Well I've been very busy doing my chores and crunching the punch list on this old house. Today was the best day in months. Nothing special just plain old good. I've accomplished more in the last week than in the previous 8 weeks. Ibuprofen and TUMS in the final analysis are all you really need.
I have 2 beautiful newly painted doors in the little house. MaryLisa will love the guest quarters!
I have new/old hardware on the bureau in Kevin's room. I have a fixed front door -no more sticking.
These little things make me smile as I walk around the house. The instant gratification of a task COMPLETED. Simply wonderful. I have more to say but i need to go to bed.
Keep this in mind: Moody's downgraded Ireland's, Greece's and Spain's bonds to::: drum roll:::
junk bonds.
Can you say dominos?
About Me
- Johansdottir
- Native Bostonian Celtic- Nordic female, recovering Catholic, mother, daughter, sister, master gardener, ex-wife, stepmother, aunt, cousin, friend, girlfriend, nurse, seasoned, suspicious, suspect, innocent fugitive with Schnauzers. Trying to live under the radar with big opinions is never easy. Living in another country would help. But where could an American woman go to live as well as we do at home?
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Johansdottirs debt explanation
where to begin....
well you're right about the debt. It would only be possible to pay it back in a few lifetimes if the country continued to prosper but we didn't expect to live any better than an average Palestinian, or tribe in Afghanistan. But with verbosity aside....
fist a deficit is a lack of quantity to complete an action...one of many definitions
a debt is something owed...an obligation to pay
If the government had a debt of one hundred dollars and took in a hundred dollars a year you would expect them at some point to start paying off their debt. You would be wrong......As near as I can tell the U. S. has been running deficits from the 1920's. These deficits add to the debt every year. Now deficits by themselves are not bad fiscal policy in and of themselves if in running deficits you paid down the "debt".
This is possible if you pay more to the debt than the size of the deficit you run.
so you owe $100....you take in $100....you pay $20 of the hundred to the debt.....oops you find you spent $110 this year. Well yes you ran a deficit but you paid down some debt....you only owe $90 dollars.
do this for ten years and you will owe nothing, so the ten years of deficit didn't hurt you at all. It just took twice as long to pay off the debt....not a good policy.
Well back to our government...It does not pay it's debts, it borrows money to pay its bills as it goes. When the borrowed money is due to be paid, it just borrows more to pay them off... these loans are known as treasury bills. It does this not because it is run by cretins... well maybe it is... but because it has not balanced a budget for the last 80 years. The US owes so much debt now that if it paid fifty percent of it's tax intake a year of $4 trillion dollars...that's high but we'll go with it....It would take 7.5 years to pay off it's debt.
This is bullshit.....the future obligations, SS medicare and caid are presently around $50 trillion....oh yeah we hear everyday that SS is solvent till when 2020.....what then, there is no more obligations or it just can't fund itself. Well you know that scenario about paying fifty percent of the budget ..tax intake to pay off the debt.....well 60% of our yearly spending is for those three programs...so either you cut future payments and reduce the intake because you're not going to pay in the future...fat chance...or you just keep borrowing till the country collapses....look for a collapse, it is not possible to pay our debts and future obligations and have the present government and society that we now have.....so where does that leave those who lived a responsible life....Those that saved for retirement, paid their bills....did not borrow themselves into the tank.....we'll surprise!! all you responsible people you're in the same boat as the unwashed, unlearned, uninformed....you're screwed....your SS is gone your retirement investments are worth zero, your dollar bills are worthless...remember Germany in 1946...$1 million marks for a loaf of bread. Get ready....soon, no,but sooner than you think.
Why do you think 435 reps and 100 sen, the pres. and all the experts from the ivy league and other institutions can't solve our problems .....well even a fifth grader can figure that out......they can't, it's not possible and those in charge know it.....BUT there is a solution......don't raise the debt ceiling ,...go bankrupt and just start over....sound unlikely, think Europe.... Greece there but for Germany, you think the Germans are altruistic.... no, they know that if Greece goes so will Portugal, Ireland , Italy, maybe a few more.....eventually they will go.....percentage wise...the European budgets....are worse than ours even with the inflow from the French and the Germans.... I believe the US sees this and figures this is their saving grace....If Europe goes we will certainly go....with no one but themselves to sell to the Chinese will tank....especially if Euro and the US don't pay what's owed and doesn't buy from them. Think Oct 1929 till Dec.1941. The Us spent more than it took in from 1929 until the present day....
Remember the NRA the national recovery act, the Marshall Plan ,the Veterans programs probably not if you weren't already in school by the sixties...History is a forgotten subject, so is geography, government, civics, math...what do they teach today??? That's for another rant as you would say...
All the give away Government programs solved the short term problems but ruined us in the long term...
One last question....how can you possible pay the US debts with our present tax intake and what is owed....you can't, and you can't tax your way to solvency, you have to stop spending....get ready for some pain.......
As you can see and have done yourself in your rants it's easy to get off on a tangent... this isn't the clearest rant but you can work out the bumps and get what I think is going to happen.
your sometimes...
circumlocutory..periphrastic.. pleonastic..prescient..verbose. tautology affected brother J
Monday, July 11, 2011
Debt Ceiling, Ted Kennedy & Vomit
John says we should all go down to the local bank and take out our money in CASH because if Obama and the congress don't pass this bill-- & it's looking bad here Monday morning as Barack plans a speech at 1100 to rip the debt opposition a new one-- the banks won't have enough cash to cover all the depositors. Of course if you take all your cash out of the bank, the obvious question arises and that is : where to put it? a hole in the cellar floor? the attic? the mattress? All not fireproof or hood -creep-nut proof. Imagine if all of your savings were 'not available'? I think this happened in 1929. The banks closed remember?This fiscal mess/debt we are in is NOT recoverable in 100 years. An eight year old knows he can't spend more than he has and still have any left. In paying a debt you have to spend LESS than before but still spend all you have ( relative to what you owe) in order to decrease debt. Relative to what we owe the debt is not payable in our grandchildrens's lifetimes. Is the problem public schools don't teach home economics anymore? I really don't get what the big puzzle is here.
I'm not an economics geek as John is but I understand a simple explanation when I hear one. I wish I could transcribe John's explanation of this for y'all. Maybe I can..hmmm... If you're earning $100 a week you can not spend $150 a week for too long. When you decide to stop overspending there is more to consider than your debt--the debt servicing is there. And as Bill Clinton used to say--duping half the idiots out there--I decreased the debt by 50%!! Yes he was only spending $125 a week instead of $150! Still overspending. It was still more than we had. It was still a debt. A debt is not the same as a deficit. Congress has not passed a balanced budget in almost 70 years--look that number up as I may be off a few yerrs. A few years.. Ted Kennedy-the politician I love to hate the most- never once passed a balanced budget in his entire career in the Senate--42 years wasn't it? Not one budget did they pass where they spent less than their revenue. The Kennedys' invented the cheat sheet. I want to remind you here that Ted like Casey and OJ got away with murder, manslaughter in the least. Maybe had you lived in Boston at the time and followed the news everyday you would have come to the logical conclusion as we all did. It was eventually made public that the Kennedys' bought off the family of MaryJo Kopechne. BTW? MaryJo did NOT drown. That car was nose down in shallow water. MaryJo was scrunched in the back windshield area breathing air for quite a while before she died of asphyxiation. While Ted went for help. Hah! Do you rememeber what he did in that first 24 hours? Go find this out first hand for yourself. We all need someone to hate besides the devil. Teddy was an alcoholic, adulterous, rape abetting ( William Kennedy Smith) hypocrite (no wind farms on Cape Cod to this day). The Kennedys' have always fascinated me. Not the glamour; the corruption in the face of piety and pretend holiness . They were local, large and in charge. Frequently, obviously, sickenly no better than the local crime syndicate, some of which they ran. The old man started out as a bootlegger for Christ's sake. My mother read and passed on every book ever written about that clan. Not that every word is scripture but there is only one truth and MaryJo remains dead. Kitty Kelley's book burns bright. Enough about the debt, the budget, dead Ted and the big hot mess Obama has got us into. Yeah, that's right I'm blaming Obama. Unless you want to blame Ted or Bill or Ron or the two Georges? When does the buck stop at Barack? Obama who never had a real job. A community organizer. A part time lecturer at university of Chicago. No time clock, no forty hours a week, no payroll, no production of widgets. What did he do folks? Talk . Fuck, I can talk. Talk is cheap. Lucky he had an employable wife.
The fourth week of the poisoning was unlike the last or the first two. It was a three drug week. Some are a one drug week some are a two drug week. You really need a playbook to keep the regimen straight and to get prepared. There seems to be no pattern, no rhythm, no predictability other than I am sick as shit for 3 days. Wednesday is infusion day and it takes about 24 to 30 hours to kick in so I'm sick every fucking weekend. For six months. I think I'm going to have to play crazy ( crazier) and take a week off. I cant be sick every weekend until January.
I have avoided reading other peoples accounts of their poisoning experiences as I don't want to be influenced or imagine a symptom I'm not really having or notice. Yet I obnoxiously think my experience may help someone else. We are all different. We all have our own gene pools, weaknesses and co-morbidities. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. Really I wouldn't. The Zofran which is supposed to relieve nausea gives me a crushing headache and stomach pains. And I vomit anyway. So I'm trading one symptom for two side effects. What is the point? I'ld rather just puke with no headache. I'm trying to keep the medicine to one at a time so I can tell which drug is doing what. I LOVE ibuprofen. My favorite drug. The phenergan relieves nausea but not vomiting and puts me to sleep for 8 hours. Not good when you have to get up to puke. The body knows when it's been poisoned. It does not know the body owner had the poison intravenously. The primitive caveman body (current homo sapiens) can do two things to rid itself of poison: vomit and shit. These are unavoidable and should not be avoided. Not that I advocate no drug treatment I just think if the poison is going to work it needs to run it's course. No one expects the receive chemotherapy and not get sick. And you need to excrete both the bad cells and the drug. So I'm using ibuprofen, tums, ice cream and red rose tea. They are as effective as the 3 drugs the docs want me to take WITH NO side effects. Taking the zofran, phernergan and xanax doesn't really relieve the symptoms--which are unrelievable-- it just puts you in a state where you can't remember that you were sick anyway. No thank you, clearly life is too short for that now. And the decadron? I know too much pharmacology and I admit freely it is influencing my physiology. Decadron is speed, which I have never liked as I speed all on my own naturally thankyou very much! My brain can not deal with steroids. AND it takes our beautifully designed adrenal gland 10 days!! to recover from one 4 mg dose of decadron. And again I puke anyway...
For the record and in case it might help another poisoning victim in therapy: carboplatin is Satan's drug. The worst of my three and makes me the sickest. Taxol on the other hand, especially comparatively speaking, is almost nothing. I couldn't go to work but I can function at home without being supine and miserable. The Avastin I'm not sure about yet. I've only had one dose of that but along with the other two so who knows what they do together? That may have added to the headache. I just don't know. BUT I DO KNOW IF I HAVE THAT HEADACHE AGAIN THE NEXT TIME THEY GIVE ME AVASTIN? THEN I'M ALL DONE WITH THE AVASTIN AND I'LL BE OUT OF MY TRIAL...
I'm not an economics geek as John is but I understand a simple explanation when I hear one. I wish I could transcribe John's explanation of this for y'all. Maybe I can..hmmm... If you're earning $100 a week you can not spend $150 a week for too long. When you decide to stop overspending there is more to consider than your debt--the debt servicing is there. And as Bill Clinton used to say--duping half the idiots out there--I decreased the debt by 50%!! Yes he was only spending $125 a week instead of $150! Still overspending. It was still more than we had. It was still a debt. A debt is not the same as a deficit. Congress has not passed a balanced budget in almost 70 years--look that number up as I may be off a few yerrs. A few years.. Ted Kennedy-the politician I love to hate the most- never once passed a balanced budget in his entire career in the Senate--42 years wasn't it? Not one budget did they pass where they spent less than their revenue. The Kennedys' invented the cheat sheet. I want to remind you here that Ted like Casey and OJ got away with murder, manslaughter in the least. Maybe had you lived in Boston at the time and followed the news everyday you would have come to the logical conclusion as we all did. It was eventually made public that the Kennedys' bought off the family of MaryJo Kopechne. BTW? MaryJo did NOT drown. That car was nose down in shallow water. MaryJo was scrunched in the back windshield area breathing air for quite a while before she died of asphyxiation. While Ted went for help. Hah! Do you rememeber what he did in that first 24 hours? Go find this out first hand for yourself. We all need someone to hate besides the devil. Teddy was an alcoholic, adulterous, rape abetting ( William Kennedy Smith) hypocrite (no wind farms on Cape Cod to this day). The Kennedys' have always fascinated me. Not the glamour; the corruption in the face of piety and pretend holiness . They were local, large and in charge. Frequently, obviously, sickenly no better than the local crime syndicate, some of which they ran. The old man started out as a bootlegger for Christ's sake. My mother read and passed on every book ever written about that clan. Not that every word is scripture but there is only one truth and MaryJo remains dead. Kitty Kelley's book burns bright. Enough about the debt, the budget, dead Ted and the big hot mess Obama has got us into. Yeah, that's right I'm blaming Obama. Unless you want to blame Ted or Bill or Ron or the two Georges? When does the buck stop at Barack? Obama who never had a real job. A community organizer. A part time lecturer at university of Chicago. No time clock, no forty hours a week, no payroll, no production of widgets. What did he do folks? Talk . Fuck, I can talk. Talk is cheap. Lucky he had an employable wife.
The fourth week of the poisoning was unlike the last or the first two. It was a three drug week. Some are a one drug week some are a two drug week. You really need a playbook to keep the regimen straight and to get prepared. There seems to be no pattern, no rhythm, no predictability other than I am sick as shit for 3 days. Wednesday is infusion day and it takes about 24 to 30 hours to kick in so I'm sick every fucking weekend. For six months. I think I'm going to have to play crazy ( crazier) and take a week off. I cant be sick every weekend until January.
I have avoided reading other peoples accounts of their poisoning experiences as I don't want to be influenced or imagine a symptom I'm not really having or notice. Yet I obnoxiously think my experience may help someone else. We are all different. We all have our own gene pools, weaknesses and co-morbidities. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. Really I wouldn't. The Zofran which is supposed to relieve nausea gives me a crushing headache and stomach pains. And I vomit anyway. So I'm trading one symptom for two side effects. What is the point? I'ld rather just puke with no headache. I'm trying to keep the medicine to one at a time so I can tell which drug is doing what. I LOVE ibuprofen. My favorite drug. The phenergan relieves nausea but not vomiting and puts me to sleep for 8 hours. Not good when you have to get up to puke. The body knows when it's been poisoned. It does not know the body owner had the poison intravenously. The primitive caveman body (current homo sapiens) can do two things to rid itself of poison: vomit and shit. These are unavoidable and should not be avoided. Not that I advocate no drug treatment I just think if the poison is going to work it needs to run it's course. No one expects the receive chemotherapy and not get sick. And you need to excrete both the bad cells and the drug. So I'm using ibuprofen, tums, ice cream and red rose tea. They are as effective as the 3 drugs the docs want me to take WITH NO side effects. Taking the zofran, phernergan and xanax doesn't really relieve the symptoms--which are unrelievable-- it just puts you in a state where you can't remember that you were sick anyway. No thank you, clearly life is too short for that now. And the decadron? I know too much pharmacology and I admit freely it is influencing my physiology. Decadron is speed, which I have never liked as I speed all on my own naturally thankyou very much! My brain can not deal with steroids. AND it takes our beautifully designed adrenal gland 10 days!! to recover from one 4 mg dose of decadron. And again I puke anyway...
For the record and in case it might help another poisoning victim in therapy: carboplatin is Satan's drug. The worst of my three and makes me the sickest. Taxol on the other hand, especially comparatively speaking, is almost nothing. I couldn't go to work but I can function at home without being supine and miserable. The Avastin I'm not sure about yet. I've only had one dose of that but along with the other two so who knows what they do together? That may have added to the headache. I just don't know. BUT I DO KNOW IF I HAVE THAT HEADACHE AGAIN THE NEXT TIME THEY GIVE ME AVASTIN? THEN I'M ALL DONE WITH THE AVASTIN AND I'LL BE OUT OF MY TRIAL...
Friday, July 8, 2011
Real Estate for the Dead
Yesterday I crossed off a thing to do on my list of things to do. I hesitate to actually put this in print. Hold that thought.
Frederick law Olmstead is one of the most famous of early 19th century landscape architects. He designed Central Park in New York and The Emarald Necklace in Boston. Of course I am most familiar with his work in Massachusetts. The Fenway, the Public
Garden ( think Swan Boats), the connector to Boston Common, Lars Anderson Park, Arnold Arboretum. All these fabulous green places are linked together through the city to form a beautiful 'necklace' of urban green oasis. And he did this at a time when there wre no greenies around. I love it. Early urban eco-conscious 19th centurian. He also designed Mount Auburn Cemetery over the river in Cambridge. When I volunteered for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in the 1980's I got to take some landscape design tours there. A most beautiful place. Special old specimen trees; like an arboretum. It was the centerpiece of the then-1850's- new trend to build beautiful cemeterys on the outskirts of town in a rural park like setting. Rather than in the center of crowded east coast cities. All very arcane gardener-y stuff I know. I also got to work at the annual flower show and give tours to children. I got to be one of the poster judges. A fun time in my life. Kevin was little then. I digress.
Frederick Law Olmstead was one of the trendy boys in Bean town then. Lexington Kentucky as a town was a great admirer of all things Massachusetts in those days, having named their city after Lexington Mass in honor of those fabulous revolutionary natives. Kentucky didnt become a state until 1792 . I think that's accurate. But they were here before that as "Lexington". There are parts of downtown Lexington KY that look like Boston. Great colonial architecture. Great parks.
So the Kentuckians hired good old Freddy to design them a cemetery here in Lexington. They went to a fatcat named Mr. Boswell and asked him if he would donate a piece of his land on the west end of town called Boswells Woods. Bos agreed. Several of Boswell's friends chipped in and BAM! Lexington has a top notch, award winning state of the art 'rural Cemetery' almost outdoing Mount Auburn.
Several famous Southerners and Kentuckians are buried there. My friend's husband is buried there too--he's the only one I know. But you've heard of Henry Clay.
As the youngest child of two youngest children there was a lot of cemetery visiting with my parents as a little girl. It was never a morbid creepy thing. My grandparents and a few aunts are buried in a beautiful place in Boston and we would go visit three or four times a year for birthdays and Memorial Day and sometimes Christmas for Nana's grave. We would get to stop at Friendly's for ice cream and then the greenhouse to pick out flowers. Dad would dig and Mom would plant and my brother and I would play hide and seek and read old names and spy on funerals and generally just have fun. I thought it was an Irish Catholic thing to do. As a consequence to that family activity I have always visited cemeteries whenever I travel. I have always included cemeteries in my walk routes wherever I have lived. I visited my dad's grave monthly for ten years before I left Massachusetts. My parents look out at Boston Light from a hill overlooking Boston Harbor. I miss going there on Sunday mornings. I would get coffee, water and weed the plot and talk to dad about whatever it was that week. Then I'ld go for a walk on the beach and a swim. It was better than going to Mass. My siblings think this is weird. They never visited. I thought that was weird. It's a beautiful peaceful lovely green place over looking the blue Atlantic. What's a gardener not to love? I've traded the Blue Atlantic for the Bluegrass. I'm getting ahead of my story.
When my in laws died and then my father soon after I found myself in the position of having to help arrange wakes and funerals and burials and gravestones. It was again another learning experience. The death industry takes advantage of grieving people at a vulnerable time. To the end point of ripping them off. My in-laws had million dollar funeral experiences. My dad's was a little less extravagant but my mother was adamant about the casket. A bronze thing that was ridiculously expensive. It was lined with silk and had a special pillow. I believe I said "Jesus Christ Mom it's not like he'll be uncomfortable or will care which pillow. And why does he need shoes? You can't see them. How do you even know this actual box will go into the ground? Its February in New England. The ground is frozen. You wont be here when they bury him." SHE SAID "THIS IS YOUR FATHER AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT" Ok Mum.
Ok then spend all that money Mama but I'm not spending that on your funeral. After a few months had passed she was more open to planning her own arrangements and liked the idea of some control, so we pre-payed for her funeral arrangements thirteen years before she died.
Shortly after my father died, in fact I think it was the same year there was an article on the front page of the Boston Globe about a carpenter up in New Hampshire who had also been through several family funerals all at once and was horrified at the death industry rip off. I still have the article. So the carpenter decided he would make simple pine coffins and ergo: The Frugal Yankee Coffin Company -- Google him. I bought my coffin custom made for my height and weight. A Kosher box to boot. I decided then that I would not be embalmed ( have you ever seen an autopsy or been in a funeral home embalming room?) or cremated or waked. Like the Jews I want to go in the ground before the sun sets on the day I die. "A good Jew is a good Catholic". That was Sister mary Marguerite. Those Jews are so smart. At some near but later date, when everyone can get together have a nice Funeral Mass and a nice sit down dinner at some fancy restaurant for all who want to attend and celebrate my life all for at least 75% less $ than the death industry.
Well I drove up there and picked up my coffin and it fit, well almost fit in the back of my Explorer. So yup, you guessed it; on my way down I-95S I got pulled over by a New Hampshire State Trooper. It really was a funny conversation and I had to show him the receipt and the newspaper article, and he made me open the back of the car but I wouldn't let him open the screwed shut top. I picked it up myself to prove it was empty and after a while of just sorta standing there looking at me he started to laugh and said " Ok get outa here."
I also have a coffin story involving the movers when I left Massachusetts for Kentucky.
I'm amazed at how freaked out some people are about the whole death thing. I mean there is not one of you that wont have your mother die eventually. It shouldn't be a foreign concept, a verbotin subject. That's how it's evolved into a rip off industry. I've been hauling my coffin around for fifteeen years now.
So this last Tuesday, I went over to the beautiful Olmstead designed Lexington Cemetery and after several previous visits finally decided upon where I will gaze eternally into the night sky. I bought a plot in the old historical section and one of my close neighbors is Mr. Boswell!!! I will be the youngest chick in the hood by at least 150 years, even if I live another 30 years which we are hoping for here. And I have saved my children the nasty chore of doing this themselves. No ripoffs, no funeral home visits. No box buying with silk and pillows. They'll just have to arrange the post Mass dinner party. I want a raucous Irish Wake except I'll already be in the ground and no one will be commenting on my makeup.
Although I am fighting the good fight and believe the numbers are good, and suffering through this rigorous three drug weekly infusion for six months!!! chemo trial, without a week off (I whine here) I am quietly executing plan B just in case. I think of it as estate planning. We're all gonna die, some faster than others and it's somehow oddly calming to be crossing things off my bucket list. It's like a second chance at a carefree life. I'm planning vacation trips, I'm giving stuff to my daughters and nieces and some friends. It's wonderful to feel I can shed/ share some family stuff without waiting till I'm 90 like my mother and then have stupid girls fighting over it. Wonderful balm for the OCD brain I have. The nuns were right. Do the work now and then enjoy your stress free leisure time knowing you did the work first. Thank you Sister Mary Beatrice. She's the one who taught me to write in he second grade. RIP.
Lesley and Ros and Pat thank you for encouraging me to write this here. It is clarifying in so many ways. xxx
Frederick law Olmstead is one of the most famous of early 19th century landscape architects. He designed Central Park in New York and The Emarald Necklace in Boston. Of course I am most familiar with his work in Massachusetts. The Fenway, the Public
Garden ( think Swan Boats), the connector to Boston Common, Lars Anderson Park, Arnold Arboretum. All these fabulous green places are linked together through the city to form a beautiful 'necklace' of urban green oasis. And he did this at a time when there wre no greenies around. I love it. Early urban eco-conscious 19th centurian. He also designed Mount Auburn Cemetery over the river in Cambridge. When I volunteered for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in the 1980's I got to take some landscape design tours there. A most beautiful place. Special old specimen trees; like an arboretum. It was the centerpiece of the then-1850's- new trend to build beautiful cemeterys on the outskirts of town in a rural park like setting. Rather than in the center of crowded east coast cities. All very arcane gardener-y stuff I know. I also got to work at the annual flower show and give tours to children. I got to be one of the poster judges. A fun time in my life. Kevin was little then. I digress.
Frederick Law Olmstead was one of the trendy boys in Bean town then. Lexington Kentucky as a town was a great admirer of all things Massachusetts in those days, having named their city after Lexington Mass in honor of those fabulous revolutionary natives. Kentucky didnt become a state until 1792 . I think that's accurate. But they were here before that as "Lexington". There are parts of downtown Lexington KY that look like Boston. Great colonial architecture. Great parks.
So the Kentuckians hired good old Freddy to design them a cemetery here in Lexington. They went to a fatcat named Mr. Boswell and asked him if he would donate a piece of his land on the west end of town called Boswells Woods. Bos agreed. Several of Boswell's friends chipped in and BAM! Lexington has a top notch, award winning state of the art 'rural Cemetery' almost outdoing Mount Auburn.
Several famous Southerners and Kentuckians are buried there. My friend's husband is buried there too--he's the only one I know. But you've heard of Henry Clay.
As the youngest child of two youngest children there was a lot of cemetery visiting with my parents as a little girl. It was never a morbid creepy thing. My grandparents and a few aunts are buried in a beautiful place in Boston and we would go visit three or four times a year for birthdays and Memorial Day and sometimes Christmas for Nana's grave. We would get to stop at Friendly's for ice cream and then the greenhouse to pick out flowers. Dad would dig and Mom would plant and my brother and I would play hide and seek and read old names and spy on funerals and generally just have fun. I thought it was an Irish Catholic thing to do. As a consequence to that family activity I have always visited cemeteries whenever I travel. I have always included cemeteries in my walk routes wherever I have lived. I visited my dad's grave monthly for ten years before I left Massachusetts. My parents look out at Boston Light from a hill overlooking Boston Harbor. I miss going there on Sunday mornings. I would get coffee, water and weed the plot and talk to dad about whatever it was that week. Then I'ld go for a walk on the beach and a swim. It was better than going to Mass. My siblings think this is weird. They never visited. I thought that was weird. It's a beautiful peaceful lovely green place over looking the blue Atlantic. What's a gardener not to love? I've traded the Blue Atlantic for the Bluegrass. I'm getting ahead of my story.
When my in laws died and then my father soon after I found myself in the position of having to help arrange wakes and funerals and burials and gravestones. It was again another learning experience. The death industry takes advantage of grieving people at a vulnerable time. To the end point of ripping them off. My in-laws had million dollar funeral experiences. My dad's was a little less extravagant but my mother was adamant about the casket. A bronze thing that was ridiculously expensive. It was lined with silk and had a special pillow. I believe I said "Jesus Christ Mom it's not like he'll be uncomfortable or will care which pillow. And why does he need shoes? You can't see them. How do you even know this actual box will go into the ground? Its February in New England. The ground is frozen. You wont be here when they bury him." SHE SAID "THIS IS YOUR FATHER AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT" Ok Mum.
Ok then spend all that money Mama but I'm not spending that on your funeral. After a few months had passed she was more open to planning her own arrangements and liked the idea of some control, so we pre-payed for her funeral arrangements thirteen years before she died.
Shortly after my father died, in fact I think it was the same year there was an article on the front page of the Boston Globe about a carpenter up in New Hampshire who had also been through several family funerals all at once and was horrified at the death industry rip off. I still have the article. So the carpenter decided he would make simple pine coffins and ergo: The Frugal Yankee Coffin Company -- Google him. I bought my coffin custom made for my height and weight. A Kosher box to boot. I decided then that I would not be embalmed ( have you ever seen an autopsy or been in a funeral home embalming room?) or cremated or waked. Like the Jews I want to go in the ground before the sun sets on the day I die. "A good Jew is a good Catholic". That was Sister mary Marguerite. Those Jews are so smart. At some near but later date, when everyone can get together have a nice Funeral Mass and a nice sit down dinner at some fancy restaurant for all who want to attend and celebrate my life all for at least 75% less $ than the death industry.
Well I drove up there and picked up my coffin and it fit, well almost fit in the back of my Explorer. So yup, you guessed it; on my way down I-95S I got pulled over by a New Hampshire State Trooper. It really was a funny conversation and I had to show him the receipt and the newspaper article, and he made me open the back of the car but I wouldn't let him open the screwed shut top. I picked it up myself to prove it was empty and after a while of just sorta standing there looking at me he started to laugh and said " Ok get outa here."
I also have a coffin story involving the movers when I left Massachusetts for Kentucky.
I'm amazed at how freaked out some people are about the whole death thing. I mean there is not one of you that wont have your mother die eventually. It shouldn't be a foreign concept, a verbotin subject. That's how it's evolved into a rip off industry. I've been hauling my coffin around for fifteeen years now.
So this last Tuesday, I went over to the beautiful Olmstead designed Lexington Cemetery and after several previous visits finally decided upon where I will gaze eternally into the night sky. I bought a plot in the old historical section and one of my close neighbors is Mr. Boswell!!! I will be the youngest chick in the hood by at least 150 years, even if I live another 30 years which we are hoping for here. And I have saved my children the nasty chore of doing this themselves. No ripoffs, no funeral home visits. No box buying with silk and pillows. They'll just have to arrange the post Mass dinner party. I want a raucous Irish Wake except I'll already be in the ground and no one will be commenting on my makeup.
Although I am fighting the good fight and believe the numbers are good, and suffering through this rigorous three drug weekly infusion for six months!!! chemo trial, without a week off (I whine here) I am quietly executing plan B just in case. I think of it as estate planning. We're all gonna die, some faster than others and it's somehow oddly calming to be crossing things off my bucket list. It's like a second chance at a carefree life. I'm planning vacation trips, I'm giving stuff to my daughters and nieces and some friends. It's wonderful to feel I can shed/ share some family stuff without waiting till I'm 90 like my mother and then have stupid girls fighting over it. Wonderful balm for the OCD brain I have. The nuns were right. Do the work now and then enjoy your stress free leisure time knowing you did the work first. Thank you Sister Mary Beatrice. She's the one who taught me to write in he second grade. RIP.
Lesley and Ros and Pat thank you for encouraging me to write this here. It is clarifying in so many ways. xxx
shockingly terrible awful ovarian news written 5/23
Everyone who gets cancer thinks they're the only one who experiences what they do in the way that they do. I liken it to pregnancy. Some newly pregnant women are like this too-- acting like they are the first woman to ever be pregnant... The other mothers remember how it feels to be newly pregnant and we let these newbies slide. Similar to getting pregnant most people are surprised on some level to hear about their cancer. How could this alien invade me so surrepticiously? How could I not know? When did it move in?
I knew. I was waiting. All of my predecessors including my parents, some gandparents, aunts, uncles, all my siblings had/have cancer of some sort. I watched carefully. I examined my Catholic conscience and my physical state every night at bedtime. I did the yearly tests. I ate well, lived clean and weighed 135 pounds. I drank moderate glasses of red wine. I worked hard and slept well. No allergies no illnesses no medicines. I followed the rules. I was part of the Framingham Nurses Study--the healthy unmedicated control. I was part of the Ovarian Cancer Screening program..hah! I should have eaten every fucking steak and chop available. I should have had more sex, more wine and more onion rings and fried clams. I should have gotten high more often. I knew something was wrong in December in Copenhagen. One of my travel mates Rosalind, who is an MD, remembers me complaining of a pulling sensation in my left lower quadrant. I thought we had walked too many miles that day in the cold snowy Danish countryside. It didn't feel bad at all. Not even really a pain, just a 'pull'. When we came home I made an appointment with my primary for after the new year which was right on time, not overdue. She drew basic yearly bloodwork which was normal, examined my chest, abdomen, ears, back, neck. She looked at my ankles. Listened to my heart and lungs. Did an EKG. "Everything looks good". I made an appointment with a new GYN because my previous one had moved out of state. She came advertised as experienced, a good surgeon and a nice woman. Let me say here when you need a surgeon you DO NOT need a friend. A good bedside manner is a plus but unnecassry in a non primary. You don't need another friend. You need an expert and big brained experts are mostly quirky--in every field you can name. Rocket science, physics, pharmacology, surgery, genetics, economics, astronomy etc. Really brilliant people are not like the rest of us. They are special. Thank Christ. In a surgeon, you need a well trained board certified ( and not just board eligible!--you want him to have passed his boards) technically able, fast handed, confident surgeon. There are good fast surgeons and bad fast surgeons but there are no slow good surgeons--remember that. In the operating theatre it's important to move along.
Some needy scared patients/people need a hand holder--that's what your primary is for. Even tough old me, through this horror, have occasioanlly needed a hand to hold. Choose hands carefully. Some of the best surgeons I have known have terrible bedside manners. Complete assholes in fact, but grow up here!!! Who gives a shit about their bedside manner? If they can operate and recover you the personality is secondary. Surgeons are confident, egomaniacs, they have to be in order to drop that knife onto your skin. If you like your surgeon, even better but that's not necassry if you have a good primary, that's what the primary is for. Like a genral contracter. You need to relate to them. You need to trust all these care givers and not get caught up in 'oh she's so nice'. Yeah but she can't operate her way out of a paper bag and her post-op numbers are not good... I tell people this all the time. If someone in your family needs surgery you pick up the phone call the OR, ask to speak to the charge nurse and ask her this " I'm from out of town my aunt needs an orthopedic surgeon for her hip, can you give me a couple of names as I don't know anyone in your city." I have done this at least 4 times in my role as daughter/nurse and no nurse has ever refused me a few names. Nurses like to help. You get a couple of names from someone who works with the surgeon and has WATCHED them operate.
It's always a mixed blessing when the doctor thinks you know more than you do because you're a nurse, another doctor or NP. In my case I am a CRNA so I operate with these surgeons regularly. It is true that surgeons are born, not made. And it's obvious immediately. I have been practicing anetshesia for 32 years. I can tell now when the surgeon is good or bad pretty quickly and I have to tailor my anesthetic to fit that scenario. We all do this. There are moments when I know more about something than the doctor and he more than me. I get this, as we all specialize now. BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BASE CORE KNOWLEDGE? How did that get pushed aside? ( our last med School Dean thought it was more important to "Be Nice" rather than to be good or how about excellent? His motto was "Be Nice'. I swear to God. They got rid of him. What happened to the differential diagnosis? What happened to examine , listen to the patient, write your H&P, put the puzzle together and go ahead--be brave-- make a diagnosis!! Confirm it with a lab or an xray. They can't do that anymore, They rule out rule out rule out. Wheres the evidence there? They can tell you the 27 things you don't have but they can't pinpoint whats wrong. Costing thousands of unnecassary dollars. The algorythm they use from the insurance companies don't allow them to test for things outside the 'critical path' of the non thinking cheat sheet. It scares me to death and it fact it may kill me to death now. It's certainly bankrupting the system. They waste so much time and money because they aren't trained to think anymore. The quota system precludes a medical school class where everyone can think critically. Half of these kids need intermittent, some constant, tutoring to get them to graduation. Old joke: "What do you call the guy who graduates at the bottom of his medical school class?---- Dr." This is a problem that is now societal, this lack of quality everywhere, and in case you haven't noticed out society is circling the drain here due in no small pat to the failing health care system. One third of the budget goes to Medicare and August 2 is coming all you debt ceiling worrywarts. Another digressive connection. Yet another rant for later. See how the digressions sneak in here.
So you might think that when I-- this seasoned, cynical experienced anesthetist-- go to my doctors, and they know who I am, and what I do, and for how long, you would think if I'm telling them; 'Hey something's wrong here.' they would listen. It's like big brother has got them and they can't think outside the box, they'r afraid of administration. Aforementioned they are no longer the smartest ones who applied to medical school that year. They are a mix of the east coast academic left leaning socialist politically correct affirmative action variety box of chocolates. Did I miss an appropriate adjective? Please feel free to make suggestions. You would think if this obnoxious Yankee bitch was standing there insisting that something was wrong and we need some visualization of my pelvis one of them might listen. But NOOOOO because now we have a generation of doctors under the age of 43 or 44 who can not think oustide the big brother enterprise box. Are you getting this emphasis? They can only rule out rule out rule out. Evidence based medicine they call it. They had to invent this because they did away with the meritocracy of getting into medical school and the students weren't smart enough anymore. It used to be simply the smartest, now If you are a non white Jewish/Muslim single mother Lesbian illegal alien who grew up homeless and majored in womens studies you cover several quotas at once--'let her in'. The intellectual capacity of medical students has declined. But so has that of college students and half of graduating high school seniors can't really read. This should scare you. Sorry to offend all my young doctor friends. Keep in mind even Ceasar said 'What is wrong with todays youth?" Several of you see this every day with your own eyes so spare me the objections. The abolishmnet of the pyramid system for residents has eliminated a way to get rid of the worst intern/resident at the end of each year. Basically they can not fire a bad resident anymore. They just keep moving them along and they finish them and send them out into the world to try to kill people. Working in the operating room for more than 30 years I can tell you I see this every day. No one wants to talk about it, admit it or do anything about it. It happens outside the OR too. You readers all have a horror story from the hospital. Medicine is an example of a place where quotas should play no role. If you can pass the admissions test/criteria, complete the program and pass your boards, that should be the yardstick. The applicant should be a number, not a name with a sex or a race or religion or a zip code. That is not how it's done and that is a different rant I'll get to later.
So, I kept trying to tell my 3 different doctors that something was WRONG! A big red flag was waving and they were all missing it. I had 72 blood tests, all normal. No one drew a CA-125. So March came and went and my pain got worse. I tried to ignore my inner siren and finally I asked my boyfriend to order me a cat scan because no one else would. I think he expected nothing too. But it was not nothing. I was so angry at first I threatened to shoot my gynecologist. Vapid idiot from Indiana. She felt my small round ovaries and my cute little post menopausal uterus and affirmed my pap smear was squeeky clean and her job was done. The rest of the pelvis is foreign to her and she never felt further. No blood work no ultrasound no fucking nothing. She wanted to give me estrogen. There are several lessons to be learned here through this adventure and I can pick out the high lessons better than most. This will be a recurring theme here and please forgive me if that gets overbearing. Trust your gut. You know what you know. If you know something and you have a gut feeling about that GO WITH IT. It's your body. Drive them crazy, exaggerate the symptoms, get them to DO SOMETHING . The insurance companies want them to do as little as possible. You must know this if you've advanced to reading blogs. You must be well read on some level. One big lesson in getting good care is go to where the very best are and stick with them. Forget this local boondock shit. Something as simple as an appendectomy can be botched badly. I've seen that too. Our medical system is failing and you need an experienced advocate the minute you enter the building. If you find good providers and care stay with them. Love them even if they lack a bedside manner fitting your favorite soap opera.
I'm only a month post op here today so I will chronicle my surgical adventure in the next blog which will look out of date order because I have to copy it in here from a hand written journal. Maybe I'll figure that out in the meantime. I need a nap now.
I knew. I was waiting. All of my predecessors including my parents, some gandparents, aunts, uncles, all my siblings had/have cancer of some sort. I watched carefully. I examined my Catholic conscience and my physical state every night at bedtime. I did the yearly tests. I ate well, lived clean and weighed 135 pounds. I drank moderate glasses of red wine. I worked hard and slept well. No allergies no illnesses no medicines. I followed the rules. I was part of the Framingham Nurses Study--the healthy unmedicated control. I was part of the Ovarian Cancer Screening program..hah! I should have eaten every fucking steak and chop available. I should have had more sex, more wine and more onion rings and fried clams. I should have gotten high more often. I knew something was wrong in December in Copenhagen. One of my travel mates Rosalind, who is an MD, remembers me complaining of a pulling sensation in my left lower quadrant. I thought we had walked too many miles that day in the cold snowy Danish countryside. It didn't feel bad at all. Not even really a pain, just a 'pull'. When we came home I made an appointment with my primary for after the new year which was right on time, not overdue. She drew basic yearly bloodwork which was normal, examined my chest, abdomen, ears, back, neck. She looked at my ankles. Listened to my heart and lungs. Did an EKG. "Everything looks good". I made an appointment with a new GYN because my previous one had moved out of state. She came advertised as experienced, a good surgeon and a nice woman. Let me say here when you need a surgeon you DO NOT need a friend. A good bedside manner is a plus but unnecassry in a non primary. You don't need another friend. You need an expert and big brained experts are mostly quirky--in every field you can name. Rocket science, physics, pharmacology, surgery, genetics, economics, astronomy etc. Really brilliant people are not like the rest of us. They are special. Thank Christ. In a surgeon, you need a well trained board certified ( and not just board eligible!--you want him to have passed his boards) technically able, fast handed, confident surgeon. There are good fast surgeons and bad fast surgeons but there are no slow good surgeons--remember that. In the operating theatre it's important to move along.
Some needy scared patients/people need a hand holder--that's what your primary is for. Even tough old me, through this horror, have occasioanlly needed a hand to hold. Choose hands carefully. Some of the best surgeons I have known have terrible bedside manners. Complete assholes in fact, but grow up here!!! Who gives a shit about their bedside manner? If they can operate and recover you the personality is secondary. Surgeons are confident, egomaniacs, they have to be in order to drop that knife onto your skin. If you like your surgeon, even better but that's not necassry if you have a good primary, that's what the primary is for. Like a genral contracter. You need to relate to them. You need to trust all these care givers and not get caught up in 'oh she's so nice'. Yeah but she can't operate her way out of a paper bag and her post-op numbers are not good... I tell people this all the time. If someone in your family needs surgery you pick up the phone call the OR, ask to speak to the charge nurse and ask her this " I'm from out of town my aunt needs an orthopedic surgeon for her hip, can you give me a couple of names as I don't know anyone in your city." I have done this at least 4 times in my role as daughter/nurse and no nurse has ever refused me a few names. Nurses like to help. You get a couple of names from someone who works with the surgeon and has WATCHED them operate.
It's always a mixed blessing when the doctor thinks you know more than you do because you're a nurse, another doctor or NP. In my case I am a CRNA so I operate with these surgeons regularly. It is true that surgeons are born, not made. And it's obvious immediately. I have been practicing anetshesia for 32 years. I can tell now when the surgeon is good or bad pretty quickly and I have to tailor my anesthetic to fit that scenario. We all do this. There are moments when I know more about something than the doctor and he more than me. I get this, as we all specialize now. BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BASE CORE KNOWLEDGE? How did that get pushed aside? ( our last med School Dean thought it was more important to "Be Nice" rather than to be good or how about excellent? His motto was "Be Nice'. I swear to God. They got rid of him. What happened to the differential diagnosis? What happened to examine , listen to the patient, write your H&P, put the puzzle together and go ahead--be brave-- make a diagnosis!! Confirm it with a lab or an xray. They can't do that anymore, They rule out rule out rule out. Wheres the evidence there? They can tell you the 27 things you don't have but they can't pinpoint whats wrong. Costing thousands of unnecassary dollars. The algorythm they use from the insurance companies don't allow them to test for things outside the 'critical path' of the non thinking cheat sheet. It scares me to death and it fact it may kill me to death now. It's certainly bankrupting the system. They waste so much time and money because they aren't trained to think anymore. The quota system precludes a medical school class where everyone can think critically. Half of these kids need intermittent, some constant, tutoring to get them to graduation. Old joke: "What do you call the guy who graduates at the bottom of his medical school class?---- Dr." This is a problem that is now societal, this lack of quality everywhere, and in case you haven't noticed out society is circling the drain here due in no small pat to the failing health care system. One third of the budget goes to Medicare and August 2 is coming all you debt ceiling worrywarts. Another digressive connection. Yet another rant for later. See how the digressions sneak in here.
So you might think that when I-- this seasoned, cynical experienced anesthetist-- go to my doctors, and they know who I am, and what I do, and for how long, you would think if I'm telling them; 'Hey something's wrong here.' they would listen. It's like big brother has got them and they can't think outside the box, they'r afraid of administration. Aforementioned they are no longer the smartest ones who applied to medical school that year. They are a mix of the east coast academic left leaning socialist politically correct affirmative action variety box of chocolates. Did I miss an appropriate adjective? Please feel free to make suggestions. You would think if this obnoxious Yankee bitch was standing there insisting that something was wrong and we need some visualization of my pelvis one of them might listen. But NOOOOO because now we have a generation of doctors under the age of 43 or 44 who can not think oustide the big brother enterprise box. Are you getting this emphasis? They can only rule out rule out rule out. Evidence based medicine they call it. They had to invent this because they did away with the meritocracy of getting into medical school and the students weren't smart enough anymore. It used to be simply the smartest, now If you are a non white Jewish/Muslim single mother Lesbian illegal alien who grew up homeless and majored in womens studies you cover several quotas at once--'let her in'. The intellectual capacity of medical students has declined. But so has that of college students and half of graduating high school seniors can't really read. This should scare you. Sorry to offend all my young doctor friends. Keep in mind even Ceasar said 'What is wrong with todays youth?" Several of you see this every day with your own eyes so spare me the objections. The abolishmnet of the pyramid system for residents has eliminated a way to get rid of the worst intern/resident at the end of each year. Basically they can not fire a bad resident anymore. They just keep moving them along and they finish them and send them out into the world to try to kill people. Working in the operating room for more than 30 years I can tell you I see this every day. No one wants to talk about it, admit it or do anything about it. It happens outside the OR too. You readers all have a horror story from the hospital. Medicine is an example of a place where quotas should play no role. If you can pass the admissions test/criteria, complete the program and pass your boards, that should be the yardstick. The applicant should be a number, not a name with a sex or a race or religion or a zip code. That is not how it's done and that is a different rant I'll get to later.
So, I kept trying to tell my 3 different doctors that something was WRONG! A big red flag was waving and they were all missing it. I had 72 blood tests, all normal. No one drew a CA-125. So March came and went and my pain got worse. I tried to ignore my inner siren and finally I asked my boyfriend to order me a cat scan because no one else would. I think he expected nothing too. But it was not nothing. I was so angry at first I threatened to shoot my gynecologist. Vapid idiot from Indiana. She felt my small round ovaries and my cute little post menopausal uterus and affirmed my pap smear was squeeky clean and her job was done. The rest of the pelvis is foreign to her and she never felt further. No blood work no ultrasound no fucking nothing. She wanted to give me estrogen. There are several lessons to be learned here through this adventure and I can pick out the high lessons better than most. This will be a recurring theme here and please forgive me if that gets overbearing. Trust your gut. You know what you know. If you know something and you have a gut feeling about that GO WITH IT. It's your body. Drive them crazy, exaggerate the symptoms, get them to DO SOMETHING . The insurance companies want them to do as little as possible. You must know this if you've advanced to reading blogs. You must be well read on some level. One big lesson in getting good care is go to where the very best are and stick with them. Forget this local boondock shit. Something as simple as an appendectomy can be botched badly. I've seen that too. Our medical system is failing and you need an experienced advocate the minute you enter the building. If you find good providers and care stay with them. Love them even if they lack a bedside manner fitting your favorite soap opera.
I'm only a month post op here today so I will chronicle my surgical adventure in the next blog which will look out of date order because I have to copy it in here from a hand written journal. Maybe I'll figure that out in the meantime. I need a nap now.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
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