Not the Price of Oil ~ What Price Oil!

“ We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us. One does not rape a sister.” ~ Mary Daly

I am going to spare you the rant I can feel brewing inside my head...at least for now. At the moment it is a conglomeration of facts but the birthing process for that rant is near term. The “abstract” is this: I am not agitated about what I am paying for gas at the pump. I am feeling a fury about the plunder of the earth for that gas at the pump...for the oil that fosters industry and greed...for the lack of effective government response. I feel a fury toward BP (no matter how many people they employ) and the insipid Obama administration response. My heart both aches and rages for the damage to the environment and the lives of the people who depend on the environment for a living.

The late Prof. Daly wrote “one does not rape a sister” but, in fact, just that has happened ~ continues to happen and we will be reeling from the consequences for generations. The oil leak in the Gulf produces numbers that are too large for most of us to comprehend. It hands us another “genocide” dilemma....numbers too large to understand when held up to what so many think of as every day life. Sometimes that number is six million Jews, sometimes one million Armenians or Rwandans and sometimes thousands of species that may not recover or disappear altogether from the land that encircles the Gulf.

To those who want to kiss this disaster boo-boo and make it go away...keep puckering up, this is going to take everything you've got and more.  

Pondering the Price of Oil

“There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.” 

~Robert Orben

I love to drive. My Father taught me how to drive when I was 12 years old. I have a clear memory of his smiling face as I s-l-o-w-l-y drove down a country road. I can remember the searing heat of July in Price, Utah. There were no jarring stops or wild accelerations. Just his soothing voice telling me not to worry about 'gauges just feel the car and watch the road'. It was such a long time ago ~ 50 years has elbowed its way between me and that sultry day. Time has claimed the moment and death my Dad. So much has changed.  We had no idea that we were contributing to pollution.

“Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.” 

~William Ruckelshaus,

Business Week, 18 June 1990

Driving these days is a guilty pleasure. As I watch the Gulf turned into a cesspool of muddy oil I too find myself pondering thoughts of carbon reduction. A new car is out of the question. The current car is still owned by the Bank. I live quite a distance from my office but ironically I am rarely there as I am always on the road, traveling to one or the other of the Care Centers. The one nearest to my home is 20 miles to the south, with one another 18 or so miles south of that and the furtherest is 56 miles to the north. Obviously this is not a carbon reducing trek. My buildings are not very electronically up-to-date. I can't review medical records from the comfort of my little home office. We can't Skype meetings. Anyway, all those activities require electricity so it is likely a carbon wash so to speak.

“It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill.  It was yours.” 

~Greenpeace advertisement,

25 February 1990

I plan to move off this Island. Closer to the main office and the Care Centers to the south. The thought of packing is repulsive but not as repulsive as thoughts of sea creatures drowning in oil. While on my cruise (yet another carbon expensive trek) I listened to a naturalist discuss the oil spill in Alaska. He said he was still haunted by by the sound of hundreds of confused and frightened sea otters when they began to freeze to death as the crude robbed them of their ability to withstand the icy water temperatures. He and his fellow volunteers listened to them scream as they died. They did not know that otters sounded like humans when they screamed. Who knows what screams, loudly or quietly, are echoing in the Gulf? Soon more and more humans will join in the screaming as animals, plants and shore line are increasingly destroyed.  This man-made leak stains all that we use to know. I, like so many others, send donations to various groups struggling to save what has been damaged. I work at reorganizing my life. I make lists of all that is petroleum based and weigh alternatives. Time for me to move back into an urban area ~ and I can't begin to express to you how sad that makes me feel...living the escaptist fantasy has been glorious!  How I love the peace, space and safety of this Island.  But, to be honest, I love not contributing to pollution even more.  Living in a city seems an odd way to accomplish this but ... ~  it makes dependence on a car less of an issue.

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. 

~Native American Proverb

It's time to change. We've already left a monsterous finacial debt for our grandchildren and their children.  Shall we also leave them a “scorched earth”?  Time to drive "s-l-o-w-l-y down the road" in a new and healthier way.  

A Peaceful, Rainy Sunday

It is quiet this morning.  I noticed yesterday that two of my neighbors managed to sell their houses and this week the new people moved into each empty home.  Perhaps those two tiny real estate sales are part of the larger signs that the economy is making a come back.  From this small office the worries and unhappiness in the world seem far away.  Once in a while ~ it is relaxing to forget, albeit for a moment.

It is raining here.  It should not be as this is usually the beginning of our short lived dry spell.  But then neither is this Ketchikan, Alaska.  That town and its stalwart inhabitants endure 200" inches of rain a year.  So 32 to 40 inches of 'here'...literally a drop in the bucket!

A river runs through it....

As with so much of the Northwest...coffee shops are an essential.  

Tourist make the rounds in horse drawn trolleys...

There are boats and there are ships!

Island across the bay from Ketchikan.  Notice the lush  green dense forest...brought to you by 200 inches of rain!

Time to fetch the Sunday paper, sort the laundry and think about rainy days, a glorious vacation and well, not much else!  Have a good one!

Brenda's Photo Challenge: old and worn

A time worn country mail box...

My old coon hound (13+ years)

Rickety country bridge

Glacier in Traci Arms

The ice is so compressed and dense that it reflects only one color ~ blue.


 Icebergs seen from a safe distance!

More about "My Spring Vacation"

It is once again the beginning of a day and my thoughts are of the end of it.  We are in survey and that is  a quiet but grueling experience.  I begin this day remembering the end of the day in the Alaskan Inland Passage.  The sun was just setting when most of us in the lower 48 are either turning on the nightly news or are already fast asleep.  This photo was taken while on deck at 10:39 P.M.

Visiting Land North of Home

The seven days somehow rushed by in slow motion. The first day on board was spent trying not to be lost: winding around stair cases; navigating forward, mid ship and aft elevators; locating various dining rooms and then somehow making it back to the stateroom. I and dozens of other passengers bundled up and hunkered down on deck 14 in order to watch our ship glide through Puget Sound and transport us to Juneau, Alaska. The trip was relaxing and somehow magical. I was able to sample the immense beauty that is the Alaskan coast, observe whales, sea otters, dozens of bald eagles, dolphins and seals. The towns were quaint and small compared to the land surrounding them. The forests are green and stretch for as far as the eye can see. The air is crisp and pristine. We traveled to glaciers and sailed past enormous ice bergs. The glaciers are receding at the rate of 70 feet a year. The best example of that is demonstrated in Juneau at the site of the Mendenhal glacier because one can take a easy hike to it and face its enormous size and the turquoise of the dense ice, even touch it and know you have touched time itself. Saw a number of “locals” with hybrid huskie/wolf dogs. I learned more about mushing, native people, and severe winters. I took a tour through a rain forest (Juneau amazingly enough has a temperate climate and receives more rain than snow. Ketchikan which is south of Juneau receives 200 inches of rain a year...makes Puget Sound seem a desert)! The environment was amazing and images still float in my head. As for cruising. I would do that again in a heart beat. How nice to visit so many different locations and never have to change hotel rooms.  I enjoyed talking to crew and fellow passengers alike. Both groups were diverse and many spoke little to no English and some how it was all good. Will be thinking about this for awhile. The only troubled spot of the trip was the return to find that one of two SD cards was corrupt and therefore 400 photos disappeared. Ah well, that seems to be my destiny these days so I will rely on memory to conjure up thoughts of part of the trip. Whatever the magic of the journey, I have returned relaxed and ready to jump back into life.

It is difficult to even know where to begin in describing this journey.  I will sort through memory and photos this week and continue to post for several days....

Brenda's Photo Challenge: flowers

Flowers!  My favorite subject...right along with everything else in nature.  :-)


Am on my way to vacation but wanted to join the "Challenge" before I leave.  I will check in with all of you as soon as I get back! Have a great week!

Sweet FRIDAY

The end of the work week is here.  Not a moment to soon!  It has been one busy week ~ a Murphy's law kind of week.  Still everyone did a good job of moving forward.  The anticipation of actually taking a vacation has helped as well.    My traveling companion made the journey without mishap,  The house is in order.  Trip preparations complete.  Life is good.  

The Pursuit of Perfection?

My friend has a small but wonderful garden.  It has been the object of interest and devotion of she and her retired husband.  The photo above is the beginning of what will become, some time later this summer, a tasty pear.  The tree is stretched out along the side of the house.  Last year, my friend 'severely' cut the tree back.  Actually her husband, a gentle and kind man, said she "hacked it down".  To both their surprise this Spring the tree was covered in blossoms and now those dozens of blossom are  small fruits that will mature to  produce a bounty of  delicious treats  in just a few months time.  Perhaps if one is  to be caught up in the pursuit of perfection is not the garden the place to put one's energy?  Working there is the place where we mere mortals can reach for the Divine and do little harm.


For many decades I have been a member of various quality assurance committees.  Every now and then someone will state that the quality 'bench mark" should be 100% for some care item or other.  I inwardly groan.  100%?  I am so often pleased if the health care system with all its participant  people simply "do no harm".  I do not believe 100% accuracy ( a form of "perfection") is maintainable....just ask Toyota.


This week, on two different days, two different staff nurses each gave insulin  to a patient who had not eaten two meals prior receiving the drug.  Fortunately no harm came to him because his wife was observant and as some of the nurses said "pushy" because she recognized hypoglycemia and demanded to know if her husband had  eaten his meals.  In this case, I applaud "pushy".   I am now working with nurses to help them remember what they should have remembered from nursing school...regular insulin is fast acting with a rapid onset and peaks within one to two hours of administration.  Is it searching for perfection to expect a clinician to  remember basic facts?  I put an insulin information chart in the med administration book along with the signs and symptoms of high and low blood sugar.  There is a mandatory test on the subject of insulin in June.  When the public  will pay for a nursing home nurses to carry a patient assignment of say 6 to 10 people instead of 27 to 30 and every nurse cares passionately about doing his or her job to the best of his or her ability I will adjust the benchmark to something that approaches 'perfect' care...until then I aim for "do no harm".


For the record.  The my usual benchmark is 98% and that is a cliff hanger!

Testing....five more days

"The Socialists believe in two things which are absolutely different and even contradictory: freedom and organization."  ~ Elie Halevy

Why, one might wonder, am I writing about Socialists so early in the morning?   This little musing has nothing to do with political thought.  In fact very little thought of any sort is going in to it.  It was the mention of  contradiction between freedom and organization that caught my mind's eye.  I 've been cleaning and 'organizing' the house.  I was almost ready to buy the myth that I created....the one that spins a little lie that I will always keep the house this tidy and organized.  What a horse's ......      It will be pleasant to come home to a tidy home and my friend from Boston (traveling with me on vacation) will be momentarily be in shock when she sees the hotel like order in the house.  But will I adopt this  as a forever commitment to order and organization...probably not so much.

 Perhaps disorder is the pressure relief valve for the imposed order of my work?  That rationale will work for now.  In any case, the house looks someone with a stay at home wife lives here.  That "look" won't last, but then nothing ever does.

Lucretia Peabody Hale

Here's a link about Ms. Hale.  She was the daughter of Nathan Hale.  She was a writer in a family of 'real smart people'.    http://www.nybooks.com/books/authors/lucretia-p-hale/   And yes she was from BOSTON!  :-)  (for some of us that is a redeeming feature....or not).

Promise is Spring

"It was one of the first of the spring days - one of the days that seemed to be promise and fulfillment in one"

~ Lucretia Peabody Hale (1820 - 1900)

We knew that day today.  The  sweet warmth that 'hints of summer'.  Thoughts of other spring days fluttered in the corner of memory.  Savor this moment.  Drink in the color.  Remember the lilac scent on the breeze. Notice the sunlight filtered by trees dense with leafs. Hold this fragile joy to your heart. The moment will pass too soon. Spring is a sprinter and already she is running down the track... 

The next wave of America's Nurses

Thought some of you might be interested in this residency program for RNs in California.  I would love to see one for geriatric nurses!  p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdFmWSAq70Y&feature=channel

saturday quiet

Have finally figured out how to import photos to Wildwoods!   "One small step..."  :-)  


Have been up since 3:30 A.M. pondering a dilemma at work.  I think I've figured out how to calm a tense situation down but now I'm tired of problem-solving.  This week-end is devoted to organizing the house and getting packed.  My  travel companion arrives on Thursday and it would probably be the civilized thing pick-up the accumulated clutter from the combination library / guest room.  My home office desk is also a bit (tastefully understated) of a disaster and needs some attention before I leave.  Have to figure out what to pack.  Luckily I'm traveling with someone who isn't into fancy and that is a relief.  My birds are going to a friend's house tomorrow.  The dogs to  kennel on Friday.  Then we just have to get to the pier on Saturday....


Once the business of getting ready to stop working for a while is attended to I will spend more time with photos.  Making this transition (to a Mac) is not as formidable as I thought it would be ~ learning the truth once again of "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself".


The sun is coming up.  The sky to the northwest is a shimmering pale pink.  Another day begins.

Wednesday dawn

Progress is being made on the Mac front and I have to admit I am beginning to see why folks are so  loyal. There is a different vocabulary to  remember and those words change some of the basic commands that we use in navigating from task to task on a PC.  Once this begins to click into my brain with something that approaches the familiar this is a fairly seamless system.  Makes the term "user friendly" mean something.  I did retrieve old photos from the net and will be working to organize those in the evening.  iPhoto is straight forward so hopefully by the week-end I will be able to post photos again.  I think this is a good technology switch. 


Safari is a  smooth web browser and I love the way it organizes the sites I frequently visit.  I imported Chrome as a back up but it may not be necessary.  


Pollen is drowning me and every other person I meet here this  week.  Ocean air will be a welcome relief but that is 10 days away. Am sitting in as interim Director of Nursing Service in one building until we find a new person with sufficient leadership skills to operate the Department of Nursing in extremely busy and complex facility.  The building is home to 120 wonderful frail elders and several cats.  Unfortunately I am allergic to cats.  I had a dear old cat for many years and somehow my body adjusted to him.  However, these new critters and pollen are giving my immune system a run for its money (so to speak).   It is difficult to be dignified when your eyes are streaming tears and the nose is running like a faucet.  Ah well, there are worse things.  


I'm writing in a large font because this computer has a smaller screen and I am an old fart and can't read my own writing in "normal" font.  Aging you are a wicked little devil!  It should make the producers of flat screen TVs happy though as I can see (again.."so to speak") that purchase looming on the near horizon,


Alas, once again it is time to enter the stream of activity called 'real life'.  Off to work.  Have a great day all!

Learning Curves

5:30 A.M. and I sit here in a semi-dark room attempting to learn a new computer system.  My son tells me the learning curve for switching from PC to Mac is steep but that I that should feel comfortable in about two weeks.  Steep... feels like the cyber-equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest!  I'm telling myself that this electronic experiment is just the kind of irritation that the brain needs to develop new neural pathways.  In spite of myself, I am having fun (in a slightly frustrated kind of way) ~ learning something akin to a new language. Also having some thought of what I might feel in "two weeks" is intriguing in and of itself.  Part of the learning involves learning how to retrieve photos and attach ....oh yes (note to self), have to take new photos  as the old silent and  dark PC has my more recent photos in lock down.  


Two more weeks until vacation.  The count down beings in earnest.  Am weary to my bone marrow and look forward to spending time 'cruising', talking until the wee hours of the morning with my friend and photographing glaciers.  Cell phones off....ahhhh what a relief that  will be.   


The Northwest is 'doing Spring'.  It is a bit warmer and the trees are completely leafed out.  It is green, fresh and beautiful.  From my little home office window the world seems a serene place ~ far from the trials of rotten economies, political turmoil, global hunger, wars and the tragedy of oil spills.  It would  be so easy to become a hermit.  Not productive, ethical, or even  moral ~ but definitely EASY.  On that note, it is time to suit up and journey into elder care as done in America.  

Bill ~ Its Over!

My PC has crashed for the last time!  Bill, we are so done!  I've crossed over to the other side.  That's right.... Bill, there are no  'sorry' messages that will work.  Your fixes just plain silly and never last.  Oh by the  way this time when you left me in the dark you took 700 of my photos with you.  I'ld like those back but not you!  MAC World here I come.  Viva competition!!!