literary circles in grey shades

I just finished a marvelous book about a POW in WWII. Unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand, chronicles the life of Louis Zamperini from his childhood, through his days suffering as a prisoner of the Japanese, and his eventual return to life in the US and his struggles to come to terms with his experiences. This was my book club choice for May, and I am delighted to have read it.

Last month, we shared in the reading of Proof of Heaven? by Mary Curran Hackett. We were fortunate to be joined by the author at our meeting, and her insight into what she was thinking made a few things clearer to me. I could not get as deeply into the story as I wanted, being held up by a few trite character attributes and plot points which are way overdone--think 9/11, Irish Catholic alcoholics, etc. But still, the premise was worthy, and the story made one think.

We've also read The Five People You Meet In Heaven, and who doesn't love Mitch Albom? Sarah's Key, another WWII setting but this time fictional and completely different in mood, scope and story, was a worthy first choice read.

I've thrown in a few "junk" choices--gearing up to start my summer things-to-read-by-the-pool stack from the library. I tend to find an author I like, then just plow through most, if not all, of his or her works. Amish weddings, quilting clubs, chick-lit and classic love stories, I read them all.

That brings us to the hot choice of the day. 50 Shades Of Gray. I have read a few interviews with the author, who is laughing all the way to the bank. What started out as a piece of fan fiction taken very loosely from the Twilight series has now generated 2 sequels and a lucrative print deal. The movie rights have been purchased with actors lining up to take on the complex role of the leading man who has a thing for whips and chains. I have read varied reviews on the story line. It's been called everything from "steamy" to "mommy porn." some reviewers have found a story buried among the paragraphs of BDSM frolicking. Others have failed to find any redeeming fictional value. From what I've read, a fair number of reviewers didn't bother to look for a plot at all. They got from it exactly what they expected, and seemingly that was sufficient. Social commentary runs the gammut: pundits are pointing to our sexually repressed society as a reason we cannot just enjoy what is really just erotica in the mainstream. More conservative thinkers are calling it disturbing. All agree that sex sells, and this sex is selling.

My book club did NOT choose this a one of our discussion reads. For that I am glad. I don't think I'd be able to discuss sadomasochism no matter how much wine was served at my next meeting! But I did receive my library notification this afternoon that my requested copy is available (hey--I requested it WAY BEFORE I had done any of my homework, simply on the recommendation from a friend). I think I'll pick it up, just for research sake. That's what most of my friends are claiming, too. Curiosity. I want to read it just to see what all the hype is about. It's not the subject line so much, but it would be wrong to condemn it without first reading it.

And to think we laugh at men who say they read Playboy for the articles.

What is happening to Florence Nightingale?

These thoughts about nursing and health care today have been bouncing around in my head for a couple weeks. I've talked to others about it--some nurses, some not. I've read some words of wisdom in professional journals and news magazines. As often happens, when one is mulling over a topic, related items tend to pop up. I've tried to remain objective, but probably failed a time or two. I don't even pretend to have the answers, and I'm just starting to formulate the questions. Just shy of 2 weeks ago, my hubby had surgery to remove a kidney stone. A relatively simple procedure for the most part, we were told, but he has certainly shouldered his share of complications since then. Nothing life threatening, for which I am very grateful, but frustrating, painful, and limiting. My experiences have led me to wonder at how much nursing, and nursing education, have changed. As nurses, we serve as caregivers, resources, advocates. We take on the responsibility of interviewing, assessing, intervening, preventing, teaching and encouraging. In the past 2 weeks, I have seen many nurses in a variety of settings. There were nurses who rose to the challenges and deserve high accolades, one who dodged every responsibility and blamed it all on being too busy, and many who just floundered somewhere in the middle--doing the best they could and trying to smile. I've observed nurses who can do all the right things, but seem to have no ides WHY they do them. It is difficult to promote a successful recovery if one cannot recognize the abnormal. We can educate our nurses to handle all the technical machinery now available in medicine, and teach them the procedures and protocols they may encounter with a specific diagnosis or illness, but that illness is not the patient. The PERSON experiencing the medical challenge needs to be visualized as a whole, or the entire plan of care is compromised. Are we educating our nurses to fully examine the big picture? It would seem, in many ways, we may not be. Are we offering adequate hands-on clinical experience to our learners, or cramming too much into a short course of study in the hopes that they will "pick it up" on the job? For years we have heard about short staffing, increasing patient acuity, higher patient loads, and cost-cutting at every corner. That has never been truer than today. New nurses are set adrift in a sea of confusion, often with inadequate clinical experience to even recognize their own learning needs. Good preceptors, when they can be found, are overworked, overscheduled, often caring for their own full patient load. Senior nurses are being passed over or forced out in favor of newer, less experienced, CHEAPER alternatives, in the hopes that these fresh young caregivers will somehow catch on before they burn out. Many nurses who have been in the trenches for years have a wealth of knowledge to share, but are no longer willing to tolerate the conditions in which they find themselves. In frustration, they retire, go to less acute care settings, or to other professions. The best resources our profession has to offer are fleeing the field, and leaving a gaping wound behind them. The American Nurses Association is pushing for mandatory Bachelors Degree preparation for entry-level nurses. At the same time, many for-profit colleges have flourished across the country, offering lower admission standards and available loan financing for their high cost, shorter programs. One has to wonder if the quality of education can rival their more selective counterparts. It's a topic which draws heated debate, both pro and con. People point to the national nursing shortage and fear we are setting ourselves up for even more dangerous care levels if we demand expanded programs. In addition, we are on the upswing of a physician shortage, and many believe the new national health care mandates will do nothing but worsen an already tenuous situation. We can look to other professions, such as teaching, and ask if the mandatory graduate level education demand has had a positive impact on the vocation. Will demanding a higher level of education result in a higher level of nursing care? In this time of national upheaval in health care, can we afford to demand more years of preparation in order for a nurse to join the already stretched-thin ranks on the front line? A better question might be, can we afford not to?

my spring is broken.

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz. I wonder where the flowers is?

That little ditty, often attributed to Ogden Nash, sums up the weather here the last few weeks. Bountiful days of warm sunshine, spring rains (punctuated by storms today) and now blankets of daffodils and crocuses being shaded by the early flowering pear and cherry trees. Redbud peeks out of the hillsides and forsythia's sunny flowers brighten the landscape.

There are other lovely harbingers of spring--my eyes and my nose runneth over. It is ridiculously early for me to have to haul out the antihistamine, the nose spray, and the eye drops, but I am prematurely entrenched in the seasonal pollen woes. The scenery is changing, and already I need a change of scenery! This makes my usually sweet and genteel temperament more akin to that of a hungry badger interrupted in the midst of a long winter's nap. Nothing says "Super Bitch" like a chronic sinus headache and drug-induced stupor. I think a trip to the beach is in order, where the pollen is low and the tide is high. Ain't gonna happen. Why, you ask? Read on.

Let's consider that other spring. The spring break spring. It is a mini seasonal holiday within an already lovely season. Except this year. This year my spring break will likely be spent taking care of the king of kidney stones and holding down the fort single-handedly. I understand it is easier to have the big guy out of commission when carpools do not have to be driven in duplicate, but it's the principle of the thing. What a lousy way to spend valuable vacation time--for Chad especially, but also for the rest of us (and by that I am referring to me--because this rant is all about me)! Don't even remind me that one of the offspring--you guess--took in impromptu trip to sunny Panama City so he could spend countless hours laying in the sun while pursuing epic levels of intoxication and God knows what else rather than spending time in the lab doing research for that pesky masters thesis which will now require an additional year of college. Dwelling on that MIGHT just send me off the ledge.

Finally, let's talk about a slightly different spring. It is the one which is supposed to be found in my step. You know the one--goes along with the song in my heart? Right now my spring behaves more like one of those Slinkies which gets all bent, tangled up and stuck together. The only way to get it to go down the stairs is the throw the damn thing. This will absolutely not work. I don't know who took my spring, but I WANT IT BACK RIGHT NOW!!!!!

ON the other hand, I could be shoveling snow.

TMI Musings on perimenopause

Let me start by saying that Al Gore is an idiot. I don't deny climate change and I can accept at least some of his postulated effects as probable. What he has wrong is the cause. For 30 years Gore has purportedly studied the causes of significant global warming. At the same time, researchers around the country have put forth numerous theories on the aging "baby boomer" generation and what effect this demographic group's advancing years will have on the world as we know it. How in the HELL did they miss the most glaringly obvious point?

Global warming is a direct result of the increasing numbers of hormonally volatile women radiating ridiculous amounts of heat while attempting to go about their daily routines. Carbon footprint, my sweet aunt petunia. I need to decrease my estrogen footprint.

I went for my yearly physical this week. This female equivalent of "turn your head and cough" is one of life's little annoyances which has, like the dreaded mammogram, proven too valuable in maintaining women's health for me to skip it. This does not mean I look forward to it. I've done my part by finding a nurse practitioner who can at least relate. For this aspect of my life, I avoid dealing with any testosterone-controlled physician who dismisses female complaints of hormone-laden symptoms as hormone-laden whining. If my dear husband, who loves me above all else, understands me better than anyone, and supports me unquestionably, is fairly clueless as to how to handle the emotional perimenopausal female lurking in my psyche, I sure can't expect a virtual stranger to get it.

There was a time when heading into the doctor's office having not had a period in three months would have had me sweating bullets and calling for the severed head of a certain urologist to be served up on a silver platter with faba beans and a nice chiante. I'm not sure when I lost that. It was humbling. Instead of fearing sleepless nights and burp cloths and Catholic School tuition until retirement age, I found myself considering hormone replacement and empty nests and comfortable shoes. After a series of questions, answers, and the typically awkwardly reassuring examination, I am comfortable in the knowledge that whatever hormonal flux I might be experiencing, it will indeed not result in a tax deduction for the year 2012 and beyond.

I have been told this is the next exciting phase in the wonderful journey of the sisterhood, and I can embrace the changes with awe and exhilaration. Every day I am becoming more of the woman I am meant to be--rich in wisdom and experience, filled with the warmth of thousands of suns, secure in the knowledge of who I am. Fully in tune with those wonderful women who went before, I am able to offer an untold wealth of treasures to those who will come after me.

Well, maybe not all that. Whatever the Creator's plan when creating the great female circle of life, I suspect there were hallucinogenic mushrooms involved a couple inopportune moments. I amy be rich in experience, but I am woefully short on stamina. The warmth of a thousand suns is just beginning--I have yet to find myself in the shower at 3am or suddenly looking for the closest polar bear plunge in which to participate, but I do occasionally feel as if I will burst into flame during my personal power surges. I a certainly becoming more of the person I was meant to be--and I could do with significantly LESS of that person in various regions of my physique--my hips, my ass, my upper arms. I fear, as part of this wonderful process, that I am forgetting all my treasured wisdom. The next generations aren't likely to be inspired by the woman who calls her children by the dog's name, can't find her car keys, and finishes one of every 12 things she starts in a day.

So here you go. I am woman, hear me roar. I'm ok, you're ok. My life on Venus is a bowl of cherries. I stand ready to take on the world, one hot flash at a time. If those who observe the process cannot learn from me, they can damn well be amused by me, because I plan to go through it laughing, singing, bitching and rejoicing, with a glass of wine in my hand!

Why winter weather sucks pond sludge

Winter in the Kentucky portion of the Ohio Valley lasts 12 to 15 weeks. It is rarely severe. We get little snow, and what does come tends to stay around two days then disappear under a pile of rain or the ridiculously rare patch of sun. So for those of you in the far reaches of Upper Michigan, Alaska, Montana, Colorado, go shovel your driveway. You will not be able to relate to this, and I don't have the energy to indulge your scoffing at my whining.

For those who are left, here is my opinion of winter in Kentucky. I don't think it would vastly change no matter where I lived, but my current location just ices the cupcake of my discontent.

If you're going to snow, damn it, SNOW! We're pretty much going to shut down whether we have 3 inches of snow or 13, so give me the 13 and let me do something with it. But no, we get glaze. We get ice, covered with snow, covered with ice. We get dangerous driveways and frozen overpasses. We're as likely to break a hip on the sidewalk as a leg on the ski hill. We get broken tree limbs. Then it rains. and rains. and rains. The aforementioned "shut down" concept is relevant because 3 inches of snow here effectively paralyzes the city. We don't often get big snowfalls, and when we do there is the potential for a reasonable amount of fun. I don't mind shoveling (this is a good thing, because I have reared progeny who only shovel other people's walks, preferably for money but they settle for service hours). The kids can spend hours sledding, making forts, playing with friends. Unfortunately, the adults are not amused. The mere threat of the white stuff sends folks to the grocery 2 days in advance to stock up for snowmageddon. The people who *might* know how to drive here know enough to stay home once the blanket of doom hits, because the idiots who have NEVER possessed the skills to drive in the snow find it vitally necessary to make it to the store to buy bread, milk and beer. Those of us who must go to work come hell or high water take our lives in our hands sharing the road with Bubba and Maw on a desperate run for Camel menthols.

This year has been unseasonably mild. I should not even complain. There has been rain. Rain worthy of monsoon status. Rain to inspire ark construction. Whole gaggles of geese have taken up residence in yards and fields previously known for their sandlot games. But we've seen multiple days of 50 and 60 degrees. In January. In February. And despite what that miserable Pennsylvania rodent says, 6 more weeks of winter, especially of the winter we've had so far, is far from a sentence. It is more of a gift. So I can't even rationalize my complaint, other than to say this: I don't want an occasional spring teaser, only to have it washed out of my sight by another bout of gray and rain. If I can't have winter--REAL WINTER--just skip it and move right on to the real, extended spring where my daffodils can bloom, my tress bud out, and my mood can be dragged out from under the pile of wet firewood in my yard.

I'm done. Bring on the next season.

Sometime's it's a dog's life.

My eyes snapped open at 3:02 AM, and it took a split second for my brain to register the noise which had invaded my dreams. I lay there in the darkness, trying to sort it all out, when I heard it again. Nothing sinister, just out of place. A dog barking. It was a short trip from "What idiot is letting their dog bark at 3am?" to "Why is my idiot dog outside barking at 3am?!"

Let me explain something about my dog. He doesn't do outside for long periods of time. He goes out, chases the occasional squirrel, performs an infrequent romp, and otherwise curls up under the grand piano in the hope no one sits down to play and interrupt his slothful repose. Who am I kidding? The minute we turn our backs he hits the couch/chair/bed and stakes his furry claim by depositing a half pound of fur.

And he was outside barking at 3am.

In the few seconds it took me to shake the cobwebs out, something amazing happened. Truly amazing. Maybe it was the rare solar flare which recently impacted the atmosphere. Perhaps it created a strange, gravitational happening. Maybe the earth slipped slightly off its axis. Maybe it's the leap-year affect. Whatever the reason, the miracle played out in quite a perfect fashion. Chad. woke. up. I did what any self-respecting wife would do. The dog barked again, and as the master and protector of the family registered the problem, removed the swell, life-saving CPAP mask, and roused himself from the nice, warm bed, I remained completely still. My eyes were open, but let's face it--without his glasses the one I love can't see his hand in front of his face. Through the brief time it took for him to find his robe, and his shoes, and head out of the room, I remained completely and breathlessly still. Mission accomplished, I could go back to sle...

Right. In my dreams (literally). Nope. I heard the doors open and close. I heard the dog being called. Front door, back door, front door, back door. I heard Rusty emit his very particular "I will save you all from the vicious beast I have chased up this tree" alert. I heard Chad come back up the stairs. I heard the dog bark one more time. Still outside. Clearly, this would be a two person rescue. So I dragged myself out of bed and accompanied the big guy back down the stairs. The dog, in the dark of the back yard, whined again. Chad can't hear the whine--as he gets older his hearing goes more and more, too much time spent with loud music and air tools under cars. Apparently, the dog whining and me reciting the weekend honey-do list are both the same frequency--silent. So there we were, me standing in the open window shining the flashlight on the canine crusader who had single-pawedly cornered and delivered us from a deadly ROUS, and the big guy, tromping through the woods in tennis shoes, bathrobe, and pajama pants with the intention of congratulating the furred superhero and returning him to the home for his reward. Rusty, being a humble hero, took off in the other direction, so there was a brief yet spirited dance through the muddy yard while Chad sang his song of encouragement to the dog to get the hell in the house and I added backup vocals and percussion by shaking the jar of dog treats in the hopes of appealing to Rusty's hungry side.

The dog eventually came in, cold, muddy, tired, and not a little put out that the fun was cut short just when things were getting good. Having rendered all furniture off limits by flipping up cushions and blocking chairs, Chad and I returned to bed where we drifted fitfully back into unsatisfying sleep until the alarm rudely went off playing, of all things, LMFAO. How apropos. Rusty refused any attempt to let him out this morning. Hey, it's his bladder.

Meanwhile, much has been learned from the night's adventures. Primarily, having found 3 lights on, both doors unlocked, and the dog abandoned, it is clearly unsafe to go to bed before the children. From now on, the little shits go to bed when I do. If it's still daylight, tough. I am old, I need my sleep, and the dog isn't up to that level of activity. Besides--critters in the woods need their sleep, too.

Motherhood aint for sissies.

I cannot allow my hubby to go to bed knowing my kids are on the road in bad weather with ice and sleet coming down. Maybe that makes me a crazy woman, but until I know they are safe and sound, we are in this stretch of parenting together. So, I sit and type while he snores in the recliner. How can he sleep when he should be worried out of his mind?????

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Mine is telling me I should have put the stops on the ski trip knowing we could be getting bad weather. Originally the worst was hitting farther north, but of course reliability has never been a strong suit of forecasters. Not only are two of my favorite people in that van, but also three other young men about whom I will worry by proxy since their parents don't necessarily know they have anything to worry about. I'm an equal opportunity maternal worrier.

Few things create quite the feeling of helplessness as knowing all that can be done is wait for their return. I can't go rescue them, can't send the National Guard, can't watch them on the journey. I know prayer is a powerful thing, and I trust God will guide them home and keep them safe, but I can't help the feeling in the pit of my stomach. I could no more be snoring in the recliner than I could fly across the miles and retrieve that precious cargo. I'll be awake with a lump in the pit of y stomach until they walk in the door. I guess it's a mom thing.