Ahhh...a nice refreshing rain at last

Yeah! It rained. It was cold and wet. Something that hasn't been the case for months, unless you count some foggy mornings around here. Fall is here. Of course, the daughter kept asking why is it raining all the time and how come it won't stop, and how come the rain is following her and how come the water moves like that on the car window. . . endless questions.

I was having on of those thoughts today as I was zoning out to HGTV. I was wondering what someone from another country would think of our obsession of remodeling our houses and accessorizing pillows to draw out the accent color in the throw rug. The industry around home improvement is huge, the designers, the schools, the tv, the stores, books, internet, etc. I began to think about people who don't really have a home or have a really crappy home. They may a 1 room hut or less. Talk about designing for small spaces. Then those same small cramped dwellings may have a full extended family trying to live in it, with livestock running around under the house or through the house. Then I was thinking, you don't have to go too far to find people living like that. Have you seen how migrant farmers live? People in the Appalachia's? On Indian reservations? Hell, we have some apartment buildings in the Bay Area or rental houses that are pretty awful.

At some level, watching people rip apart someone's house because they have too much clutter or they chose some bland shade of white for the whole house is kind of disgusting. I mean, some people would love to live in that cluttered white shack because it is 100 times nicer than what they have.

Why am I just sitting here on a couch when these types of social inequities are occurring?

So, I kept watching HGTV and I then I started to get mad at the designers that bitch about tv's being the center of a room's attention. Hello?!?! How do you think people watch your show??

I then realized that my coffee had probably kicked in I should do some writing, emailing, etc.

BTW, I am trying to read "A Heartbreaking Work of Stagger Genius" and just can't even make it to the first chapter. I am still wading through the prologue. I need a new book to read. I hear "Wicked" is coming in paperback. Maybe I need to do some shopping.

Real shoe therapy

I have a favorite pair of leather loafers that I bought years ago. The quality was so good on them, they still looked great and I often got comments on them. They are not typical loafers and are actually made by some company in Brazil. In case you were wondering why I still have these shoes, I have a thing with shoes. If I love them, I wear them until they are falling to bits around my feet. Case in point, I have a pair of black ballet flats from the late 1980s that are now back in fashion and a pair of suede knee-high boots that I bought in maybe 1990. I even learned back when I had an office job and had to dress a little nicer, that if I found a pair of shoes I loved, I would get two pairs, usually one in a different color.

I had a two day class up in Oakland this past week so I put on my favorite loafers and was off. However, I noticed as I walked they made a strange squeaking sound on the right side, probably due to some break in the arch support or something. And worse of all, the left shoe was too tight and no longer fit like it used to. Some women may understand this problem. I had a baby about 4 years ago and ever since then, some shoes just don't fit like they used to. I had already purged a favorite pair of Doc Martens sandals due to this problem, but I hadn't realized it had affected my loafers too.

So, I kept wearing them and saying to myself they will stretch a little, all leather and all. The squeak isn't all that annoying. Well, by lunch time I had a chance to walk around downtown and I realized that my left foot was killing me and I was going to need a new pair of shoes stat. I walked a couple blocks and unbelievably found a Payless Shoe Source. I found a new pair of brown shoes that were on sale. As I was paying for the shoes, the cashier must have realized my dilemma because he asked if I wanted to wear the shoes out of the store. So he removed all the tags and gave me a bag for my loafers. Minutes later and $20 later, I was putting my favorite loafers in a garbage can (sniff sniff) and wearing some new shoes that didn't squeak and didn't irritate the blister that had developed on my left foot.

I guess I am lucky I didn't stumble across a high-end shoe store. My shoe therapy may have cost me a lot more money.

My PSA for September

My PSA (public service announcement) for September is stroke awareness. Our hospital is a certified stroke center. This means our staff has been specially trained, certified and regularly audited to ensure we deliver the best in stroke care. As part of all that, we have to go through annual training. So, I had to sit through 8 hours of information on stroke and I thought I would share some basics.

Like many health problems, the earlier something is diagnosed, the better your chances for survival and recovery. Also, there are lots of things you can do to lower your risk of stroke.

Stroke can also be called a brain attack, because as in a heart attack, a stroke is when blood supply is interrupted to the brain. The blood supply can be interrupted by a clot obstructing blood flow or it can be by hemorrhage, as in a blood vessel bursting. The most common strokes are from clots.

The acronym to remember and pass along to anyone you know will help you recognize the early signs of stroke and help get you treatment faster:
F. A. S. T.

• Facial droop
• Arm drift
• Slurred speech or inability to speak
• Time is important: If the person has any of these symptoms act fast, call 911

There are several risk factors that increase your chances of having a stroke:

• High blood pressure
• Heart disease
• Smoking
• Diabetes
• High cholesterol

This means if you smoke, you should stop. Have your blood pressure checked regularly and if you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, take your medications. Other ways to lower your blood pressure is to drop as little as 10 extra pounds and increase your aerobic exercise. Managing your diabetes helps ensure cardiovascular health. And like everyone keeps telling us, eating more fruit and veggies and less fat helps with weight management, lower cholesterol levels and a healthier heart.

For more info:

• NIH Know Stroke
• National Stroke Association

And lastly, don't be afraid to go to the hospital and find out you have nothing wrong with you. We have seen and heard from lots of stroke patients and their families. People who tried to self-diagnose and avoid coming in to the hospital, have the scariest and sometimes saddest stories. And don't try to drive yourself in if you think you are having a stroke. One guy did and ended up in an accident that injured others, including himself.

That's ok! That's alright! Shake it off! Shake it off!

I have that song "Ruby Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs in my head and I keep substituting the chorus of "Ruby Ruby" with "Monday, Monday." I just finished my work week, meaning I worked my 3-straight 12 hour shifts and today is the beginning of my weekend. As is typical with the start of my weekend, I tend to spend a couple hours on the internet. I don't have many insights to share today, but I thought I would post an entry to my blog anyway and see where that goes. So, let's ramble on . . .


I've been at my job for just over a year now and they have started assigning me to be the lunch and break nurse. I get nervous with that role, because it is a little like a charge nurse role and I am supposed to respond to any codes in the hospital or rapid response team calls. I spend the whole day hoping one doesn't get called. Yesterday was my second time in this role and I lucked out. I think I should be looking forward to being called because once you have been through them a few times, it'll be less scary, but getting through those first few will be intense for me. It is a bit like having stage fright. You have rehearsed the show many times and studied the entire play, but you have yet to perform it as the lead character in front of a live audience. We did have a patient that started doing poorly and it became a slow motion code...first the ventilator, then all the medications, then all the labs and of course the countless calls and conversations with family members and doctors (one doctor in particular screaming at us). It was like a 12 hour shift crammed into 3 hours and in the end, they decided to discontinue all support for the patient. What happened in those three hours was so much drama, it would almost take a novella to describe it all. Someone watching me leave that night may wonder how I was able to leave with a bounce in my step.

I chalk it up to two things. 1) I know we did a great job and never lost our cool. We respected the patient and the family, allowed them in the room as much as they wanted and assured comfort and dignity for the patient. 2) My co-worker told me a cheer her daughters learned when they used to do cheerleading: "That's OK! That's alright! Shake-it off! Shake-it off!" You actually wiggle and shake your pom-poms to the "shake-it off" part. I plan on teaching it to the daughter. It really helped to picture that cheer when the doctor was screaming and the pharmacy took nearly an hour to deliver an urgent medication.



No one has expressed interest in buying my VW yet. Of course, I haven't done too much to try to sell it other than post it on a couple of free sites and put a for sale sign in the window. Maybe we won't be saying good-bye to him after all.

Someone changed the mysterious white flower with pink ones over the weekend. The daughter was a touch upset about it, because she wanted to know what happened to the white one but she was quickly over it, as she likes pink anyway. I'll try to take a picture of the new flower and post it for you.

We bought a hot tub at a home show on Labor Day weekend. It should be delivered in about a week or so. I am eagerly anticipating sitting in there after a long day at work. I could be sitting in it right now......

The California Seasons

Many people not from California gripe that California has no seasons and that is why they don't like the state. That is fine by me, keeps more people out and maybe the real estate prices will keep coming down.

However, we do have seasons. We have the rainy-cold season (November through February). The green season after the rainy season. The golden-brown season that starts around May and lastly, the worst season of all, fire season. Yep, that period of time at the end of summer where everything is so dry from no rain for about 4 months that the grass has gone from gold to brown to what my daughter thought was sand.

We have two raging fires in areas around us and the sky looks like something out of a futuristic apocalyptic sci-fi movie. The sunsets are all hazy and the sun looks like a blurry small orange. The sunrises all are muted and the sky looks like we have fog. I am almost afraid to go outside and do any activity that requires heavy breathing. It looks like those bad smog days in Los Angeles when they warn you to stay inside.

The fire season really upsets me, because almost all of the fires are started by some idiot that was unsafe with fire or some psychotic arsonist. We don't really have thunderstorms in these areas so you can cross off lightning strikes from possible suspects for the catalyst. I know rain is months in coming and those firefighters are killing themselves to get the fire under control in all this heat and high wind. It gets me to thinking we really need to figure out how to make rain clouds. What an invention that would be, especially when fighting wildfires.

Hmm..... a rain cloud maker.....oh the possibilities.