Wednesday (just barely) 31 January, 2007

I can't believe I'm up this early! I have my alarm set for 0400, and rarely (maybe twice year) does it ring. Usually I'm awake at 0330, and get up by 0345. This morning the alarm went off scaring the wits outta me. I shut it off, got up and while checking my e-mail and blog noticed that in fact it was 0219. Crap! How could that have happened? Easy, didn't check the alarm setting before going to bed. Duh! Good job rel.

On the other hand: Serendipity strikes again. I'll get my post done this morning instead of waiting until this evening. Now for the longest time, I've posted in the morning, but yesterday was the official start of my training for the Ottawa Marathon.
Anyone want to join me? May 25, 26, 27 2007

My mornings will be dedicated to training. Blogging to PM. Today however, since I up, I'll do it now.

Best-selling author Sidney Sheldon dead at 89.

I checked the news from CNN on my desk top, and found out that Author Sydney Sheldon died
I think I've read most of his novels. He had the ability to create those page turners that I just couldn't put down. He was a very talented man, succeeding as a playwright, producer of movies and popular TV series. He didn't start writing novels until age 50.

My friend Catch tagged me to do the following meme:

Things That Scare Me



1. drowning
2. flying
3. causing someones death

People that make me laugh

1. Catch
2. George Carlin
3. Mark Twain

Things I love

1. My family
2. Kayaking
3. France

Things I hate

1. Political rhetoric (ie: B.S.)
2. Killing. Esp. for God
3. Stepping in merde de chien

Things I don't understand

1. Women
2. How an acorn can become such a huge tree
3. the universe

Things on my desk

1. Computer
2. books & magazines
3. a gazillion scraps of paper

Things I'm doing right now

1. duh, typing
2. reading
3. thinking

Three things I want to do before I die

1. Live in France
2. Run the Boston marathon
3. Make a positive impact on as many peoples lives as possible.

Things I can do.

1. Administer anesthesia safely
2. Sing
3. Exercise

Things you want to listen to

1. My ipod
2. natures melodies
3. my inner self.

Things you should never listen to

1. Too loud sounds
2. negativism
3. politicians.

Things I would like to learn

1. Tai chi
2. French
3. patience

Favorite Foods

1. French
2. Italian
3. Oriental

Favorite beverage

1. Red wine
2. Diet pepsi
3. lemon flavored water

TV shows I watched, books I read as a kid

1. Gunsmoke
2. I dream of Jeannie
3. King Arthur

People I would like to tag:

1. Elisabeth
2. Eleanor
3. Churlita

Should they be so inclined.

Week 35

Monday, 29 January, 2007

Haiku Monday

Week 35

Prompt: Roots/Connection

#44 - Chronicles

Sunday, 28 January, 2007

Apollo the Sun God





Prompt:

#44 - Chronicles

The Morpheus Chronicles

0750: Morpheus enters Patience's room, introduces self, verifies procedure, and surgeon. Answers patience's questions.

0755: pre-emptive sedation and analgesia injected into intravenous line.

0756: Patience taken to OR #6 via gurney.

0758: Patience transfers herself to the operating table

0800: Safety monitors applied; EKG, pulse oximeter, non invasive automatic blood pressure cuff.

0802: Breathing circuit placed over patient Patience's nose and mouth, 100% O2 administered. Patience instructed to take 4 deep breaths.

0803: EKG normal sinus rhythm, B/P 123/64, O2 sat 100%, pulse 73, etc02 37%. Stable, all systems go.

0804: Sleep dose of IV anesthesic injected intravenously. Followed immediately with paralyzing dose of muscle relaxant.

0805: Direct laryngoscopy, #7.5 oral-endotracheal tube placed in trachea.

0805:13: breathing circuit attached to endo-tube. Manual ventilation... 100% O2.....Breath sounds auscultated bilaterally.

0805:30 Anesthetic Sevo vaporizer turned on. O2 set to 2 LPM, sevo at 6%.

0805:40 Automatic ventilator started; 600 ml tidal volume, 10 bpm rate.

0806: pt. prepped and draped. V/S: B/P 138/88, P. 102, O2 sat 99%, ETCO2 41%, ETagent 2.3%. Stable...increase ventilation to 12 bpm, T.V. to 650 ml. Narcotic IV 50mcg.

0818: Surgeon asks, "Morpheus, may I start ?"

Morpheus, "Miss Patience is anesthetized, stable, and you may proceed to remove her gallbladder."

Saturday, 27 January, 2007

Janus

Saturnus

It is still Saturday, really almost to late to post for today. I have been struggling with tomorrow's Sunday Scribblings post prompt, chronicles. I read a dozen or so of the early-bird submissions, some of which were quite creative, but as yet nothing worth while has come to the fore of my mind. Thinking, that maybe, if I just start writing, that stimulus alone might crack open the vault of creativity in the recesses of my cluttered mind and bring forth some ideas to which I could expound upon. And so, here I be.......................................................

I'm on call this weekend and like so many other days this month have an under lying feeling that a cold is trying to burst full-blown upon my head, nose and chest. I prefer to work when I'm on call just to avoid the anticipation of the dreaded phone call. After all these years of being on-call the ringing phone still causes the startle reflex to exhibit itself fully.

I slept well and slept-in this morning. meaning I got over 8 hours of sleep. Went to the hospital for a surgical case for nine AM. After this I attended to two epidurals in patients in the ICU. I returned home about twelve thirty. I was fatigued beyond reason and lay down and slept easily for 3 hours. The nagging feeling of a head cold making it self known by voice changes, too frequent nose clearing episodes and just a general feeling of malaise.

***

I was dragged over to the new blogger on Thursday last by Google. The transition was quick and seamless but I'm puzzled as to why some of my commenters, named on previous comments, were changed to Anonymous.

Back to the pad and pencil to record some chronicle..................................................................

Thursday 25 January, 2007

-17°F (-27°C.)


Robert Burns (January 25, 1759 – July 21, 1796)

I think it quite appropriate that the anniversary of the famous Scottish Bard's Birthday falls on Poetry Thursday this year.

The Prompt for this week was to tell in 153 words or less, why I love poetry.




Why I love poetry...in 153 words or less
by [rel]

When I was a young lad, a friend of my parents once said to me, rel you're just like your father…you’re a dreamer. Silently, I took offense…not at being like my father, but that he would call me a dreamer. Now some 50 years later, I realize (actually I realized it long ago) that he was right. I don’t take offense at it anymore, nor do I know for sure if he meant anything derogatory by it at the time he said it. He may have just been stating his observations.

I’m a deeply emotional person; I feel sadness, joy, hate, lust, love, anger, calm, fear, etc. seemingly, at the far ends of the emotion spectrum. Poetry gives me an outlet to express these feelings with all the vividness they require. Poetry is emotional writing.

Reading poetry is refreshing, rewarding and instructive. How other authors reveal themselves, which words they use to clearly explain their thoughts is what draws me to poetry. The cleanness of expression is exquisite, and I hunger for the ability to do the same.

In honor of Robbie Burns’ birthday I’m posting a poem he wrote which I hope reflects what I mean when I say poetry is emotional writing.

I Murder Hate by Field or Flood

1

I murder hate by field or flood,

Tho’ Glory’s name may screen us,

In wars at hame I’ll spend my blood___

Life-giving wars of Venus.

The deities that I adore

Are Social Peace and Plenty:

I’m better pleas’d to make one more

Than be the death of twenty.

2

I would not die like Socrates,

For all the fuss of Plato;

Nor would I with Leonidas,

Nor yet would I with Cato;

The zealots of the Church and State

Shall ne’er my mortal foes be;

But let me have bold Zimri’s fate

Within the arms of Cozbi.

Sorry! (307 words)

Wednesday 24 January, 2007

30° F. Windy, snowing.

Gym day/strength training.

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.
George Santayana

#####

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned going to the post office and said that in a previous life it had been a general store run by my grand father. I also mentioned that he sold it to an older brother, who along with his wife had operated it as a dish wares store. The photo below shows a child"s play dish set made of genuine porcelain which came from that store.





In the fall of 1975 we moved into the house we currently live in. Neither my wife nor I were from this village, but my father had been born here and lived here until he was 16 years old. If you follow small town logic, even though he never lived here after he moved away, he was still considered a native son. Because my father was a native son, I was treated, immediately upon arrival, as though I too had been a native.

Not long after we moved in, dad came for a visit. He lived 10 miles away in the city where I was born and raised. He came often to visit and to impart to me some history and lore from his growing up years. On this particular evening we were sitting on the stoop enjoying the setting sun, swatting mosquitoes, feeling oppressed by the stifling humidity, and just generally absorbing the ambiance of the neighborhood. While we were chatting, a middle aged woman happened by and stopped to chat. She introduced herself and told us that she and her husband had recently moved into the house just across and down the street and behind the church from our place. I told her who I was and that we had just moved in , which she new already, and introduced my dad to her. She asked if dad in fact was the REL she remembered from her youth growing up here in the village. She was a few years younger than dad but remembered his family. She too had grown up, married and moved away . Her husband, being a reporter for the NY Times, caused them to move far and wide frequently during his career. Now retired, they had moved back to her childhood home, where her 80+ year old mother still lived.

A few weeks later this woman appeared at our door with the above pictured china pieces. She said that when she was growing up she and her family live in the house directly across from, as it turned out, my great uncle's store. This would be the uncle who'd bought the store from my grandfather and turned it into a china shop. Never having any children of thier own, my uncle and his wife thought of the village children as there kids. My neighbor told of how one Christmas when she was 10 or 11 years old, the lady of the shop gave to her a child's china dish set. These pieces were all that was left and she wanted us to have them since they had originally come from my uncle's store.

A little piece of small town behavior that I love so much.

Tuesday 23 January, 2007

Week 34 - Process/Craft

For this week's prompt think about a process. What we had in mind this week was related to the process of Writing;


Poetry in your heart?
Are words written to impress?
Then for me or thee?

Write to entertain,
Not to invite compliments.
Seek immortality.

Find inspiration.
Grammar, punctuate, edit,
Revise and publish.

Emulate the bard,
Practice, write, rework the words.
Publishing when right.

Always sleep on it.
Write on impulse when rising,
Unlocks right/write brain.

Sunday, 21 January, 2007

Prompt #43 Fantasy/Phantasy


Why do you love/not love fantasy? Or, what does fantasy mean to you?

My thoughts about fantasy are spelled out perfectly in Laini's post today. Never at a loss for words myself, I will expound futher on why I love fantasy, and what I think it is.

I think fantasy is make-believe, and I love make believe. It's story-telling, escapism, imagination stretching , wishful thinking,
and for me, soul soothing.

I don't make much of a differentiation between such terms as fanasy, sci-fi, and "normal" fiction. Each weaves it's own magic in my mind, capturing my interest and transporting me to a world of mystery and intrigue, a world I'm happy to inhabit for a short time.




Phantasmagoric
Deceptive apparition
Escapism, magic







When I was 9 years old, or there abouts, I introduced myself to Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan of the Apes". From that point on I was and continue to be an avid reader of fantasy books, and magazines.

Besides the Tarzan stories, I also devoured the stories about Bomba, the jungle boy.Written by ghostwriters (most stories are attributed to Howard Garis)




It wasn't long before I discovered Merlin the magician and reveled in the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the round table. In fact those stories still captivate me to this day. ie: Mary Stewart's " The Crystal Cave"

Naturally, it came to pass that I met another hero model in Robinhood of Sherwood Forest and his band of merrie men, who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Golly, how many make-believe scenerios my friends and I played out in the local woods nearby. (I wasn't always Robin, sometimes I was Alan A Dale the minstrel with Robin's band of merrie men.)

Alan led me to Ivanhoe and more medieval tales of daring-do, of under dogs saving the day and winning the hand of the fair maiden from the evil doers.

I refuse to believe that there isn't a little fantasy in everyone's life. Maybe, just maybe, I indulge more than most, but no, I doubt it. I believe in Santa Claus, the "Polar Express", the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairie.

Fantasy is a restorer of hope. It reinforces my belief that we can overcome the evil warmongers, the money-grubbers and charletons who rule the earth, or think they do.


As a certified practioner of hypnosis for 25 year, give or take, I verbally described fantasy with imagery for my clients, to enable them to find relaxation and surcease from stress, to curtail habits that had become addictive and bothersome. In other words, I helped them use their imagination to make their real world a better place to live. The books and movies I've enjoyed have helped me create fantastic worlds where anything is possible.

Without some fantasies this world of ours would be too mundane or fearful to tolerate for long. We must escape, from time to time, in order to replenish our faith, our hope, our belief in a better future for us, our children, on Ad infinitum.

Why even now as a 29 year old man in a 61 year old body I have fantasies: I have fantasies of becoming a successful writer, and poet. I imagine myself living to be 100 years old with the physical and mental capabilities of a 40 year old. I think that the magic answer will appear to me in a dream as how to make Huxley's "Brave New World" a reality. I still have sexual fantasies, and ....well never mind about that.

Perhaps you don't believe in phantasy, but for me it would be a dull life indeed without it!

For more Phantasmagoric fantasy... fly over__ ,through this fantastical internet blogsphere impossibility, to Sunday Scribblings and escape for a moment or two!




Hi-Yo Silver, Aw-a-a-a-a-y!

Saturday 2o January, 2007

9°F. with 8 mph wind, Bright sunshine.

I walked to the Postoffice to pick-up the mail. Looking out the window, the day looked bright and so, I thought it would be a mild walk. Wrong! The wind coming off the river was frigid and in my face.

Still and all, I do enjoy walking the three blocks to th P.O. In my village of 450 people we don't have mail delivery. You can get rural delivery via a neighboring "city" if you install a roadside mailbox. A few residents do so, but the majority of us rent a mailbox at the post office. It can be inconvenient when working away from the village (which most of us do) and can't get back to the village before 1645.

Besides being the mail repository, our P.O. is much like the general store of old, sans the woodstove and checker board. It's a gathering place for disemination of local gossip, and problem-solving the grander predicaments of the day. Of course one must have a finger on the pulse of the community to ensure that you're there at the appropriate time. If you go at other times you have to rely on the postal clerk to dish the dirt and some times they're too busy filling the boxes to take time to kibbitz with you.

Mon. thru Fri. you should arrive between 1200 & 1215 or 1600 1nd 1630. On Sat. stop in between 1000 and 1100. Sunday? Drop into the coffee shop..... if open.

Today There wasn't any inclination to chat. Everyone was tuned to business...get the mail and get going. Saturday is usually a meager mail day for me, but since I was too late to pick it up yesterday, I did have a pasal of mail today, though predominantly junk. However my recent order from Amazon was in and made the trip wholely worthwhile.


A tip of genealogical interest...to me at least. The building which houses our post office was, in an earlier time, a store. In fact it was a grocery or as known then, a general store. The proprietor of which was my father's father. The family lived in the upstairs apartments. This would have been1915-1923. My grandmother died there when my dad was three. Shortly thereafter, my grandfather sold the store to an older brother, who, together with his wife ran it as a crockery and fine china store.

The man behind the counter is my grandfather. The lad in the rear is not identified. Circa 1915-1923

Thursday 18 January, 2007
Todays prompt for Poetry Thursday "are you using a line on me?" is predicated on the notion of finding inspiration in one line from another participant’s poem and use that line as a jumping-off place for your own poem.





















WORDS

Words, jumbled, ricochet
Off the walls of my
Skull.
Searching to escape
In iambic pentameter,
They rearrange themselves,
Testing new meanings.
Like orbs, floating, colliding,
tumbling, falling.
Suspended over me,
descending, rising
like bodies in perpetual motion___
Images embedded in syntax
Until they say what I meant__
Exactly what I meant.

Thank you bb for coaching this accumulation of words out of my mind with this line "other bodies tumble and fall over us," from your poem "Burning"

Wednesday, 17th January, 2007

Strength training day.

It's -9°F. this AM...Brrrrrrr.

J. (my son) and K. are in Texas on vacation. While visiting his bro in Corpus he called to say hey, and tell us that the temp yesterday in south Texas was 30°F..

The weather service says cold and sunny. Sunny is good. I'm on call so I may only get to see the sun through the window. It still lifts the spirits to see the sun, and I won't have to brave the cold.

Tuesday, 16th January, 2007

It's a run day but the temp out side this morning is 13°F. or -11°C.
So, wimp that I am, I'll use the nordic track this morning. Hey it beats doing nothing.

Yahoo! We got snow yesterday. Not alot but probably 3".You'd 'a thought it was snowing dollar bills, the way everybody was going to the windows and making joy filled comments. Really, when I think about it, snow is winter's salvation. Without snow, winter sucks.



1640: addendum. The snow accumulation had grown to 6-8 inches and was in dire need of shoveling. My driveway is 30ft. square. Instead of nordic tracking, I did nordic shoveling for an hour. I had to forego my shower 'til I got to work. Ate a peanut butter sandwich in the car while driving to the hospital (to work). I had supervision so I thought I'd get out early, but Steve's daughter hit a boulder with her car and demolished it (the car, not the boulder). Maybe we should start driving boulders. lol. She wasn't injured. Steve left to help her. Since he's on call today I picked up his room until he got back.

On the up side it's a bright, sunny, snow covered, frigid day. I did get a few descent photos. At least they look good to me.

Hospital/church parking lot viewed from PACU (post anesthesia care unit) at the beginning of yesterdays snow storm. 1.15.07

My garage/gym reflected in a frosted window pane of the stone school house behind my home.
today, 1.16.2007

A frost etched window pane. Stone school house.

The stone schoolhouse.

A photo taken across from the schoolhouse and situated behind and uphill from the garage.
Picture is titled: January 2007, for a contest that Paris Parfait clued me into. It is on The Year of Living Gorgeously Blog

Week 33 - Reflections

Monday, 15 January, 2007

Martin Luther King Day

They say the snows a comin'

Week 33 - Reflections

"Haiku show us the world in a water drop, providing a tiny lens through which to glimpse the miracle and mystery of life. Combining close observation with a moment of reflection..." -EDSITEment

Prompt: Reflections

####################

Sunday, 14th January, 2007

Hey! Ive got an idea. I'm gonna do a long run today.

I've got a better idea, Do a Sunday Scribbling first, then go for a run.

Good idea.

Have you got any ideas for a SS topic or prompt.

Meg and Laini will have an idea.

I've got an idea that this weeks prompt is their 42nd.

What the heck is an idea anyway?


For me, an idea is a nebulous concept originating in the "mind"; that group of neurons in our grey matter that form a community of committees to bombard us with mental images. When the "light goes on" we say eureka, I have an idea.


Good friends
Good health
Good food
Good wine
That's my idea of a good time.


La boulangerie
Café exprès, croisant frais
Ma bonne ideé de temps

Timorous touching
Lips caressing, hand holding
Ideas in the glance

For some fresh ideas go here