The unknown cost.

I went over to the outpatient department of Audubon Hospital this morning. I'm having eye surgerey next week.  Today, my appointment was "some time between 7 and 10 a.m." I was told I should arrive at least 30 minutes before 7 if I was trying for that time. No coffee or yogurt or anything. I imagined the scent of a toasting bagel and coffee as I left. It was dark but standing by the truck the sky was aglow with the lights in the city.

Arriving at the hospital about 6:30 a.m., I found the door to the "West Entrance", though no one mentioned that was the door I should use.

The waiting room was empty except for a man and woman sitting. I signed the sheet and sat down. The man was having surgery today, though he had not had lab work, as I was getting, and they said they'd have to do some labs first.

A young woman with long blond hair, called my name and I followed her across the hall and into a room in the back. Her name was Elizabeth and she is an RN. She lives in Oldham County and when she mentioned that I said, "You have two hospitals out that way don't you?" She said that was right and they would have another soon as well as another for children. I said, "Building hospitals and closing schools, huh?" She agreed.
They had a recliner for me to sit in and she asked me about two hundred questions. After that we went to another room in the same sequence of rooms and there was another recliner. She asked me to strip to the waist and put on the gown provided. I did. She returned and told me to sit in the recliner and she put up the foot rest as I leaned back.
Stickers were placed all over my front, alligator clips were attached and an EKG was run. Then blood pressure was checked and four tubes of blood collected. That was it. She told me I was free to go and the results would be sent to my doctor. I redressed and left.
It was still dark and about 7:40 a.m. I got in the truck and drove away back by the post office box. Gas had been $ 2.71 when I came by the Kroger station near home and all other stations were either $2.61 or $2.59. I stopped and bought fifteen gallons of gas.
This whole thing will be repeated next Wednesday when I'm expected at the outpatient surgery center at 6 a.m. I can't wait to hear Reginald's reaction to that early hour. I may take a cab and let him come later to collect me. I have a friend who is a cab driver, so that whole thing can be arranged.
Oh, and I asked the woman who checked me in for the lab work, what the cost of this was going to be. She actually looked shocked that I asked. Her answer was she didn't know. No, she didn't know who knew.
I said, "You know I've been in business a long time and I cannot imagine that I'd get much work if I couldn't tell a client what the cost would be for work they wanted."
"Well even if they know the procedure, there's no way to know if there will be extra charges because of something that happens which we don't anticipate."
I said, "I know but isn't there a basic price list?" No there wasn't. I asked her for the phone number of the business office. It took her about 5 minutes to find that but I have a number I can call and ask. I'll bet there will be a similar song and dance.
Healthcare, the only business that provides a service for which no defined price is known prior to the beginning of the service.

Madness all the time.

The onslaught of March Madness has begun. My reaction is "YAWN". It's worse than the months before an election; constant broadcast and newspaper publication on a single subject!

I may stop listening to news and throwing away the sports section of the newspaper until the first of April.
High schools and universities should be about education. I don't have a dog in this fight because we never had children, but my taxes go to support the schools like everyone else. School should be about teaching and learning. Maybe also a bit of socialization but public schools and my tax dollars should not in any way support the insanity of sports.
You want a paid college sports program? Start a minor league for all the major sports and run it like a business.
This is not a popular opinion but it's mine. I discuss this with my friend Reginald and he agrees college sports teams are professional warm ups for the NBA and NFL but doesn't see any harm in it. He says all the sports programs are self-supporting. I might agree to it if they were kicking back a major part of their revenue to the educational process in the school, but they're not.

The governor of Indiana told the Floyd County Board of Education to cut $6 million from their annual budget. The school board promptly closed four schools over the objections of the parents, i.e. taxpayers. The governor, who wants to be the GOP's next Presidential candidate, stands up and says it's dumb to close schools. They should have cut all the extra curricular programs. I'm sure no one would say that might include basketball or football.
The local Jefferson County Kentucky school board saw what their neighbor Floyd County did and now are trying to "subtly" reverse the desegregation plan because of money. They're wanting to close schools, increasing class size and laying off teachers. This is insanity. It's like the local and only mass transit system in Louisville, TARC. They run the thing like drunken sailors and now are going to cut at least 20 routes, some of which have packed buses on express routes during rush hour! How do you run a mass transit system by cutting popular routes? Why you run it into the ground!
I think instead of the major profession of politicians being lawyers, they should all be accountants and be paid by the number of citizens they serve.

Found Things

It's interesting to me how things I cherished at one point in my life can lie in a drawer for a decade unremembered. I took on the task of cleaning the top drawer to my bedside table last week. I knew it needed to be done. I'd not seen the bottom of that drawer since at least 1994. It's the drawer where I toss everything from a card with new bobby pins to some over the counter drug Roger wanted me to take back in the years he was in my life.

I remember that drug. It's in a small clear capsule and the drug itself is brown. According to his instructions I was to take about 10 of these at one time. After that I had dizzy spells and really bad constipation. I stopped taking them. When he brought me replacement bottles, I tossed them in that drawer. Cleaning the drawer I tossed fifteen bottles in the trash!

I also found twenty-seven eye shadow compacts, some of which were new and some of which were exact duplicates. There were seven mascara wands! My friend Ann tells me I should replace my mascara every three months. I bet some of those were at least six years old. What's funny about this is I wear make-up maybe six times in a month and make-up to me is just mascara and eye shadow.

But that's not what I said I cherished. Cleaning that drawer led me headlong into cleaning out a hammock where I found seven stuffed animals; from a Gund bear I bought from the Hug Factory long ago, to small bears that friends had given me for my birthday because they didn't know what to get me. One was a "friend" bear with a cute saying from Ann and one was a bear wearing vinyl red fetish clothing and a small whip!?
Sometimes I realize I've lived lives that I don't even remember the details of any more!
Eventually I got around to cleaning the small drawer in my chair side. This is the old green broken down Lazy Boy near my computer. I found hundreds of rubber bands from the daily paper, uncountable packets of salt and pepper from Dairy Queen biscuits and gravy, from back when I could hardly pass the place in the morning without stopping. Buried under all that was a book mark. I don't remember who got it for me, for I could tell I'd not have bought it myself. The picture is here. I've begun to use it again and it is, as I type, buried on page 363 of "South of Broad." I hope to finish reading that book this week. Then the book mark will be buried in another book.

Miles and miles of smiles.

I drove around my part of town today. The snow is still piled up in shovel created drifts along the walks and roads. Everything else is bare without cover, a little wet from the rivets of water running out of the snow hills. In bright sunshine without wind we won't have any snow around by Monday.

This freedom is one that feels brand new to me. I've been pretty much confined to the house for these past weeks. I'm not alone in this either. Louisville is a northern southern city but people here are friendly. Today there were more smiles from those waiting for a light and the people I passed walking into church. It's just the realization that spring really is just a few weeks away and the Derby will be run in TEN WEEKS

Wading through the blogasphere peeking in windows.

I have been spending too much time browsing blogs. It's a mindless way to open a window and spy on the public face of strangers' lives. I say the public face of their lives as I have to believe there is quite a bit of self-editing going on. Think a digital year-round Holiday Letter!

The ones that are not somewhat commercial are in several distinct categories, and the categories are somehow maintained together. I hit the first "Jones Family" blog and the next twenty will be other surname family blogs. There are a lot of pictures of birthday cakes in very imaginative if poorly executed designs. The candles blaze and the birthday child leans toward the flames with puckered lips. It's a standard uncoordinated shot everyone has on family blogs.

Women start blogs when they become pregnant. Every day of the waiting is faithfully documented with the obligatory pictures of her swelling self. When the child is born there will be a mass of pictures of the small red wrinkled baby, and then no more posts until the child is two.

The blogs about family always have a large number of pictures of the kids. It seems parents spend quite a bit of time trying to catch the cute kid with the cute pet. There is special documentation for the first child. When the family has three or four children you only see vacation pictures.

There are the single mother blogs, detailing the emotional scars and their struggles to raise their children and work.

There are blogs about an obsession for a particular music genre or artist. Graphic designers and photographers are bloggers. Some of the photography is first rate. Some is awful. Who tells someone their photos are awful? If anyone does they don't post it in the comments.

The blogs that are all about fashion, the latest gadget, who's dating who and "did you see what that girl was wearing?" These are blogged by young American women. These are not to be outdone by the Japanese teen blogs, which look remarkably like the American version.

There are blogs about hobbies; sewing, embroidery, tatting, cooking, rip offs from the Julie & Julia concept.

The men are blogging about religion much more than women. Women who post about religion are all about accepting what their lot in life is and stating it's God's plan. Men post sermons that seem to be developmental stories about how they are able to contain all their venal temptations because of God's love.

My favorite blog is one that is highly personal; honest and revelatory. When reading these I feel I am having a conversation with them, and doing more listening than talking.

Blogging can be a kind of therapy, I think.

Taking your friends with you.

There's an icicle outside my window and today there was sun. Temperatures were below freezing, except it would seem, for at least a moment when the weather heads measured and found it to be exactly 32. The sun and the "heat" melted the icicle and tonight by the light of some solar lights along the walk, the icicle is a sparkle drape in front of my black backed glass.

Today my lover told me a story of a friend of his. He has known this man for over forty years. He told me that his friend has never married and has always had a single cat as a pet. When a cat dies he gets another. They're never a specific breed or color or type of hair. When his cat dies he has the pet cremated and has the ashes at home in a solid cherry urn.

When the friend dies his instructions are that the urns of his cats are to be buried with him. He will also be in a solid cherry box.

Looking at a skylight

Dear February,

I'm writing this to tell you my expectation of your month is right on target!

This is the month friends drive south for warm beach breezes. This year they found temperatures in the 30s and snow.

This is the month a picture of Churchill Downs during Derby week makes me cry.

Fifteen inches of snow in a southern city is deadly. Getting that snow in one and two inch increments only prolongs misery. As you can see by this picture, snow covers the skylights here. That's just rediculous!

What good is a skylight if you cannot see the sky?

Yours truly,
A Winter Weary Woman