Full Circle
Hello World,
Well, suddenly here we find ourselves at the Ides of June and then some. People like me who are planning to be camping out in another few weeks were starting to despair of the weather, but finally the fates took pity on us, and the last couple of days have been reassuringly warm, if not downright hot, as we might expect with summer vacations right around the corner. Frankly, I'm relieved and not only on my behalf, because I know there were people out there, and don't bother to deny it, who were blaming the unseasonably cool weather on Bill for putting in the window air conditioners. But I admit my complicity in the situation, as I had already taken the flannel sheets and heating blanket off the bed, and believe me, I had plenty of opportunity to regret that, when I went to bed with chattering teeth and frozen toes. So I'm just as glad to see those 80 degree temperatures at long last, and I don't mind saying, not a moment too soon.
Wednesday was Flag Day, of course, and it was a beautiful day around here to run up the colors for all to see. I didn't even have to hurry up and drag them back in later ahead of any bad weather, because it stayed nice all day, and I remembered to put them out and take them back in, so everything worked very smoothly for a change. This is not something we can count on, so we want to remember to be grateful for small favors.
While we're being grateful for small favors, I suppose I should mention that the 2006 Metro New York Synod Assembly has apparently come and gone, and that sound you don't hear is the sound of explosive controversy, internecine violence or outright anarchy in its wake. Usually I'm at these events, so I know what's happening, and I don't mind saying, that the way things had been going, I had reason to fear the worst. I have to admit that I consider it a good sign when our Assembly is so unsensational that it doesn't rate a special section on the front page of the newspaper with screaming headlines and pictures of grouchy Lutherans throwing things at each other. Then our pastor was back at church on Sunday after attending the Assembly and appeared to be none the worse for wear, without a black eye or any obvious bruises, so I have reason to be cautiously optimistic that this was not the end of the world as we know it, in spite of the sense of impending doom that we all had beforehand.
While we're on the topic of impending doom, I noticed this arresting paragraph in the FitSmart column by Jorge Cruise in the latest USA Weekend magazine:
============================
Despite the sobering fact that men die
nearly six years younger than women,
on average, and have higher death rates
from all but one of the 15 leading causes
of death, many men make health and
fitness a low priority.
============================
Now, I realize I might be reading this wrong, but I have to say that I'm confused by that part about the higher death rates. Is it my imagination, or is the death rate 100% for everybody, regardless of cause or gender? How can men have a higher death rate in various causes of death than women? Do they die more times than women, or perhaps they die from more different causes at the same time? It seems to me that 100% of all men and all women will die one time each, and if you break it down by cause, it will still all have to balance out to be 100%, so that if men are higher in one category, then women will have to be higher in another. That's just the way it is with statistics, I'm afraid, and there's no getting around that, unless there's some hidden stash of women somewhere who are living forever that the government hasn't told us about yet. Of course, that would be cheating, and we can't have that in statistics, or it would be nothing but outright anarchy.
That reminds me that I took the opportunity last week to complete the mandatory courses that we have to take every year at the hospital, and which are now handily available online that we can take right at our own desks, rather than schlepping off to the auditorium or cafeteria to attend classes in person. I like to be one of the first people to do these right in the beginning of January, and get them out of the way for the year, but a variety of circumstances conspired against me this year, and I have only just gotten around to them now, when the year is already half over. These courses have been available online for 3 or 4 years now, and every year, they change them just enough to be longer, more complicated or less applicable to our own job categories. This time around, I was surprised to see that no new courses had been added since last year, and all of the exams had been pared down from 15-20 questions to 3 or 4 each. Then I realized that the problem with that is, in order to pass with 80% or better on a 3 or 4 question test, you have to get all of the answers right, because the value of the question is more than 20% each. That actually makes it harder than a 20 question test, where you can get one or two answers wrong and still pass with an 80% rate or better. They also change the questions from one year to the next, so that even though I have the previous year's tests, it doesn't always help. An even bigger problem is that they occasionally change the ANSWERS to the same questions from the previous year, either because the original answer was wrong to start with, or because guidelines and regulations might have changed in the meantime. So even when you have the same test and the same questions and you're basically cheating on the mandatory courses, it often doesn't help you if they change the answers on you in mid-stream, which is why I flunked the HIPAA Compliance course, even though everyone knows that I am nothing if not jiggy with HIPAA and about as compliant as any one person could be. Thanks not.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not in the least bit fashion conscious, and wouldn't know Tommy Hilfiger to trip over him, or tell a Gucci bag from a Prada bag at gunpoint. But one thing we all know about fashion is that the couture shows all happen out of sequence with the seasons, so when we're roasting in the summer, the designers are showing their fall and winter collections, while in the dead of winter, the runways are alive with the skimpiest outfits in the sheerest possible fabrics. Bill has always maintained that at some point, this "couture creep" would keep edging backwards and eventually come full circle, to where the summer shows were showing summer clothes and the winter shows had winter clothes, in spite of themselves. For those who scoff, I offer the "Summer / Transitions 2006" Lane Bryant catalog, that I received the first week in June, which is five full weeks before I go on vacation, and which features not only 10 pages of winter coats, but also 2 full pages where it says, "Swim preview ... see the new 2007 styles right here." So I could actually buy a 2007 swimsuit right this instant, get it in time to take on my vacation in July, and wear it a whole year early. Well, that is to say that hypothetically I could do that, but I'm sure the fashion police would show up and make sure I didn't do that, because after all, we have to maintain some standards around here, otherwise once again, it would be nothing but outright anarchy.
Also in the way of fashion, and falling into the category of "How Times Have Changed," I happened to be watching an episode of the old "Andy Griffith Show" on TV Land recently, where Aunt Bee went to pick up Opie from the house of some snooty people who lived in the rich section of town, although it was news to me after all these years that Mayberry even had a rich section of town. When she rang the doorbell and the maid invited her in to wait, she looked flustered and stammered, "Well, I'm not really dressed for visiting." Mind you, at the time, she was wearing a dark blue suit with matching hat (and veil!) plus navy blue dress shoes, a string of pearls and white gloves. Honestly, I don't know what more she could have been wearing if she DID consider herself "dressed for visiting," except perhaps a ceremonial sash with jeweled clasp, a tiara and floor-length cape with ermine trim. When you contrast this with people nowadays, who consider themselves dressed up if they're wearing socks that match each other, much less the rest of their outfit, you can see how times really have changed, and not always for the better, I can tell you that. In fact, at this point, I'm just about ready to let the fashion police and statisticians fight it out among themselves, because I've already got my hands full holding off the anarchists, especially since my sash and cape are at the dry cleaners and I'm not really dressed for it.
Well, suddenly here we find ourselves at the Ides of June and then some. People like me who are planning to be camping out in another few weeks were starting to despair of the weather, but finally the fates took pity on us, and the last couple of days have been reassuringly warm, if not downright hot, as we might expect with summer vacations right around the corner. Frankly, I'm relieved and not only on my behalf, because I know there were people out there, and don't bother to deny it, who were blaming the unseasonably cool weather on Bill for putting in the window air conditioners. But I admit my complicity in the situation, as I had already taken the flannel sheets and heating blanket off the bed, and believe me, I had plenty of opportunity to regret that, when I went to bed with chattering teeth and frozen toes. So I'm just as glad to see those 80 degree temperatures at long last, and I don't mind saying, not a moment too soon.
Wednesday was Flag Day, of course, and it was a beautiful day around here to run up the colors for all to see. I didn't even have to hurry up and drag them back in later ahead of any bad weather, because it stayed nice all day, and I remembered to put them out and take them back in, so everything worked very smoothly for a change. This is not something we can count on, so we want to remember to be grateful for small favors.
While we're being grateful for small favors, I suppose I should mention that the 2006 Metro New York Synod Assembly has apparently come and gone, and that sound you don't hear is the sound of explosive controversy, internecine violence or outright anarchy in its wake. Usually I'm at these events, so I know what's happening, and I don't mind saying, that the way things had been going, I had reason to fear the worst. I have to admit that I consider it a good sign when our Assembly is so unsensational that it doesn't rate a special section on the front page of the newspaper with screaming headlines and pictures of grouchy Lutherans throwing things at each other. Then our pastor was back at church on Sunday after attending the Assembly and appeared to be none the worse for wear, without a black eye or any obvious bruises, so I have reason to be cautiously optimistic that this was not the end of the world as we know it, in spite of the sense of impending doom that we all had beforehand.
While we're on the topic of impending doom, I noticed this arresting paragraph in the FitSmart column by Jorge Cruise in the latest USA Weekend magazine:
============================
Despite the sobering fact that men die
nearly six years younger than women,
on average, and have higher death rates
from all but one of the 15 leading causes
of death, many men make health and
fitness a low priority.
============================
Now, I realize I might be reading this wrong, but I have to say that I'm confused by that part about the higher death rates. Is it my imagination, or is the death rate 100% for everybody, regardless of cause or gender? How can men have a higher death rate in various causes of death than women? Do they die more times than women, or perhaps they die from more different causes at the same time? It seems to me that 100% of all men and all women will die one time each, and if you break it down by cause, it will still all have to balance out to be 100%, so that if men are higher in one category, then women will have to be higher in another. That's just the way it is with statistics, I'm afraid, and there's no getting around that, unless there's some hidden stash of women somewhere who are living forever that the government hasn't told us about yet. Of course, that would be cheating, and we can't have that in statistics, or it would be nothing but outright anarchy.
That reminds me that I took the opportunity last week to complete the mandatory courses that we have to take every year at the hospital, and which are now handily available online that we can take right at our own desks, rather than schlepping off to the auditorium or cafeteria to attend classes in person. I like to be one of the first people to do these right in the beginning of January, and get them out of the way for the year, but a variety of circumstances conspired against me this year, and I have only just gotten around to them now, when the year is already half over. These courses have been available online for 3 or 4 years now, and every year, they change them just enough to be longer, more complicated or less applicable to our own job categories. This time around, I was surprised to see that no new courses had been added since last year, and all of the exams had been pared down from 15-20 questions to 3 or 4 each. Then I realized that the problem with that is, in order to pass with 80% or better on a 3 or 4 question test, you have to get all of the answers right, because the value of the question is more than 20% each. That actually makes it harder than a 20 question test, where you can get one or two answers wrong and still pass with an 80% rate or better. They also change the questions from one year to the next, so that even though I have the previous year's tests, it doesn't always help. An even bigger problem is that they occasionally change the ANSWERS to the same questions from the previous year, either because the original answer was wrong to start with, or because guidelines and regulations might have changed in the meantime. So even when you have the same test and the same questions and you're basically cheating on the mandatory courses, it often doesn't help you if they change the answers on you in mid-stream, which is why I flunked the HIPAA Compliance course, even though everyone knows that I am nothing if not jiggy with HIPAA and about as compliant as any one person could be. Thanks not.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not in the least bit fashion conscious, and wouldn't know Tommy Hilfiger to trip over him, or tell a Gucci bag from a Prada bag at gunpoint. But one thing we all know about fashion is that the couture shows all happen out of sequence with the seasons, so when we're roasting in the summer, the designers are showing their fall and winter collections, while in the dead of winter, the runways are alive with the skimpiest outfits in the sheerest possible fabrics. Bill has always maintained that at some point, this "couture creep" would keep edging backwards and eventually come full circle, to where the summer shows were showing summer clothes and the winter shows had winter clothes, in spite of themselves. For those who scoff, I offer the "Summer / Transitions 2006" Lane Bryant catalog, that I received the first week in June, which is five full weeks before I go on vacation, and which features not only 10 pages of winter coats, but also 2 full pages where it says, "Swim preview ... see the new 2007 styles right here." So I could actually buy a 2007 swimsuit right this instant, get it in time to take on my vacation in July, and wear it a whole year early. Well, that is to say that hypothetically I could do that, but I'm sure the fashion police would show up and make sure I didn't do that, because after all, we have to maintain some standards around here, otherwise once again, it would be nothing but outright anarchy.
Also in the way of fashion, and falling into the category of "How Times Have Changed," I happened to be watching an episode of the old "Andy Griffith Show" on TV Land recently, where Aunt Bee went to pick up Opie from the house of some snooty people who lived in the rich section of town, although it was news to me after all these years that Mayberry even had a rich section of town. When she rang the doorbell and the maid invited her in to wait, she looked flustered and stammered, "Well, I'm not really dressed for visiting." Mind you, at the time, she was wearing a dark blue suit with matching hat (and veil!) plus navy blue dress shoes, a string of pearls and white gloves. Honestly, I don't know what more she could have been wearing if she DID consider herself "dressed for visiting," except perhaps a ceremonial sash with jeweled clasp, a tiara and floor-length cape with ermine trim. When you contrast this with people nowadays, who consider themselves dressed up if they're wearing socks that match each other, much less the rest of their outfit, you can see how times really have changed, and not always for the better, I can tell you that. In fact, at this point, I'm just about ready to let the fashion police and statisticians fight it out among themselves, because I've already got my hands full holding off the anarchists, especially since my sash and cape are at the dry cleaners and I'm not really dressed for it.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 10:27 PM
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