle for finding new music I love. It's helped me discover all kinds of things, such as, . . . .bossa nova (Doesn't that sound like something an elderly uncle would like?) It's actually really cool. Very relaxing, kind of like I imagine a huge martini would be, if I drank huge martinis.



Take a listen!

http://aurgasm.us/

YouTube skit waiting to happen

My mother called and said that she had to take her car in to be fixed because the voice which reminded her to put on her seatbelt developed a problem. She didn't say anything more about it and after I hung up the phone I was enjoying imagining what type of problem it could have developed.

Did it develop a gravelly, Long Island accent? Did it start making smartass remarks? My husband and I were enjoying imagining what it could have been saying that would have irritated my usually frugal mother enough to get her to take it in for repairs:

--"That hairdo does nothin' for you."

--"Where are we goin' again, not just the grocery store, are ya kiddin' me?"

--"You're going out lookin' like THAT?"