A NY Times article, When Advance Directives are Ignored, paints a frustrating picture of how and when the best laid plans can come to naught. I am an absolute, card-carrying advocate of Advance Healthcare Directives, also known as a Living Will. I am more concerned about people dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s while preparing their last healthcare wishes, than I am about what people want done – or not done – towards the end of their lives.
You see I couldn’t care less whether you wish to extend your life at all costs – allowing all heroic methods to be employed while on your death bed to take advantage of every second of life available to you – or you simply wish to be made comfortable with the usage of palliative measures while you transition from this life to the next. What does matter to me, however, is that you secure those wishes in a binding legal document while you’re still able to do so. (I am not a lawyer; I am a daughter whose mother and father gifted their three children by laying out their final wishes on paper years in advance of the end of their lives.)
I’ve written four articles addressing this topic in the past few years. I hope you will peruse them, especially if you’ve not yet taken steps to prepare for your exit from this life in the manner in which you choose.
An old man went to the doctor complaining that his wife could barely hear. The doctor suggested a test to find out the extent of the problem.
“Stand far behind her and ask her a question, and then slowly move up and see how far away you are when she first responds.”
The old man, excited to finally be working on a solution for the problem, runs home and sees his wife preparing supper.
Standing 20 feet away, the man asks, “Honey, what’s for supper?” After receiving no response, he tried it again 15 feet away; again no response. He tried it again at 10 feet away and still no response. Finally he was just 5 feet away, “Honey, what’s for supper?” to which she replied, “For the fourth time, it’s lasagna!”
The Longest Day. The attached article by Author, Ann Hedreen, can be found linked above, and you can find additional well-written articles on her blog The Restless Nest. Reader alert: Ms. Hedreen’s book, Her Beautiful Brain, will be released September of this year.
What was your longest day like?
Was it long, because it was fun-filled and absolutely fabulous, or was it long because the day was crammed with the most difficult and stressful experiences of your life?
Caregivers: you are heroes to all who understand the job that you’ve taken on as carers for your loved ones. You live the 36-hour day with all of its burdens and insurmountable challenges, while across the United States there’s much discussion – even controversy – over raising the minimum wage. In contrast, there you are earning no wage but working harder than you’ve ever worked before.
Loved ones with Alzheimer’s or other dementia: your disease-controlled days might seem to have no beginning or end; you go about your day trying to fulfill its challenges while perhaps being at the stage in your disease where you are still able to feel the frustrations of not grasping the how-to of tasks that prior to your diagnosis required no complex thought processes on your part.
Those who have yet to be intimately involved in the above-mentioned roles: look around you – you won’t have to look far – and then on this year’s longest day, Saturday, June 21st, do what you can to help the co-worker or neighbor who desperately needs your help but doesn’t know how to ask for it, or is too ashamed to admit that they can’t do it all.
When you offer help, please don’t leave it open-ended. Instead of saying to your neighbor, “Hi yah, Joe. Be sure to call me if you need anything,” be more specific so it’s easier for Joe to accept your offer, “Joe, when I get out my lawnmower this weekend, I’d love to swing by your place and take care of your lawn so you won’t have to.” Or how about, “Yah know, we’re always making more food than we can eat at our house so we just freeze the leftovers for another time. Can I come by later this week and give you a week’s worth of meals so you don’t have to concern yourself with what to fix for dinner?”
And then keep it up because your neighbor or co-worker’s life isn’t going to get any easier. Keep offering tangible ways in which to provide assistance and you’ll go a long way towards making the longest day – which is every day in the life of a caregiver – a bit easier to tackle.
The leader of the vegetarian society just couldn’t control himself anymore. He needed to try some pork, just to see what it tasted like.
One summer day he told his members he was going on a vacation. He packed, went out of town, and headed to the nearest restaurant. After sitting down he ordered a roasted pig and impatiently waited for his delicacy.
After just a few minutes, he heard someone call his name and to his great chagrin he saw one of his fellow vegetarian society members walking towards him. Just at that same moment, the waiter walked over with a huge platter that held a full roasted pig with an apple in its mouth.
Thinking quickly, the leader said, “Isn’t that something, all I do is order an apple, and look what it comes with!”
Maybe my father and father-in-law can see this from Heaven, maybe they can’t, but I’m still gonna post it in their honor. The two photos I’m posting are from February 10, 2000 on my wedding day to my fabulous husband, Jerry.
This is my favorite photo from the day. Dad was very happy that I had finally found someone like Jerry. Dad VERY much approved of my choice.
A younger me, with my dapper dad, Don Desonier.
I apologize that the next photo is kind of milky. I chose it, because it meant so much to both of us to have Stewart in that place of honor.
Stewart Olson, my husband’s Best Man during our ceremony.
That’s how our household’s latest project presented itself – at least from the outset.
My husband and I live in a rural suburb of Redmond, Washington. Because we’re rural, a sewer system is not feasible, so all the houses in our area have a septic system: septic and pump tanks fairly close to the house, a drainfield as far away as possible from the house. Our house’s system was installed in 1989 – the drainfield recently failed – and now it has to be replaced.
Maple tree before …
Dilemma: A 50 year old multi-trunked Maple needed to come down, as did a few Alders and a Cottonwood. Trees have roots, and those roots gravitate towards moisture, regardless of the source. We so wanted to keep those trees, but one cannot live without a septic/sewer system so we had to do what we had to do.
Maple after.
Monday and Tuesday of this week saw the professionals doing the deed, with my husband and I, and our neighbor Bob, taking on the task of turning a pile of tree trunks into logs suitable for a fireplace. Our neighbors Bob and Patty use a lot of firewood and our other neighbors, Irma and Larry, do as well. Rather than have the tree professionals remove the massive trunks, we wanted to be able to “recycle” it and providing it to our neighbors is what we wanted to do.
I’ll admit that my hubby and I have been under lots of pressure since we discovered the drainfield failure back in April. And now having a pile of wood that needed to be reduced to logs in less than seven days’ time freaked us out – okay, it freaked me out – but freak out or not, it sure looked like an insurmountable task, and a painful one at that.
It’s not insurmountable any more, but it’s still painful.
Just as is needed for every large task with which we are confronted – whether a complicated office project, a weight loss plan, or what have you – if you break it down into manageable steps, the project will be completed. That’s what we did, and as of the end of yesterday, what was insurmountable now appears to be doable.
Erin and my hubby; Summer 2013
Yesterday, my daughter Erin came to the house at around four o’clock after teaching her Junior Achievement class in Seattle. My hubby came home shortly thereafter and within two sweaty and painful hours: Jerry had made a dent in the pile of wood by cutting it into manageable logs and Erin and I had hauled multiple wheelbarrows full of small and HUGE logs to various locations where wood needed to be distributed. Now the remaining task actually seems palatable. An aside: that daughter of mine is such a stud – you should have seen the massive logs she lifted off the ground and tossed into the wheelbarrow. Ugh. One thing for sure is that all bodies involved in this project have not needed to do any extra workouts this week!
The moral of the story: when presented with a large task, allow yourself to freak out, then calm down, break the task into smaller chunks, and get to it. That’s what we did and I just know that eventually – but before the drainfield system is installed the beginning of next week – we will have made those massive trunks into usable logs, and all will be well.
“A new preacher was asked to speak at a country funeral. He had never been to the area where the funeral was and he got lost in the woods. After wandering around for nearly an hour, he came upon some men gathered around an open grave.
“The preacher apologized for being late and started in. Feeling bad that the deceased man only had the diggers around his grave, the preacher tried to make up for it by giving the best eulogy he could. He preached with such passion that even the workers were shouting, ‘Praise God’ and ‘Glory be!’
“After the eulogy one of the diggers said to the preacher, ‘Preacher, that was inspirin’. I ain’t never seen anything like that before, and I’ve been puttin’ in septic tanks for twenty years!'”
– excerpt from the novel, Walking on Water, by Richard Paul Evans
The 1953 Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451,depicts a future American society where books are outlawed and those that are found are destroyed by fire via that society’s “firemen.” The premise of the novel has been described as representing the suppression of dissenting ideas from those deemed correct and appropriate: censorship at its worst. This blog entry is not about censorship; it is about the possibility of losing the tactile, hard or soft cover media that has entertained billions of us over the years: the non-electronic book.
I crave books and I am never without a selection from which to choose,
Paper vs Digital
but maybe the vehicle by which I read books – and that so immediately satisfies my hunger for more books – will bring about the demise of the tactile tome.
I’m talking about e-readers.
From June 3, 2010 through June 8, 2014, I have spent just under $3,000 on e-books. If that shocks you, imagine how I feel seeing that number because I have to admit it doesn’t feel like thousands of dollars when I download a new book in less than a minute. I purchased books now and then prior to purchasing my first e-reader four years ago, but most of my reading addiction was satisfied compliments of the local library system.
My completed novel, not yet published.
Caveat: I can justify a certain percentage of my e-book purchases by telling you that quite a bit of the research I perform for my writing career comes from fiction and non-fiction works that focus on aging – most specifically on Alzheimer’s and other dementia. But even I will admit that it’s a very small percentage.
I would gladly give up my e-reader if doing so saves soft and hard cover books.
One of my family members stopped using his e-reader; he lost the passion for reading – or more accurately – he found it difficult to find a book he could dive into. He kept going from book to book and nothing he read captured his attention. He had a light bulb moment, however, when he discerned that the content he was reading was not lacking, it was the electronic apparatus that was at fault. I’m not parting with my e-reader yet, but the anxiety I have been feeling the past couple months haunts me each time I pick up my e-reader and swipe the page from right to left, instead of lifting the top right corner of the page and laying it down on the left.
Sarah Jio’s most recent novel, Goodnight June, hints at what has already occurred and might very well occur completely: an absence of book stores and readers to keep them in business. Another voiced concern in Goodnight June is that the childhood love of reading is waning.
What do you see children doing when they have free time? Do they pick up a book like so many of us did when we were their age or are they cozying up on the couch with an electronic device?
Alternate title: Grandchildren are cooler than you think!
I believe grandparents and their grandchildren have quite a bit in common. Just because many years have passed since a grandparent or great-grandparent was born doesn’t mean that there aren’t any similarities between then and now. Here’s an example of what I mean, a quote that appeared in the Atlantic Journal:
The world is too big for us. Too much is going on. Too many crimes. Too much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race in spite of yourself. It’s a constant strain to keep peace – and still, you lose ground.
Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world now changes so rapidly, you’re out of breath trying to keep pace with who’s in and who’s out. Everything is high pressure. Human nature can’t endure much more.
An amazing sentiment that appears to reflect what’s going on right this very minute in the world in which we live. It was published on June 16, 1833, almost 181 years ago. The pervading feelings of the time are almost indistinguishable from what is in the minds of people today. Isn’t that amazing?
Let’s look at a few common items that have changed over the years. These items were used at one time but have vanished in the past several decades – or have they?
Image by Lawrence Manning/Corbis
Telephone answering machines – earlier answering machines used cassette tapes, with later versions performing the same function, albeit digitally. Answering machines still exist in the form of modern voice mail retrieved from home phones and/or cell phones.
Telephone directories/books – very few households rely on a 500-page phone book because they can now look up names and businesses on their computer or Smartphone. But phone books still exist – they’re just “housed” differently.
Printed encyclopedias – the final print edition for the Encyclopedia Britannica – a 32-volume set of books – was released in 2010. How did I find out that information? In one of today’s on-line encyclopedias of course: Wikipedia.
Floppy discs & drives – many children under the age of fifteen have never seen this storage device. You’d be hard-pressed to find any newly-released desktop or laptop computers with this type of storage capability. But storage devices still exist in the form of a thumb/flash drive or the “Cloud.”
Rolodex – some of us remember, or still have, a box or carousel version of a Rolodex. But we still own something that holds all our Contacts: our address books contained in our e-mail program and in our cell phone contact list.
Photographic film – I saved a roll of unused Kodak film. Since this product is no longer made, it may be worth something some day! Photos are still being taken, but instead of being developed and placed in a multi-paged album, most of the time these photos remain in our camera or phones, or they end up on social media sharing websites – the new type of photo album.
What I’m attempting to point out is that in many respects, grandparents and their grandchildren are performing the same functions as their younger & older age group, but the manner in which they do so is very different.
Grandparents and grandchildren are different – but the same. Establishing a common ground – and minimizing the differences between the two groups – can open the door to increased understanding and communication amongst the generations.
The city miser was on his death bed and his last request was that he be alone with his lawyer, doctor, and priest.
“I know I am going to die,” he said, “and I would like to take my money with me so I am going to give each of you $150,000 and I want you to each make sure the money gets in the coffin.”
It was a few days after the funeral when the priest, overflowing with guilt, finally confided to the other two that he only put $100,000 into the coffin. “I’m glad you brought it up,” said the doctor, “because I have also been feeling guilty. I only put $80,000 into the coffin.”
“You people should be ashamed of yourselves, stealing money like that!” stormed the lawyer. “Am I the only honest person of the three of us? Here, look at this,” he said pulling out his checkbook, “look – I wrote out a check for the full $150,000.”
Forced faith is not faith | Opinion | The Seattle Times. The syndicated columnist, Leonard Pitts Jr., has proven yet again how fabulously he writes. His writing can only attain that quality, however, if what he writes comes from a sense of justice, compassion, and truth. Therefore, hands down – his writing is fabulous.
The title for this blog piece comes from Mr. Pitts’ article where he quotes Martin Luther King’s definition of faith as being, “taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” The columnist says that given what the Sudanese Parliament has done by imposing the death penalty on one of its citizens who wouldn’t disavow her faith, “faith has less to do with hope and assurance and the courage to take steps in the dark, than with justifying just this kind of theological bullying.”
This story centers around choosing one religion over another. My writing on this story does not pit Christianity against Islam, (or vice versa) rather, it’s a story showing a conflict between two religions that very well might end horrifically. It’s a dramatic story because the “guilty” party, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a mother of two who married a Christian man, will receive 100 lashes and then she will be killed after her youngest child has been weaned – nothing short of outrageous and barbaric.
Can you require/force someone to have faith?
Can you require/force someone to love you?
Mr. Pitts asks:
Can faith ever truly be faith if it is imposed by force of law or threat of violence? Is faith faith if it is not freely chosen? If someone swore at gunpoint that she loved you, would you believe her?
Faith can move mountains; religion can’t. (Painting by artist, Mary Riesche)
The Sudanese Parliament has no concept of what faith is. Again, I’m not talking about Islam in general, I’m talking about the actions of the Sudanese Parliament. Its members are simply trying to force this 27-year old woman to leave her Christian religion and follow their religion, Islam. They are proving that they are a bunch of fearful wimps – so afraid are they of any religion that differs from theirs. But we all know the truth: the strongest person represented in this travesty is Meriam Yehya Ibrahim. She’s not holding on to her religion, she’s holding on to her faith.
Bullies are weaklings in disguise whose only weapon is to assert a strength they will never have.
At the urging of Harry’s wife and Harry’s doctor, 55-year old Harry finally made it to the gym. After consulting with one of the trainers, Harry decided to try out a steep treadmill.
“Okay, said the trainer, “I’m going to set it for ten minutes. If you want to go longer, just press START again.” At first Harry was doing fine but after 5 seconds he started getting tired. After a minute he jumped off gasping for breath.
Walking to the side to sit down he passed by a friend of his. “Man,” said Harry, “I could barely last a full minute on that treadmill!” “All right, all right,” said his buddy, “no reason to brag!”
A May 15, 2014 New York Times article, Alzheimer’s, a Neglected Epidemic by Ginia Bellafante, provides a keen look at a fatal disease that many still assume is one that only other people get. Maybe my coworker a few cubicles away from me or the neighbors down the street will have to deal with some sort of dementia, but not our household – right? You wish. Alzheimer’s is a world-wide epidemic and it’s knocking on your front door.
In 2010, Alzheimer’s was the underlying cause in 500,000 deaths in the United States.
Let’s look at another epidemic with horrific fatality totals. Remember the AIDS crisis? As of the year 2010, in thirty years’ time, AIDS was responsible for 636,000 deaths in the U.S. And yet Alzheimer’s – a very unpopular disease that is erroneously characterized as just an old person’s disease – racked up almost that many deaths in just one year.
Alzheimer’s isn’t just for geezers any more.
That’s the title of one of the chapters in my manuscript – a work of fiction that centers on the lives – patients and their family caregivers – affected by Alzheimer’s or other dementia. A couple of my characters are in their 80s but there are three characters ranging in age from early 40s to mid 60s whose disease journey began when they were no longer considered young – but definitely not considered old.
What will it take to push people out of denial and into activism?
In the New York Times article linked above, AIDS activist, Peter Staley, is quoted as saying, “The hidden blessing of H.I.V was that it hit a community, my community, a community of mostly gay men. We had a base of organizing that came out of Stonewall.” [1969 demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid at Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village.] And then he goes on to say, “Alzheimer’s hits old people. There is no real organized community beyond AARP.”
I’m not happy with Mr. Staley’s characterization of Alzheimer’s as an old person’s disease because it perpetuates a myth that is simply not entirely true. But I fully back his advice to all of us:
How does a large, affected community get the country to care? It means playing a strong inside game: These family members need to organize effectively; they need to find their allies in Congress; they need to show up with sick people in front of key members of health communities.
Right on.
Alzheimer’s struck my dad in his mid-80s and my sister-in-law in her early 60s – both now deceased.
A man died and went to The Judgment and was told, “Before you meet with God, I should tell you that we’ve looked over your life and to be honest, you really didn’t do anything particularly good or bad. We’re not sure what to do with you. Can you tell us anything you did that can help us make a decision?”
The newly arrived soul thought for a moment and replied, “Yes. Once I was driving along and came upon a person who was being harassed by a group of thugs. I pulled over, got out a bat from my trunk, and went up to the leader of the thugs. He was a big, muscular guy with a ring pierced straight through his lip. Well, I tore that ring out of his lip and told him he and his gang had better stop bothering this guy or they would have to deal with me!”
If you have been bitten by a dog you’re in good company. I read the following statistics in the May 16, 2014 issue of the Seattle Times newspaper:
In 2013, 4.5 million Americans were bitten by dogs in the United States;
The above total includes more than 2 million children and almost 5,600 U.S Postal Service employees.
Gee, statistics for 2014 will include me in the number of Americans bitten in the United States. I seem to have greater potential for becoming part of those statistics than making a name for myself as a published author.
Future Margarita rewards for when my manuscript gets picked up.
The title for this article is my shameless attempt to keep my novel-writing in the forefront of everyone’s minds.
I’m pretty excited however – not by the dog bite episode of May 7th – but by the status of my manuscript. I’ve almost finished reading it through – for the zillion’th time – and thus far I’m pleased with the cohesiveness of the storyline. I’m still making edits in grammar and punctuation – semi-colons and hyphens/dashes are really stymieing me – but I’m hoping if I do my very best, a copy editor will do the rest. I am 100% certain that an agent will want to represent a book that throws a personal and touching spotlight on those who are living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. There’s not an agent or publisher out there who hasn’t been affected by this disease – either peripherally or specifically.
Please stay tuned as I will be providing updates in an effort to keep me on my toes, keep me honest, and get this d@*#mn book published.
My next door neighbors, Irma and Larry, epitomize what being neighborly is all about. You can look at a previous post of mine to see what bad neighbors look like.
Today’s post provides a contrast.
In my rural Redmond neighborhood we don’t always see our neighbors face to face: some of the houses are set back from the street, and others are simply enveloped in the natural evergreen landscaping common to the area.
After last week’s neighborhood dog bite I made certain that my immediate neighbors were made aware of the vicious dogs’ location and I gave them a thumbnail sketch of what transpired. This past Friday afternoon my husband and I were just wrapping up a mini-walk and as we approached Irma and Larry’s driveway, Irma greeted us and invited us into their house for a visit. What awaited us was a beautiful bouquet of flowers harvested from their backyard.
Lilacs & Azaleas gracing my finished manuscript
Equally as precious as the flowers was the concern that both of my neighbors expressed for my doggy mishap. These same neighbors came to my aid several years ago after I had undergone major surgery. I assured my husband that he could return to work after staying home with me for several days and he reluctantly agreed to do so. A couple hours into my day I was in excruciating pain. My hubby was over an hour’s drive away, but Irma and Larry were next door. I sent them an SOS and Irma came over to stay with me while her husband drove down to the neighborhood pharmacy for a newly prescribed medicine that would make my day a better one. After Larry delivered the medication, Irma remained at my side until my daughter, Erin, arrived for her scheduled mommy-sitting visit at Noon that day.
The point is, good neighbors drop everything and attend to the needs of someone else. Irma and Larry have done that time and again for this household. It is my hope that I can catch up to their generosity and bless them as much as they have blessed me.
Regardless of the industry you represent your goal must always be to deliver the best customer experience.
I have read and viewed many advertisements in which a company assures a future customer that their goal is to deliver the best customer service to each and every customer they serve. This is a very commendable goal in my eyes – a goal that must be reached by every provider of products and/or services. Whether I am a passenger on a multi-level cruise ship or a seaport’s rickety party boat;
Photo credit: Rob Owen-Wahl
whether I dine at a casual eatery or a popular Michelin 3-star restaurant; whether I am a guest at a Residence Inn or a resident at a senior citizen housing community, you must provide me with the best customer experience you can muster.
A couple months ago, I commented on a LinkedIn article that discussed one particular goal that should be considered by long-term care (LTC) providers, e.g., senior housing, assisted living, and memory care owners and operators. The particular goal stated in that article was to fill the buildings, attain high census, or as some industry leaders describe as putting “heads in the beds.”
My comment to this article centered on my work as a long-term care ombudsman (advocate for residents living in long-term care facilities). I explained that when a new General Manager was hired for any of the facilities to which I was assigned, I made a point of meeting her or him to explain my role as a resident advocate and to get to know a bit about this new person who was now in charge of 50 to 100 or more residents.
I asked one particular newbie what he felt was the greatest challenge as the new General Manager for this particular independent/assisted living community. “Fill up the apartments.” I suggested that a more appropriate goal might be to retain the residents he already has. I explained that retaining residents most likely means that he and his staff are doing the right thing in delivering the best care and customer service experience to each of his residents.
Retaining the residents he already has equates to fewer additional apartments to fill;
Retaining the residents he already has means satisfied residents who say great things about the building thereby attracting additional friends/acquaintances as future residents;
Family members of happy residents in LTC means happy adult children who will also spread the good news to others;
It stands to reason, therefore, that satisfied current residents are the best tool a manager can maintain in his marketing tool chest.
Dining room at my dad’s memory care facility.
I have retired from working in long-term care housing and from my advocacy work as a certified LTC ombudsman. I know first hand the pressure that employees experience each and every month to report the right numbers to the corporate office. The suits want the bottom line, baby, and if you can’t deliver the numbers they want and need, you’re outta there! (Just like all the losing pitchers the Seattle Mariners have gone through in the past ten years or so.)
I’m not saying that the Suits are only concerned about profit, but I will say that perhaps their focus needs to center more on the delivery of exceptional care for those who are entrusting the Suits with the lives of mom, dad, spouse/significant other, or sibling. Those family members want to be able to sleep at night knowing that their loved one is receiving the best care possible, the most nutritious meals known to man, and that their loved one is living in a safe environment staffed by employees who care.
All you have to to is deliver the best customer experience. Do that and the bottom line will take care of itself.
Pretty much every age group has access to – and uses – an electronic device that connects to the Internet. There are, however, some holdouts, as you’ll see in the following scenario:
“Come on, Grandma, you’ve got to try it!” I pleaded with my stubborn Grandmother. I don’t know how she lasted this long without ever using the Internet, but enough was enough as far as I was concerned.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly, settling down by the computer and slowly putting on her reading glasses. “What do I do now?”
“All right Grandma, now I’m going to open the Home page of Google,” I explained, and then, “Ta da! There it is! Now type in any question you want into the bar at the top of the page and you’ll find an answer to your question,” I proudly assured her.
My Grandma looked at me warily, thought for a second or two, and slowly – very slowly – began to type, “How is my friend Gertrude doing this morning?”
If you are a responsible dog owner who maintains control of your animal and does not allow it to leave your property without being under the control of a leash, you don’t need to read any further.
If your dog or dogs routinely leave your property and have access to any person walking near your property, then please pay attention to what I have to say.
I was bitten by a dog yesterday.
My neighborhood walking area.
I live in rural Redmond, Washington, a beautiful area providing many scenic areas for residential walks. Many dogs live in my rural neighborhood, and some of their owners have given these dogs carte blanche to freely run around the neighborhood – a neighborhood that has many children I might add. But I digress. Said carte-blanche-provided dogs don’t feel compelled to limit their pooping activity to their owner’s property, therefore when they roam the streets of my neighborhood and feel the urge to purge they do so and because they don’t have opposable thumbs they do not clean up their poop. Disgusting for those of us who enjoy walking through the neighborhood. But again, I digress.
Need I say more?
These same dogs whose owners disobey the local leash law have full access to any child, adult or older adult person they come across. Now to the point of my story. I am a prolific walker and there is no street in my rural neighborhood that I have not traveled. Yesterday afternoon I was minding my own business, enjoying a break in the rainy weather by taking a walk, when I turned onto 272nd Avenue NE, Redmond, WA 98053, when half-way down the block my walk was interrupted by two white-haired maltese-like dogs running out of their human’s property directly into my path. My normal modis operandi in these instances is to tell the dog “No! No!” or words to that effect, and casually continue on my way.
Not this time. These two dogs stayed at my heels, not letting me proceed on my own, bearing their teeth, barking like there was no tomorrow, and in a progressive show of defiance, one of them jumped up and bit me on the back of my left calf. Okay, now I’m mad. I’m screaming at these dogs to get away so I can leave the area, and they’re not buying it. Where’s their human? I guess the human was yelling for her dogs, although I couldn’t hear her over their barking, because one of them ran back onto the human’s property, leaving the other dog to continue on its terroristic rant at my expense. (Perhaps said dog has “small dog syndrome”?) Anyway, I was going to use my pepper spray on the remaining mutt but it was acting so vicious, I feared I would only aggravate the situation.
I finally heard a female human’s voice calling the remaining hairy terrorist, and that dog ran back onto the owner’s property. At this point I am approximately 25 feet way from the gravel driveway and did not see the human, nor did I want to exchange conversational pleasantries. I feared that if I walked back to the foot of the driveway to confront the human, her maltese-like dogs would consider me a threat and demand a pound of flesh from me. Instead I yelled, “Your dog bit me!” to which she replied, “Sorry.” She did not walk off her property to the street to see if I was okay. I walked slowly away, looking back to see if she would do so, and she did not.
The balance of my day: at the advice of my doctor’s office when I called to tell them about my dog bite – 3 puncture wounds on my calf, drawing blood – I drove to the nearest hospital emergency room to receive any treatment the ER physician deemed necessary. Fortunately no stitches were required and because there have been no confirmed rabies cases reported in King County – the county in which I live – in the past 30 years, there was no need for preventative rabies treatment. The physician did prescribe an antibiotic, however, should the dog bite become infected.
Come on people! Be responsible dog owners!
You owe it to the general public, and you owe it to your animals, to be responsible. To their animals you ask? Of course, because a complaint such as I filed with Animal Control, including photos of the injured leg, will initiate an investigation that might result in your dog or dogs to be removed from your house.
Bottom line: If you love Fluffy, you must protect Fluffy and all with whom he may come in contact.
My sister, Mary, has been an artist since she could hold a crayon and a water color brush in her hand. Without giving away her age, I’ll just say that she’s been an artist for quite a few years because she is close in age to myself.
Mary in her garage studio
This article honors the consistency and commitment that my sister has exercised in her quest to maintain and hone her talent. Her husband was in the United States Navy when she married him, a career that deposited the two of them and their ever growing family, all over the United States and the world. She could have put down her sketching pencils, acrylics, and oils and figured that until the kids are grown up and out of the house, she wouldn’t have time for her artistic endeavors. But she didn’t. She managed her family single-handedly – and excellently I might add – while her husband was away at sea, never neglecting her family nor the craft that she loves so much.
Mary has been so diligent on this artistic journey, that I can only recall one time when she could not work on her craft. Mary broke her right wrist falling down in front of a grocery store near her Vacaville, California neighborhood several years ago, and as happens after we cross a certain age threshold, bones break easier and take longer to heal. But my sister was only sidelined for as long as absolutely necessary while she completed her physical therapy regimen and then – almost as good as new – she again took up the tools of her craft to pour her heart, soul, and energy into each piece.
And now that my sister and her husband are retired – and their five children are all grown and the number of grandchildren has recently increased to six – Mary continues to pick up the tools that she discovered as a youngster, and consistently makes efforts to expand her talents.
The artist in April 2014 at one of many craft fairs she attends through the year.
Now this is where you come in. I strongly encourage you to visit Mary Riesche Studiosso that you can get to know a bit more about this artistic family member of mine, and while you’re at it, browse a sampling of her current inventory of pieces that are for sale. She loves what she does so much, and is so committed to what she loves to do, she will even create a custom piece to fit your home, business, or organization’s needs.
Do yourself a favor, browse the Mary Riesche Studios website, and then contact the artist to discern how her talent can benefit your personal or commercial environment.
With all the computer security issues that have occurred lately, I thought it might be healthy to have a few computer jokes to start our week.
Three signs that you need to get away from the computer:
You try entering your password into the microwave oven panel;
You email your kids in their bedrooms to tell them that dinner is ready and they email you back, “What’s for dinner?”
You chat several times daily with a stranger from Australia, but haven’t spoken to your next door neighbor in months!”
A project manager, a computer programmer, and a computer operator are driving down the road when the car they are in gets a flat tire. The three of them try to solve the problem.
The project manager said, “Let’s catch a cab and in ten minutes, we’ll reach our destination.” The computer programmer said, “We have the driver’s guide. I can easily replace the flat tire and continue our drive.” The computer operator said, “First of all, let’s turn off the engine and turn it on again. Maybe it will fix the problem.”
Suddenly a Microsoft software engineer passed by and said, “Try to close all windows, get off the car, then get in and try again!”
Sue Monk Kidd, author of numerous books including the New York Times best seller (for two years) The Secret Life of Bees, was a recent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show, Super Soul Sunday. The description of the show indicated that the author would be talking about her true calling as a writer. That got my attention, because I’m trying my darnedest to be a writer. Correction: I am a writer, I’m just not an author yet.
Perhaps you’re asking, “Do I have to have a calling?”
No, you don’t. I can only speak for myself when I say that I’ve known that I’ve had a calling for most of my adult life. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I had one. I always seemed to be searching for the right project/job on which to spend my time. As an employee, and as a volunteer, I did my work superbly, always trying to be the best version of myself – and for the most part, I was.
But something was missing. I always felt that I hadn’t latched on to what I was called to do. I can describe how that felt by using Sue Monk Kidd’s experience when she switched from being a nurse to being a full-time writer. For her own reasons, Sue Monk Kidd felt “out of alignment” and she didn’t feel she was “in a place of belonging” as a nurse. She also described the time before she answered her calling as having “homesickness for (her) your home.” Then she made the decision to be a writer and this is how she felt, “there is no place as alive as when you’re on the edge of becoming” what you were meant to be.
Exactly.
Household garage sale to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Association.
And she added that it takes lots of courage to get there – to activate the calling that you know is yours. Several years ago I found my niche – working with the elderly. For six and a half years, I worked in the senior housing industry. For five years after that, I volunteered as an Alzheimer’s Association caregiver support group facilitator, and another five years as a Certified Long-term Care Ombudsman for the State of Washington. Good stuff, and it felt right, and it was. But I had yet to use that wealth of experience in what I would define as my calling.
Confession: I’m a fairly decent writer.
Now hold on there, Irene, shouldn’t a calling be something at which you excel, some sort of skill that you’ve honed to perfection? In my case, the answer is no. Sue Monk Kidd validates what I mean. She said there are three things you need to be a writer: 1) have something to say; 2) have the ability to say it; and 3) have the courage to say it at all.
Ergo, I am qualified.
I believe in what I’m doing.
I am one and a half years into writing my first novel. It focuses on the lives of a group of adults who have Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia and the loved ones who are their caregivers. Woo hoo! All the work I’ve done in the past ten-plus years can be used in my calling! I excelled at all of those tasks, and some day I will excel at getting my manuscript published.
Some agent and some publisher out there wants to sign what I have to offer, and I believe that my degree of writing ability won’t get in the way of them doing so.
Have no fear all you agents and publishers who might have just read that last sentence. I am doing my best and I’m working hard at my craft. I’m not of the opinion that just because I feel I’ve found my calling I can just haphazardly go about my writing, not working as diligently as I have in the past.
I’m taking this calling seriously because the subject matter is a serious and personal one to me.
My advice to you the reader? Do what you know you’re supposed to be doing, and do it well. Whether you label that as a calling or a job matters less than if you believe in what you’re doing and are committed to it.
The woman was more than a little upset when her car stalled in the middle of the main street, and even more so when no amount of cajoling could get it started again.
As the light turned from red to green a third time and the car still failed to respond, the honking of the fellow in the car behind her grew even more insistent.
Finally the woman got out and walked over to his door. “Excuse me, sir,” she said politely, “if you’d like to help out by trying to get my car started yourself, I’ll be glad to sit here and honk your horn for you.”
Caring for a loved one is a full-time job, as one of my fellow bloggers clearly illustrates in the attached article. Please read her article, especially if you’re not quite aware of how full the carer’s day can be.
My father died of Alzheimer’s 10/13/2007. I’m on the left, then my hubby, then my brother.
There’s a reason why the book, The 36-Hour Day (now in its 6th edition) is so popular with health professionals and family caregivers. The subtitle for the book reads, A Family Guide to Caring for Persons with Alzheimer’s Disease, related Dementias, and Memory Loss. As the former caregiver for my father who died from Alzheimer’s in 2007, I can verify that whether you are providing hands-on care or managerial long-distance care for a loved one, your job never ends. A normal day is a relative term that changes with every day or hour – or as is sometimes the case – every minute.
My article, A normal day, caregiving style, throws a spotlight on how a patient’s and caregiver’s life changes once a diagnosis has been delivered. The concept of normal is an ever-changing paradigm where the sand on the beach shifts so much, one can barely hold herself upright.
I celebrate all caregivers who manage this extraordinary task so well, and so devotedly. You are a hero to many.
Treatable Conditions that Mimic Dementia – AARP. I am so pleased that AARP published this article about false positives for Alzheimer’s disease. Because of the high incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, we have all become very sensitive to any abnormal cognitive challenges in our lives. A few people have said to me, “I keep losing my keys. I forget where I place them. Do I have Alzheimer’s?” I’m not a medical professional but I have been trained by several in the profession. Teepa Snow, one of America’s leading educators on dementia, had this response to that type of question, and I paraphrase:
If you forget where you’ve put down your keys, you may not have dementia. If you forget what they are or what they’re used for, you could very well have dementia.
Several years ago I underwent extensive neurological testing due to troubling cognitive symptoms. Turns out, the cause was a medication I was taking. Once I went off the med, I was 100% fine.
The attached AARP article provides possible reasons for cognitive abnormalities that are not Alzheimer’s disease: medication, urinary tract infection (UTI), diabetes, thyroid, and depression to name a few. That being the case, even if you forget what the car keys are for, you still may not have Alzheimer’s or other dementia.
In my attached article, Medications: harbinger of cognitive decline? I address just one of the causes for a false positive Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Please read that article, to be sure, but also read the attached piece by AARP. You deserve to have peace of mind by finding out if your symptoms, or those of a loved one, are reversible. And by all means, be bold enough to demand that your treating physician rule out all other possible conditions before putting you through the grueling neurological testing that many physicians prescribe as first steps, rather than the last resort when determining the cause of a patient’s cognitive decline.
I wrote an article on April 6, 2014, entitled, Same sex marriage: we don’t have to agree. In that article I emphasized how abusive and intolerant we have become with our opinions, and how exclusionary we are setting ourselves up to be. If you think about it, the impetus for our very strongly held opinions is that we want to be right. If we are right, then the other person or group must be wrong. Damn that feels good!
American journalist and author, Kathryn Shuulz, spoke at TED a couple years ago, and the title of her 17 minute talk was: On Being Wrong. What Ms. Shuulz has to say is well worth all of you allotting 17 minutes of your day to watch this attached video. The gist of her message is that it’s a very big problem to have the feeling of always being right, and she explains why.
To begin with, she asked some of the audience members this question:
How does it feel to be wrong?
Their answers were: dreadful, embarrassing, thumbs down. She thanked them for their answers and then told them that they actually provided answers to a different question, that question being:
How does it feel to realize that you’re wrong?
You see, being wrong doesn’t feel like anything. We go along our merry way believing something or stating something, fully convinced that what we’re saying is right, so we’re not feeling what it feels like to be wrong. It isn’t until we discover that our strongly held opinion or belief is actually wrong that the dreadfulness and embarrassment creep in.
Many of us were raised to realize the importance of not making mistakes, or if we missed that lesson, we rapidly learned in school – and then in our working careers – that making mistakes is a big fat no-no.
But what about the statement: we learn from our own mistakes?
I can honestly tell you that I’ve learned far more valuable lessons from falling flat on my face than I’ve learned standing up on a self-righteous pedestal. Being wrong or making mistakes is not a defect. It’s a fact of life. St. Augustine would say it proves that we’re alive:
A friend from college found me through Facebook the other day and we’ve spent a couple days catching up with each other via e-mail because it has been decades since we’ve communicated with each other. I told Angie about my work with the elder-care community and I also mentioned that I’m a contributing writer for Grandparents Day Magazine (an Australian online publication), I have my own blog, and I’m writing my first novel. “Irene, did you major in English at the University?” “Nope, I majored in French. I write not because I’m an exceptional writer, but because I have something to say.”
As is the case today.
Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times wrote another brilliant column in such a way as to make you say, “Hmmmm.” What I mean is that at least for me, he opened my eyes as to how demanding some of our opinions can be. For example:
Whether you support same-sex marriage or you don’t, you have the right to say how you feel about it.
Six years ago, Mozilla CEO, Brendan Eich contributed financially to Proposition 8 in California – a proposition that opposed gay marriage. It was discovered that he had done so, and the newly installed CEO was immediately ousted. He had, however, been with the company since the 1990s, and as Danny Westneat pointed out, “There was no evidence his views against legalizing gay marriage had any effect on his various jobs at the company, including his treatment of gay co-workers.”
Putting a more local perspective on this same subject, Washington State’s 2012 Referendum 74 that would allow same-sex marriage in our state, had 5,700 names on the anti-gay-marriage monetary contributor list, including those from Amazon, Starbucks, T-Mobile, F5 Networks, Microsoft, and Boeing, to name a few. Many others were opposed to the Referendum and financially contributed against it: medical professionals, public-school teachers, a school superintendent, and a couple college instructors. The measure passed, with the voters split 53.7% to 46.3% of valid votes placed.
Is this where we’re gonna place those who don’t believe the way we do?
Isn’t that grand? Everyone was allowed to vote which ever way they wanted; a fabulous example of the right to believe/speak the way you want through the democratic voting process. But do or say something that might give ones business a bad reputation in the eyes of the majority – or even the minority – then by God, you’ve gotta go.
Where do we draw the line?
Personally, I passionately voted the way I wanted to vote regarding Referendum 74, and although I might disagree with those who voted differently from me, I respected their right to vote which ever way they wanted.
In his article, Danny Westneat talked about the fanaticism that the Boy Scouts exhibited by ousting a gay Boy Scout leader because of who he is, not because of his work performance. But the columnist added that the same fanaticism was displayed when the Mozilla CEO was ousted for what he believes.
If we are now requiring everyone to believe the way we believe; think the way we think; or vote the way we vote, aren’t we exhibiting a radical intolerance that nullifies our right to believe and speak as our conscience leads us?
I hope I never live in a world where someone figuratively puts a gun to my head to force me to think, believe, or vote the way they want me to.
Anyone who knows me, knows that would really piss me off, and it should make you pretty darn angry as well.
What these two disasters and many like them have in common is that billions of us can say that they didn’t happen to us. I live in a suburb of Seattle, approximately 60 miles south of Oso, Washington – the town that was buried by a landslide that killed at least twenty four people as of this writing. This landslide didn’t physically happen to my town of Redmond, Washington, but it did happen to us.
The crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 took the lives of 239 people and affected thousands of people who lost one of the 239. This crash appears to have happened over the Indian Ocean, many, many miles away from where you and I live, and most of us can say that we weren’t connected to any of those victims, but we would be wrong, because that crash happened to you and me as well.
I don’t take comfort in the fact that so many of the disasters that occur in the world haven’t personally or physically happened to me. There is no distinct separation between me and those pointedly affected by the tragedy that has inserted itself into their lives; no safety shield between my location, and theirs. They are me, and I am them.
It is far too easy to sit comfortably at home and simply be grateful that such tragedies didn’t directly happen to me. You know that saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I think the intent of that statement is well-meaning but it must be said and felt purposefully so that we truly recognize that another misfortune, at another time, could be our own. All of us are vulnerable, and we are all connected. What happens elsewhere, happens to us.
The reason for this article is to express my hope that all of us, wherever and whomever we are, may more readily and clearly identify with all of humanity: the “them” or “they” to whom tragedies befall.
Empathy trumps distance, nationality, or circumstances.
Again from the Washington Post, this entry includes responses to the newspaper’s invitation to readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supplying a new definition.
Bozone (n): the substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating
Giraffiti (n): vandalism spray-painted very, very high
Inoculatte (v): to take coffee intravenously when you are running late
Hipatitis (n): terminal coolness
Dopeler effect (n): the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly
Arachnoleptic fit (n): the frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web (been there, done that many, many times)
You see I couldn’t care less whether you wish to extend your life at all costs – allowing all heroic methods to be employed while on your death bed to take advantage of every second of life available to you – or you simply wish to be made comfortable with the usage of palliative measures while you transition from this life to the next. What does matter to me, however, is that you secure those wishes in a binding legal document while you’re still able to do so. (I am not a lawyer; I am a daughter whose mother and father gifted their three children by laying out their final wishes on paper years in advance of the end of their lives.)
An old man went to the doctor complaining that his wife could barely hear. The doctor suggested a test to find out the extent of the problem.
What was your longest day like?
When you offer help, please don’t leave it open-ended. Instead of saying to your neighbor, “Hi yah, Joe. Be sure to call me if you need anything,” be more specific so it’s easier for Joe to accept your offer, “Joe, when I get out my lawnmower this weekend, I’d love to swing by your place and take care of your lawn so you won’t have to.” Or how about, “Yah know, we’re always making more food than we can eat at our house so we just freeze the leftovers for another time. Can I come by later this week and give you a week’s worth of meals so you don’t have to concern yourself with what to fix for dinner?”
Printed encyclopedias – the final print edition for the Encyclopedia Britannica – a 32-volume set of books – was released in 2010. How did I find out that information? In one of today’s on-line encyclopedias of course: Wikipedia.
Floppy discs & drives – many children under the age of fifteen have never seen this storage device. You’d be hard-pressed to find any newly-released desktop or laptop computers with this type of storage capability. But storage devices still exist in the form of a thumb/flash drive or the “Cloud.”
Photographic film – I saved a roll of unused Kodak film. Since this product is no longer made, it may be worth something some day! Photos are still being taken, but instead of being developed and placed in a multi-paged album, most of the time these photos remain in our camera or phones, or they end up on social media sharing websites – the new type of photo album.
A man died and went to The Judgment and was told, “Before you meet with God, I should tell you that we’ve looked over your life and to be honest, you really didn’t do anything particularly good or bad. We’re not sure what to do with you. Can you tell us anything you did that can help us make a decision?”
I have read and viewed many advertisements in which a company assures a future customer that their goal is to deliver the best customer service to each and every customer they serve. This is a very commendable goal in my eyes – a goal that must be reached by every provider of products and/or services. Whether I am a passenger on a multi-level cruise ship or a seaport’s rickety party boat;
My comment to this article centered on my work as a long-term care ombudsman (advocate for residents living in long-term care facilities). I explained that when a new General Manager was hired for any of the facilities to which I was assigned, I made a point of meeting her or him to explain my role as a resident advocate and to get to know a bit about this new person who was now in charge of 50 to 100 or more residents.
I wrote an article on April 6, 2014, entitled, Same sex marriage: we don’t have to agree. In that article I emphasized how abusive and intolerant we have become with our opinions, and how exclusionary we are setting ourselves up to be. If you think about it, the impetus for our very strongly held opinions is that we want to be right. If we are right, then the other person or group must be wrong. Damn that feels good!
Living: the ultimate team sport 