doctor visits

So, tonight I went to see a 'sleep doctor' and he agreed I should get my CPath machine replaced without a sleep study (sleeping in the sleep center hooked up to stuff). The chip from my dead machine convinced him I was both using it correctly and needed to use it. They took my vitals and my blood pressure was 120/64. Bern's food choices are working beyond well!

I know I told you about my urologist yesterday. But hang in there, I have a kidney cat scan and a colonoscopy coming up next week.

When you're 69 you have lots of doctors in your life. Just the way it is.

I'm really feeling fine--a tad sleepy, but a new CPath machine will fix that.

I really do hope, when I come to die (as I will, beloved, though I dread it) that I'll be able to blog about my last days. I'd like to do that so I wouldn't be going through it alone.

But that probably consigns me to some long, drawn out death where I'll be in pain but able to type.

I don't fear Death, but I am concerning about the 'dying' part. I can handle being dead, I'm just not sure about the transition.

I remember a joke I like.

"I'd like to die in my sleep," the joke goes, "like my grandfather. Instead of screaming like the other people in the car he was driving."

I've gone back and forth between dying in my sleep and dying screaming.

I'm not sure which I would prefer yet.

Ponder that, if you have the time.

Urology

I know all about Urology.

I had prostate surgery, radiation and a round of hormone therapy. That was years ago now. But I still see a urologist yearly.

Today she looked into my bladder.

The two words in that sentence that should catch you are: 'she' and 'looked'.

My urologist is a woman--Dr. Wong. Dr. Kurz retired and it was easier to stay with the practice since Dr. Wong took over. She treated me in the hospital once--the only time I've been in the hospital since my surgery. It was for a urinary blockage (don't even think about it!) she cleared it right up.

Today she looked into my bladder.

There's only one way into a bladder from the outside. Obviously there's a way in from inside the body but only one from outside.

I commented while she had a camera 'up there' that it was hard to have thoughtful conversation in that situation.

She laughed. I like her a lot.

I don't like her looking into my bladder.

Or anyone for that matter.

I almost passed

Bea, at the Cluster Office got a call about a patient in Middlesex Hospital that we had never heard of. She said she was a member of Emmanuel, Killingworth though she was on no lists and people Bea had contacted from Emmanuel didn't recognize her name. The message also said she was 93.

Working in the Cluster I know more people 90+ than I think I've met in all my life before. My last 3 funerals were for people in the upper 90's.

Something in that country water, maybe.

I got lost looking for the hospital because the normal exit was closed for construction so I wandered around Middletown for a while. I almost gave up and went home. But I didn't.

I parked in a clergy spot since it was open though I don't have permission. A year or so ago I asked the Chaplain for a permission to park there. He asked me to prove I was clergy, since I'm never dressed like a priest. My offer to 'bless something' didn't cut it, so I still don't have a clergy sticker.

The hospital has North and South elevators and I took the wrong one and had to wander through a labryinth of hallways to find the room.

I almost turned back because the room had visitors and I didn't want to make a 'cold call' with witnesses. But I didn't.

Bea and I had found the woman on line and she was from West Haven, so I wasn't sure she really asked for a priest from the Cluster and almost left. But didn't.

She was delightful. Very alert and engaging. Her daughter and her daughter's husband were there and I soon learned she was the mother of one of the very active members of Emmanuel and was going to live in Killingworth when she got out of the hospital.

I gave them all communion and anointed her and realized how much I would have missed had I just 'passed' on the visit.

I've long realized that those 'uncomfortable moments' can be the best moments of all if you just move into them.

This was no exception.

Thank God for 'cold calls'--they end up warm and wonderful.

As of yet

Given the number of serious terrorist attacks in the past few weeks, I've been really worried about the huge gatherings of Americans at 4th of July celebrations today. If I were Isis what could be a better target than an 'Independence Day' fireworks in a major city.

It's after 11 p.m. Eastern time and nothing yet.

So, here is what I want you to ponder: how effective is our anti-terrorist and security in the US?

We'll never know what the NSA and others are doing to keep us safe.

I just hope they keep doing it.

And I have a great debt of thanks to all the people--Federal, State and Local--who look out for us.

I am a socialist and left wing nut. And, I want whatever is being done to secure us to continue to be done--even though much of it might offend my political views.

So, I've said it.

And I stand by it.

And believe it.

Keep us safe all you alphabet groups, by doing what you need to do to do that.

Just that.

The 4th the way it should be

We were home by nine p.m. It's an hour later and only the occasional 'boom' outside yet. It will get more frequent. believe me. One lucky thing, we have a dog who is oblivious to fireworks and thunderstorms, couldn't bother him in the least. One of Jack and Sherry's dogs, Vivian, was already wound a little tight from a couple of firecrackers nearby.

It was just 7 of us--Jack and Sherry, Brandy, Sherry's sister, Mike, their next door neighbor we know well, Maureen from Sherry and Bern's women's group and Bern and me. The table in the back yard has 8 chairs...one for the bucket of grilled corn and one for each of us.

Jack did some amazing New Orleans shrimp to put on toast. I made my famous deviled eggs (requested by Sherry, so at least famous with her and she always is at our house for Easter when I do the eggs). Cheese and red/white and blue braunswieger  (sp--my spell check is down: liver cheese with red, white and blue stuff on it) hot dogs (withe every imaginable topping), corn, Mike's potato salad and Jack's American flag cake with blueberries, cherries and pineapple smothered in whipped cream.

Parties in the neighborhood spilled sound over. One group was playing basketball after several beers--not a bad way to celebrate our nation.

But we were quite and all hate Trump and like Hillary and can't explain why we have to have an election if Americans (who celebrate their independence this day) are smart enough to deserve this country.

Great food, good friends, wine and bourbon and breezy weather and three dogs (2 Jack and Sherry's, one Mike's) and two new kittens for Jack and Sherry, and being free to do what we want.

It doesn't get much better than that. And going to bed before the real fireworks--which I can sleep through, believe me...a perfect way to honor our nation.

Interdependence Day

Tomorrow is July 4--the birthday of our nation, though it was quite a bit smaller and less complicated back then. It is called, far and wide: "Independence Day".

That seems like a misnomer to me. First of all, the slaves in this country weren't "independent" in 1776. And women, back then, what would they say to know they wouldn't vote until the 20th century.

The second reason it doesn't work for me is that what this country (or any nation) needs is 'interdependence' not 'independence'.

What I would call 280 million (are there that many of us? I think so) 'independent people' would be CHAOS written in all caps.

What we need, as a people, a tribe, a nation, is to recognize how dependent we are. We are dependent on the rule of law, on the people who make our laws, on federal and state government and local government and other entities to handle the multitude of issues that we can't handle on our own. We can't build our own roads or pump our own water or have our own schools (though some people think they can!) or generate our own electricity (except for people with solar panels--can't have them in a 'Historic District'), deliver our own mail, create our own internet, be in charge of our own radio and TV stations, run our own hospitals, be our own lawyers, protect our nation without an armed force, police our own streets (which the town or state built), make our own paper, grow all our own food, make sure there is oil in our furnace---I could go on and on and on and on with this list.

We are interdependent and that is what we should celebrate tomorrow: how much we depend on each other to make it through the day.

Some people have suggested that 'individualism' in the American psyche is a problem.

I would agree.

To quote one of the candidates for President: "it takes a village to raise a child".  That wasn't Trump, if you're wondering.

Trump actually appeals to the enormous lie of "individualism". People are pissed off about 'their lives' and not much worried about anyone else's life. I see the Tea Party folks who protest from time to time in front of the Town Hall during drive time about "getting the Federal Government out of our lives".

So, handful of older men (seldom women, pointing out that they are not only the 'fairer sex', they are the 'smarter sex'!)  holding signs like that and signs like "Obama is a socialist" (oh, I wish!) how many of you sent back your SS check this month? How many of you protected our homeland this month? How many of you built the street you're standing on? How many of you enlisted in the Navy this week? How many of you inspected meat and other food or did research on diseases or guarded our boarders or provided a school lunch or a college scholarship or built a fighter jet in your life?

What we should celebrate tomorrow--and I will--is the interconnected community that is our nation. We need each other. Everyone of us. And we should make it easier, not harder, for people who want to be interdependent here to become citizens.

This is the greatest nation in the history of the world. I--a left-wing nut--would say that. But what I would point to as our 'greatness' is that we 'lean on each other', not that we are 'individuals'.

Everyone counts. Really.

Happy Fourth of July. Eat the burger. Drink the beer. Light the sparkler. Watch the fireworks. None of that would be possible without the web of interdependence that is our nation and, really, our world.

Liberty, Justice, Freedom and Interdependence....Community. Happy birthday USA.

Front porches/back decks

I live in the 'historic district' of Cheshire, so most of the houses have front porches--some of them quite large. But almost none of them are ever used. John, down the street, uses his for a party on Memorial day--but his house doesn't have a back deck!

When I grew up back where I came from, the 'back deck' hadn't been invented. People sat on front porches and talked to neighbors walking by, or the neighbors on either side or across the street who were on their front porches. Walking along you might be invited to come up and "'bide a spell" by half a dozen folks. To 'bide comes from the verb 'abide' and really just means "be with" for a 'spell'--a while. You might get tea or not. You might get conversation or not. But you would surely just sit for a time with the folks on their front porch, watching the world go by.

On back decks, you don't watch the world go by. In fact, by definition, a back deck faces your back yard and not the world. There are neighborhoods in Cheshire where none of the houses have front porches. There are a few steps up the the front door, but the socializing place is the back deck.

We can see parts of our neighbor's on either side back decks--but not all of them. And there are trees and fences and interrupted sight lines. We can all be out on our decks and not really see each other.

I'm hard pressed to make a choice, though ours is obvious. We have no front fence and a dog that would run out and most likely bite people walking by, so our front porch isn't really an option! But, in a perfect world, I would like a front porch where I could sit and say hello to folks passing on foot.

In the back, we don't have to say hello to anyone. It is a weird suburban privacy--the back deck. People only see it when invited to. Everyone sees front porches.

What really bums me out is when someone on our back deck is using a social media device. One more remove from encountering each other. Being on the back deck is the first remove, though.

Maybe I'll put a gate on our front porch (if the Historic District Commission lets me!) so I can sit out there with Bela.

But because Bela would be there, I couldn't suggest folks come 'bide a spell....