Monday, June 18, 2007

In the Summer Time...

Much of this weekend was spent catching up on much-procrastinated on housework. Bleh.

On Saturday, I went down to the local farmer's market for the first time. I feasted on fresh strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers. There were plants everywhere, but I held back and only bought a rose bush to replace the one that died during the winter.

I thought I was showing pretty good restraint, and then I walked by the table of Amish baked goods, where I bought both a homemade pecan pie and a tray of coffee rolls. I have been living off the coffee rolls for the past two days. They were slathered in just enough cream cheese frosting and resting in the perfect proportion of cinnamon and sugar goo. Can you imagine more perfect food? I can't.

One of my friends dislikes the Amish. She says that they don't pay taxes, and feels it is hypocritical for them to come into the hospital as patients, particularly in the intensive care unit, given their shunning of current technology. Personally, I don't really see what the problem is. Just like any other community, I imagine that they have a hard time letting their loved ones go. And, while I don't exactly know what kind of financial resources they have, I just kind of lump them in with all of our other uninsured patients. At least they only show up for care when they absolutely need it, rather than coming in with imaginary aches and pains in order to get certain medications or a night's stay. One of our senior residents did a research project looking at return visits and costs of care for that special group of patients we call "frequent fliers". He found that 1% of the county healthcare budget went to covering costs for one of these patients alone. Now that's ridiculous!

I also went for a run along the lake, and saw several of this spring's goslings tagging along with their parents. Their feathers were still fuzzy. Although they were fairly large in size and learning to feed themselves, they still deferred to "mother goose". That's kind of what I feel like at work. Sometimes it does feel like I am just blindly following the leader, but slowly I am starting to think for myself. I had my second semi-annual evaluation this past week. Those things seem to turn out much briefer than I expect. I don't know what they are like for anyone else, but mine are just kind of "keep doing what you're doing" talks. I guess that's a good thing.

I called my father yesterday (Happy Father's Day if you celebrated!) and found out the PU's are in Montana currently. They're enjoying their RV and slowly meandering across the country to meet up with the family in July for a reunion and me at some later point.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love watching baby birds. I miss watching the string of baby quail that used to scurry across our front yard, zigzagging busily.