van Gogh’s Letters
This fantastic website has a full search feature, but I think I would prefer to read his letters in order, or maybe browse them using their timeline.
Time line
Women and the Subprime Crunch - International Museum of Women
Women borrowers are overrepresented in the subprime lending market according to studies done by both the Consumer Federation of America and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Across the economic spectrum, women receive less favorable terms than similarly situated men on home purchase, refinance, and home improvement loans. The studies also show that the gap between women and men receiving subprime loans actually increases as women’s income increases.
We had a one of those toxic mortgages. Just last month we were able to get a mortgage modification. It helped a lot. If any of you have a mortgage that you cannot afford, I urge you to call your bank and ask them about applying for a mortgage modifiation. It took me less and 30-days from when I applied, and my very next payment was much lower.
(Random kitty photo from flikr)
SFGate.com describes a study carried-out at bay area hospitals. Hospital nurses developed procedures for alerting their colleagues they were dispensing medicine, and they shouldn’t be disturbed.
Prescription for success: Don’t bother nurses
– Accuracy in administering medications improved from an average of 83.8 percent at the start of the program in 2006 to 93 percent after 18 months and 98 percent after 36 months.
– Between September 2006 and September 2009, medication errors at the hospitals dropped by an average of 87.7 percent.
– The adherence to a series of “best practice” principles, which included such techniques as checking two forms of patient identification before administering drugs and explaining each medication to the patient, increased from 79.5 percent at the start of the program to 96 percent after 36 months.
I’d be interested to know how much of the improvement came from telling their patients what they were giving them. Thing2 and I have caught quite a few doctor errors that way. They have standard procedures/medications they give, and they may not remember that you are allergic or have some other contra-indication for the standard treatment.
Women on the Front Line have Unique Advantages in Afghanistan
This New York Times Op Ed is written by Paula Broadwell who is a former U.S. Army officer, a research associate at The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University and a board member of Women in International Security.
She describes the unique effectiveness of the Marine Corps’ Female Engagement Teams (F.E.T’s).
The F.E.T. units are comprised of female marines with various operational specialties who conduct liaison work with Afghan women in remote villages. Their assignments range from searching women at checkpoints to distributing aid to running medical clinics to their core mission of engaging rural Pashtun women, often in their homes.
…
The presence of F.E.T.’s sends a strong signal of peaceful engagement to local villages. As one village elder put it, “Your men come to fight, but we know the women are here to help.”
She argues that it is time to rethink the ban on women in combat positions, and remove an impediment to the Marine’s ability to fully utilize F.E.T.s.
Click here to see a slideshow.
Last week we lost Boy Kitty.
Since the thyroid treatments we knew he was on borrowed time.
We loved him, and he showed us that he loved us every day.
We miss his courage and good humor and bossiness every day.
Later that same day.
Today we went over to the coast.
We walked and walked and walked … and part of it was up and down sand dunes.
When we got home, I lay down for about 30-minutes and when I got up I was surprised to find that I had already stiffened-up. I’m sure the work-out was good for me, but Thing2 and I were so glad to get back to the car.
However, we did see some male elephant seals doing their thing.
Click here to see video of the mock fights (no tripod, so once again I apologize for the unsteady hand.)
After the walk we were famished, so we went to a nearby grill and ordered a strawberry milkshake to share while we waited for our meals. What we didn’t know was that they use fresh strawberries in their milkshake. Wow! It was a fantastic milkshake — definitely the best one I’ve ever had.
It was also very filling and neither of us was able to eat much of our lunch.
We headed home along the coast. As we went around a bend in the road, suddenly we saw a sky full of large kites over the ocean. There were legions of kite surfers and windsurfers surfing in the bay. It was an incredible site. The video doesn’t do it justice. These guys and gals were tremendous. One of the kite skiers lifted himself and his board into the air as a wave passed by him. There is a kite skier in the lower left of the frame in the beginning of this video that gives you just a tiny taste of what they were doing with the waves.
Here is a movie of the pelicans sitting on the rocks. I had no tripod, and I was being blown around — so it’s not as steady as I would like.
Pelicans Preening
Click here to watch movie (Anyone know how to embed video?)
As I wrote before, there were wildflowers blooming
Yesterday we were supposed to have dinner with my brother and his significant other. However, in the early afternoon, his SO called and cancelled. I didn’t mind, because it’s been hot here and I had been thinking that it would be nice to get over to the beach for dinner. A little later Thing2 called me, I wanted to ask her about doing that, but I waited to let her tell me why she called. And when she asked if I wanted to go to the beach, I said, “You read my mind.” “Really!!”, she said, with true joy.
It has been a long, long time since we were this in-sync. It used to happen all the time. One of us would be thinking that it would be nice to do this or that, just as the other would suggest that we do just that.
As I parked the car at the beach, the first thing I saw was a pelican, flying very slowly just over the path on the cliff. When we got to the path, we could see that there were a lot of pelicans on the rocks. Soon we realized that there were seals in the water, chasing fish. As the seals chased the fish to the surface, the pelicans dove down to catch them. At times the seals looked like they were having so much fun. They would come to the surface, roll-over so you could see their flippers, and then dive back down. One even porpoised. When we were down at Monterrey last weekend we saw lots of pelicans. But they weren’t diving and fishing. It just killed me that we didn’t have the good camera last night. I keep saying I’ll never leave it at home again, but it keeps happening.
In lieu of pictures of them diving, here are pictures of them sitting around on rocks from last weekend’s trip.
Wild flowers are still in bloom…(picture to be updated later)
KIT