An Apple A Day
Hello World,
Happy October! Naturally, that doesn't apply to those distraught folks in Mudville, where the agonized sounds of wailing and gnashing of teeth is heard throughout the land, who expect nothing less than the Yankees winning the World Series every year, or else they consider the infinite universe to be hopelessly out of alignment. At any rate, they certainly don't expect their beloved Bombers to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, as happened last week, amid much rancor and antagonism in the media. Of course, the Mets have been doing their best at holding up their part of the playoffs, for the sake of local pride, but anyone could tell that it's just not the same. Well, I believe it was David Frost, or perhaps it was Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, who said: "What a difference a week makes." And let's not forget that it was William Shakespeare, writing under the nom de plume of Oscar Meyer Bacon, who said, "October is the cruelest month." Of course, back in his day, the Yankees were owned by some crazy tyrant who used to kill his opponents in September, so victory in October could be assured. On the other hand, I hope that doesn't give George Steinbrenner any ideas.
In other news, we find ourselves beset with the second Friday the 13th this year, since January. At least these are the only two that we will have in 2006, so if you managed to get through today in one piece, it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the year. Probably some places in the world, people still celebrate Columbus Day (where Bill works is one of them) and so I took Monday off from work so that we could enjoy a long weekend together. After that, I had no idea what day of the week it was, and the whole week turned into a kind of a lost cause. While we're on the topic of lost causes, we get the following from an alert reader:
===================================
Funny you should speak about Columbus Day. Our local Knights of Columbus (oddly enough founded by an Irishman????) hosted their annual Columbus Day dinner dance last night (Oct. 6). Of course, everyone knows that Columbus Day is observed on the Monday prior to the actual date of his birth (Oct 12) - Thanks to the Congressional "give us a 3 day weekend act." So now Columbus Day is celebrated almost a full week before it occurs! Why don't they just do the same thing with Christmas? We could do our shopping right after Halloween - (oh wait, that would now be held on Labor Day.) We could give "THANKS" right before Christmas dinner, then all the gift giving, returns, exchanges & New Years could be gotten out of the way before we actually celebrate Christmas. BOGGLES THE MIND DOESN'T IT?
PS. In Spain, old Chris is know as Cristof Colon - he did, you know, sail for Ferdinand & Isabella. Our founding fathers, in wise judgment, Latinized his name to Columbus. After all, we would not want his special day confused with National Colon Health Awareness Day (I'm sure there is one.) They could have used his Italian name of Columbo - but the national yogurt foundation had its objections (although THAT Columbo family is Armenian).
===================================
In other news, and this of the health-related kind, we find this intriguing information in the EatSmart section of the USA Weekend magazine, courtesy of Jean Carper, and touting the many benefits of eating apples for their therapeutic qualities: [[ Drinking 2 cups of apple juice or eating two to three apples a day may boost production of acetylcholine, often lacking in Alzheimer's patients. When University of Massachusetts Lowell researchers gave apple juice concentrate to elderly mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, they did better on learning maze tests and had more acetylcholine. ]] Now, I admit that I'm not a doctor or a researcher, and in fact, I don't even play one on television. But I can tell you that it would take an awful lot for someone to explain to me why they can't just give the apple juice concentrate to actual PEOPLE WITH ALZHEIMER'S, rather than a bunch of old mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, and see if it actually works or not. Are they afraid it's toxic? Too radical? Too expensive? I simply can't figure out why it would occur to anyone to test what seems like a safe and simple therapy on something that is not people, and who do not have Alzheimer's, in order to determine if this would work on actual people who actually do have Alzheimer's. It's just stupefying, or in the immortal words of George Steinbrenner, applesauce.
Speaking of hitting the sauce, I received a phone call last week from one of our nurses in the Clinic, asking me what department she should contact to have one of the new alcohol dispensers installed in their hallway. Of course, everyone knows that I'm much too polite to laugh, but I laughed anyway, and said this was the first I was hearing of alcohol dispensers in the hospital, although I was certainly in favor of it, and please let me know when Happy Hour was, because I'd be right over. After a bit more clarification, it turned out that she was referring to these alcohol-based waterless hand cleansers they've started using throughout the facilities, in order to encourage the staff to regularly disinfect their hands between patients. Personally, I liked the other idea better, and it would certainly give new meaning to the phrase "This won't hurt a bit."
Also at work, we all received a peremptory notification that we had to attend mandatory evacuation training being held in the auditorium, or else. I said to Bill that the hospital has been in the same place for 100 years, and they've never had evacuation training before, so either things have suddenly gotten very perilous there, or else they never cared before if the employees got out safely in an emergency. Be that as it may, last week found us tramping off to training sessions like good little soldiers, and learning everything we had to know about proper evacuation techniques, and it goes without saying, we are all so much smarter now. Actually, I don't like to complain about evacuation training, because that was the best sleep I've had in a week. (Oh, hit that easy target!) Anyway, it was when I was on my way to the auditorium at 1:00 PM that I bumped into Mario the painter in the stairwell, and he greeted me like a long-lost Croatian relative and said he hadn't seen me all day (which isn't easy to do, because Mario has been all over our hallway like a bad rug) so I said, "Oh, I'm just getting in now." He laughed.
It was at the end of the week before that I started to come down with a minor but annoying case of the sniffles, beginning with a bad sore throat, and winding up with coughing and sneezing in the classic style of colds throughout the ages. I did stay home from work one day, but the rest of the time, I just muddled through using the best that modern pharmaceuticals have to offer people trying to work while they're sick. It was on one of these days that we were visited by our retired co-worker, who brought us pastries from her local bakery, and which I found to be extremely therapeutic. When I told her about my cold, she said she had the same thing, which apparently has been going around, and how terrible she felt and how long she suffered with it, and then she wagged an admonishing finger at me and exclaimed, "And remember that it's going to get better before it gets worse!" Somehow, I found it oddly reassuring that she's been retired for six months now, and she still has the ability to turn a phrase like no one else.
I wish I could say that's about all the news, such as it is, from these parts, but that doesn't even begin to cover it, since this has been an extremely eventful week, at least here in our little slice of Paradise. It's at times like this that I find mere words to be woefully inadequate to describe all that's been going on around here, and so all attempts in that direction will have to wait for another time. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to join the rest of the hospital staff around the alcohol dispensers for some much needed workplace mood enhancing treatment. Hey, Doc! Let's have another shot, if you please!
Happy October! Naturally, that doesn't apply to those distraught folks in Mudville, where the agonized sounds of wailing and gnashing of teeth is heard throughout the land, who expect nothing less than the Yankees winning the World Series every year, or else they consider the infinite universe to be hopelessly out of alignment. At any rate, they certainly don't expect their beloved Bombers to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, as happened last week, amid much rancor and antagonism in the media. Of course, the Mets have been doing their best at holding up their part of the playoffs, for the sake of local pride, but anyone could tell that it's just not the same. Well, I believe it was David Frost, or perhaps it was Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, who said: "What a difference a week makes." And let's not forget that it was William Shakespeare, writing under the nom de plume of Oscar Meyer Bacon, who said, "October is the cruelest month." Of course, back in his day, the Yankees were owned by some crazy tyrant who used to kill his opponents in September, so victory in October could be assured. On the other hand, I hope that doesn't give George Steinbrenner any ideas.
In other news, we find ourselves beset with the second Friday the 13th this year, since January. At least these are the only two that we will have in 2006, so if you managed to get through today in one piece, it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the year. Probably some places in the world, people still celebrate Columbus Day (where Bill works is one of them) and so I took Monday off from work so that we could enjoy a long weekend together. After that, I had no idea what day of the week it was, and the whole week turned into a kind of a lost cause. While we're on the topic of lost causes, we get the following from an alert reader:
===================================
Funny you should speak about Columbus Day. Our local Knights of Columbus (oddly enough founded by an Irishman????) hosted their annual Columbus Day dinner dance last night (Oct. 6). Of course, everyone knows that Columbus Day is observed on the Monday prior to the actual date of his birth (Oct 12) - Thanks to the Congressional "give us a 3 day weekend act." So now Columbus Day is celebrated almost a full week before it occurs! Why don't they just do the same thing with Christmas? We could do our shopping right after Halloween - (oh wait, that would now be held on Labor Day.) We could give "THANKS" right before Christmas dinner, then all the gift giving, returns, exchanges & New Years could be gotten out of the way before we actually celebrate Christmas. BOGGLES THE MIND DOESN'T IT?
PS. In Spain, old Chris is know as Cristof Colon - he did, you know, sail for Ferdinand & Isabella. Our founding fathers, in wise judgment, Latinized his name to Columbus. After all, we would not want his special day confused with National Colon Health Awareness Day (I'm sure there is one.) They could have used his Italian name of Columbo - but the national yogurt foundation had its objections (although THAT Columbo family is Armenian).
===================================
In other news, and this of the health-related kind, we find this intriguing information in the EatSmart section of the USA Weekend magazine, courtesy of Jean Carper, and touting the many benefits of eating apples for their therapeutic qualities: [[ Drinking 2 cups of apple juice or eating two to three apples a day may boost production of acetylcholine, often lacking in Alzheimer's patients. When University of Massachusetts Lowell researchers gave apple juice concentrate to elderly mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, they did better on learning maze tests and had more acetylcholine. ]] Now, I admit that I'm not a doctor or a researcher, and in fact, I don't even play one on television. But I can tell you that it would take an awful lot for someone to explain to me why they can't just give the apple juice concentrate to actual PEOPLE WITH ALZHEIMER'S, rather than a bunch of old mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, and see if it actually works or not. Are they afraid it's toxic? Too radical? Too expensive? I simply can't figure out why it would occur to anyone to test what seems like a safe and simple therapy on something that is not people, and who do not have Alzheimer's, in order to determine if this would work on actual people who actually do have Alzheimer's. It's just stupefying, or in the immortal words of George Steinbrenner, applesauce.
Speaking of hitting the sauce, I received a phone call last week from one of our nurses in the Clinic, asking me what department she should contact to have one of the new alcohol dispensers installed in their hallway. Of course, everyone knows that I'm much too polite to laugh, but I laughed anyway, and said this was the first I was hearing of alcohol dispensers in the hospital, although I was certainly in favor of it, and please let me know when Happy Hour was, because I'd be right over. After a bit more clarification, it turned out that she was referring to these alcohol-based waterless hand cleansers they've started using throughout the facilities, in order to encourage the staff to regularly disinfect their hands between patients. Personally, I liked the other idea better, and it would certainly give new meaning to the phrase "This won't hurt a bit."
Also at work, we all received a peremptory notification that we had to attend mandatory evacuation training being held in the auditorium, or else. I said to Bill that the hospital has been in the same place for 100 years, and they've never had evacuation training before, so either things have suddenly gotten very perilous there, or else they never cared before if the employees got out safely in an emergency. Be that as it may, last week found us tramping off to training sessions like good little soldiers, and learning everything we had to know about proper evacuation techniques, and it goes without saying, we are all so much smarter now. Actually, I don't like to complain about evacuation training, because that was the best sleep I've had in a week. (Oh, hit that easy target!) Anyway, it was when I was on my way to the auditorium at 1:00 PM that I bumped into Mario the painter in the stairwell, and he greeted me like a long-lost Croatian relative and said he hadn't seen me all day (which isn't easy to do, because Mario has been all over our hallway like a bad rug) so I said, "Oh, I'm just getting in now." He laughed.
It was at the end of the week before that I started to come down with a minor but annoying case of the sniffles, beginning with a bad sore throat, and winding up with coughing and sneezing in the classic style of colds throughout the ages. I did stay home from work one day, but the rest of the time, I just muddled through using the best that modern pharmaceuticals have to offer people trying to work while they're sick. It was on one of these days that we were visited by our retired co-worker, who brought us pastries from her local bakery, and which I found to be extremely therapeutic. When I told her about my cold, she said she had the same thing, which apparently has been going around, and how terrible she felt and how long she suffered with it, and then she wagged an admonishing finger at me and exclaimed, "And remember that it's going to get better before it gets worse!" Somehow, I found it oddly reassuring that she's been retired for six months now, and she still has the ability to turn a phrase like no one else.
I wish I could say that's about all the news, such as it is, from these parts, but that doesn't even begin to cover it, since this has been an extremely eventful week, at least here in our little slice of Paradise. It's at times like this that I find mere words to be woefully inadequate to describe all that's been going on around here, and so all attempts in that direction will have to wait for another time. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to join the rest of the hospital staff around the alcohol dispensers for some much needed workplace mood enhancing treatment. Hey, Doc! Let's have another shot, if you please!
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home