It's Been a Long Time

The various fractals never did spark the creative fire that I was looking for, but I still enjoy making them......and who cares if I never understand the math behind them (probably enjoy them more since I don't)! So here are a couple of recent ones I rather like.

Eat This

Crab Lasagna Roll-Ups

2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 c. (16oz) small-curd cottage cheese
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
2 tbs. Italian seasoning
2 tbs. minced fresh parsley
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp drield basil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
8 oz imitation crabmeat, flaked
12 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
2 can 8 oze each, tomato sauce

--In a large bowl, combine the eggs, cheeses and seasonings.
--Add crab, mix well.
--Place about 1/3 c. on each noodle, roll up
--Place seam side down in a 13x9x2 baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray.
--Top with tomato sauce
--Cover and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes until heated through.

Notes: I added about 8 oz diced tomatoes with oregano/basil to the tomato sauce to ensure that all the noodles were covered and didn't get hard while cooking. Also, this is a fairly lowfat meal, but you can probably trim it down by using low fat cottage cheese (not sure I'd go fat free). If you don't like cottage cheese...don't worry, neither do I but I still really like this recipe. And it goes great with a salad.

Watch This

I am about to recommend two documentaries as "required" viewing even though I haven't seen both of either of them!

The first is "When the Levees Broke" about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. While at the beach, hubby and me watched Acts 1 and 2 and I caught most of Acts 3 and 4 when it aired a couple of days later. In watching it, you probably won't find much that you don't already know, but you'll be reminded of a lot. And given the state that New Orleans is still in and the number of people who have been displaced, well, we probably need the reminder. If you don't like Bush, there is nothing in this documentary that will change your mind. If you do like him, well, what is wrong with you? At every level, the government failed. I am not a fan of big government and think that they spend entirely too much time in our business, but since we're paying for big government, we should get something out of it. The response was dismal and ineffective. The excuse of "we had no idea it was this bad" holds no credence when all you had to do is turn on your television to see how bad it is. You'll want to check the exclusions on your insurance policy and look for ways that you'll be screwed. They have managed to dodge paying out probably what amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars by declaring most of the damage as having been caused not by the hurricane, but flooding. One man, who had held his policy for the entire 50 years he'd owned his house, was given $800 for non-flood damage to his home. A new shed was deemed repairable (not that it looked that way in the footage) and was given $400 for it. Yep, I'm sure he'll be breaking ground on a new place any day now. Insurance has evolved from no exclusions to the current state where they can exclude practically anything they want to the point you'll wonder if your policy covers anything at all. After we suffered the glancing effects of a hurricane that pushed inland a couple of years ago, I actually asked about getting flood insurance in addition to our homeowners policy. I was told that they could arrange for whoever it was that had to come and approve it, but they had never had one person in our area approved for it. There are powerful scenes in this documentary, things that will make you sad, plenty to make you mad, but the length does make it a hard watch if you try and do it all at once (probably why HBO wasn't airing it back to back). But despite it's fault, it should be watched.

The second recommendation is one that I missed the first 10 minutes of and the very end (the show "froze" on screen and when it started back up, the credits were rolling...I probably missed about 5, maybe 10 minutes) is "White Light/Black Rain" about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Unless there is something wrong with your, this one will rip your heart out. Don't like subtitles...deal with it...it's worth it. Presented is not only the words of survivors, but their artwork as well. They begin their stories with their every day life, what they and their families were doing in the moments before their lives were changed in the most horrifying way. They were but children at the time, happy and content, who watched their families die, sometimes immediately before their eyes...others more slowly from the after effects. We were arrogant in our ignorance when we dropped the bombs, our understanding of the legacy we would leave were incomplete. Afterwards, many had no choice but to return to the ruins of the city because the government gave them no aid and no one else wanted them. Even now, even today, they do not want people to know that they were there, that they were survivors because they had become the untouchables. You might be surprised that not all of them hated the Americans when they came as they blamed us less than their own goverment. And then, when they thought the worst was over, radiation poisoning came. No one understood or knew how to treat it and in some cases, no one tried. You will feel the pain of the woman who so wishes that she had died in place of her family because she convinced them that they should all stay together as a family in Nagasaki. They all died within months...leaving her alone. It's well done and not overdone....they let the stories speak for themselves. And even though their voices are often soft, they speak as loud as the bombs that changed their lives forever.

Waiting

On Sunday evening, we were back at the hospital with mother...we got there about 6:30. Her initial exam revealed a normal BP but an o2 level of 83 (should be 95 or better) so they hooked her up to a tank and wheeled her back into the ER. There were only 3 other families waiting so I was hopefully that we would not have another marathon session waiting in the ER. Sure, yeah...what was I thinking.

When she was in the ER back in March, both my brother and I got to stay in the room with her, but the hospital has since become real Nazi's about allowing only one visitor at a time so we began the tag team game...coming back and forth as tests were done, results came in, need for information from her little book containing her medicines and allergies.

It didn't take us long to figure out that things were not going to move any faster this night than it did on any previous evening, but it did show why they call it practicing medicine.

I was in the room with my mother waiting on them to come get her for a CT scan when her o2 level kept dipping below 90. I would have her do several deep breaths until it went back up and the alarm would turn off. I should note that on our ER visits, we have heard the alarms on the monitors go off many, many times either because of her BP or her o2 levels and never has anyone come in to check on it. When they came to get her for the scan, the guy went to move her o2 tube from the wall unit to the tank on the bed to discover that it wasn't even turned on. I went back to the waiting room to update my brother while she was taken for tests. He recalled that the doctor (one of many) who had come in to see her had turned it off to see what her real level was....and apparently had not turned it back on.....how comforting.

She was gone nearly an hour and when she returned, my brother was back in the room and called out when he was able to get a signal to tell me that it would be 45 minutes to an hour before they could get someone to read the tests. When they finally did, they decided to admit her. Of course, they couldn't admit her, but had to call her regular doctor (or rather their service since her doctor doesn't do admitting at night) to get her admitted. Since we'd just come back from vacation, my brother went home at this point and I stayed with my mother.

They had said that based on her EKG and blood tests that they felt that she might have had a slight heart attack and felt that she had pneumonia again in her left lung. My mother's reaction to this news: "Can I go home?" Uh....NO...what are you thinking?!?!

This meant more blood tests to confirm and finding her a room. Our hospital is really two hospitals that supposedly merged, but much everything runs separately. We prefer the one with the ER, but the only rooms available were in the mother/baby unit so she was going to have to go to the "other" hospital.

So we waited...I figured out how to silence the alarm and how to reset the bp cuff to take another reading. They had her on fluids and took her off, but then her BP went down (it was NORMAL when we checked in) so they gave her more fluids (too bad you threw out a 1/2 bag before and now we get to pay for 2 bags). And they had to do more tests before they sent her over, but it should all be done with her moved by 2:00AM at the latest. They did her blood testing (along the way this included taking blood through her IV, sticking her other arm and her hand) and took her for another scan. Then the nurse announced that her BP was up enough and that the ambulance was there to move her across the street and she would let them know to give her another couple of minutes to go to the bathroom and then she'd be off. We didn't see that nurse again (and I went looking for her), but no one came for another 40 minutes or so to get her. And I heard them talking about how her IV had been left on full and the bag had been sucked dry. By the time they finished and got her on her way to her room, it was a few minutes after 3:00AM and nearly 4 by the time I got home.

They did finally decide that she didn't have a heart attack, by a partially collapsed lung (attributed to a condition that led to her 2000 65 day stay in the hospital) and the fluid caused her heart to work harder messing with her EKG and heart enzyme test. So she was sprung mid-afternoon Monday with instructions (which she will undoubtedly partially ignorem like she did after her knee surgery this year). So now we wait to see what comes next.


On another, completely unrelated note, I finally figured out how to add a photo to my profile!

More Photos

Here are a few more photos from my trip that are among my favorites:


Despite the number of daylight hours, there wasn't a lot of actual sunshine. This picture shows just a hint of the sun playing in the clouds and on the water.

















I'm not sure why I like this picture so much...but I do.

















My friend Thomas said that this picture is downright artistic! If you knew him, you would know what a compliment it is!















I was entranced with all the little islands that dotted the coastline...but this one was most impressive with the little house sitting on it. There are small communities on some shores where the people are completely off the grid...I could never do it, but I admire them for it.
















The clouds almost appear to be catching on fire.


















It's not the clearest of pictures, but I just love the idea of this photo....
















Not everyone likes this antiqued look as much as I do, but I find it romantic.....and so fitting. It calls back the "good ol' days" when we were fearless explorers.