One way to protect ourselves (and to help 911 dispatchers) is by listing your phone number plus pertinent medical and contact information at the confidential site for 911. By logging into www.smart911.com you can register your information – then review it every 6 months. That way, when you call 911 from your phone they will immediately know who you are, your address, and any other information you want to enter. And it’s free county-wide.
From the NYT passed along by MJF: “Most mornings as I leave the Y after my swim and shower, I cross paths with a coterie of toddlers entering with their caregivers for a kid-oriented activity. I can’t resist saying hello, requesting a high-five, and wishing them a fun time. I leave the Y grinning from ear to ear, uplifted not just by my own workout but even more so by my interaction with these darling representatives of the next generation.
What a great way to start the day!
Hospice Chaplain Trudy James has spoken previously at Skyline. If you missed viewing her film Speaking of Dying, here’s your chance. I’ll be there!
4 p.m. — FREE SCREENING of the 30-minute film SPEAKING OF DYING, plus a conversation with two physicians and others featured in the movie.
5 p.m. — PARTY! Delicious food and drink, displays, a raffle, and a special program featuring:
Elective Death by Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking in the Face of
Degenerative Disease
PLEASE COME. SATURDAY, APRIL 29th, 4 p.m. SEATTLE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, CAPITOL HILL
BE INSPIRED AND INFORMED ABOUT END-OF-LIFE CHOICES FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES. For more information, tjheartwork3@gmail.com or www.speakingofdying.com.
The amazing thing about our bodies is how unaware we are when everything is functioning normally. I’m worried about a friend who’s loosing control of her 12th cranial nerve, the hypoglossal nerve. Never heard of it? Well that’s OK. There are several mnemonics that we learned in medical school about the cranial nerves. It’s unusual to have just one conk out. A trip back to the Mayo Clinic found my friend “interesting” and she was added to their case studies, but no therapeutic options were offered to help her progressive loss of speech. Maybe it’s best to remain blissfully unaware yet deeply appreciative of the amazing physiology of our bodies.
One thing I’ve learned in my travels is that most cultures of the world consider the pace of life in America with bewilderment. I’ve heard things such as “Are you happy working such long hours; do you ever see your family; can’t you ever relax; why are you driving yourself so hard; can’t you ever just kick back, hang out, and relax?”
In our culture we are high pressured to fix things, create things, sell things, make money, and achieve the next level. Happiness must just be around the corner if I only push just a little harder. We don’t seem to realize that we often lack balance, neglect relationships, and foment conflict.
In medicine, we have the same tendencies – often with a paradoxically negative results especially in geriatrics. The geriatrician will often listen carefully to your story, try to minimize your meds, avoid over-testing, and help to achieve whatever goals you value. This is now called “slow medicine.”
And there are other reasons, even in academia, to try to slow things down. Barbara Seeber, an English Professor has published a book The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (2016). She posits that “the academy has moved to the fast lane. Corporatisation has sped up the clock, compromising teaching, scholarship and collegiality. The ‘slow movement’ – originating in slow food – challenges the frantic pace and homogenisation of contemporary culture. We believe that adopting the principles of slow into the professional practice of academia is an effective way to alleviate time poverty, preserve humanistic education, and resist the destructive effects of the corporate university.”
As great golfer/philosopher Ben Hogan said, “As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
From Crosscut: “The robot cars are coming, like it or not. And local researchers say Seattle better be prepared.
From BMW to Ford, car companies say they aim to introduce fully automated cars in only a few years. More conservative prognosticators say it will take until the 2030s, but between Seattle’s tech-focused economy, the city’s terrible traffic, and the fact that our neighbor Kirkland became the third place where Google began testing its line of autobots last year, there’s good reason to think that Seattle could be one of the the first places where driverless cars become the new norm.
Which could be great. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) could mean less congestion, cleaner air, and a reprieve from the shocking number of distracted driving deaths in Washington State. Or it could be not-so-great. These cars could actually lead to more congestion, more transportation inequity, and losses in city revenue.
March madness is extending into April. It’s “so American!” But in reality it’s big business, bonuses, and school reputations so unfortunately tainted with blurred lines of crime and delayed expulsions.
From Mark Zeigler: “The student sections at the Final Four are in mosh pits behind each basket, 50 feet away and 27 inches below the raised court to better utilize the full seating (and monetary) capacity of a 70,000-seat NFL stadium for a college basketball game.
The college bands are down there, too, with the best view of their classmates on the floor being video boards a few hundred feet above.
The kids can’t see the game, but the TV cameras can see the kids, which is what is important. TV needs those images to differentiate it from the zero-sum veneer of professional sports, to cleanse it, to launder it, to pretend it’s all about text books and ivy-covered campuses and professors in tweed jackets and big-picture perspective and the good ol’ college try.
And the overwhelming majority of college sports are, played in Division III gymnasiums with laminated wooden bleachers, on empty fields with a dozen parents clapping from the sideline. The game ends, the students disappear into the library to study for an Applied Physics midterm – their scoring average less important than their grade-point average.
Just not the Final Four. Not college sport’s jewel.
Rare footage of the final surrender.
When we suffer a great loss, like C.S. Lewis did when his beloved wife died, we may experience a vast array of feelings toward God. Anger. Confusion. Questioning. All this and much more in our grief. I found an excellent discussion of this, by a conservative Christian politician, in the New York Times. Click here to read if interested.
The double doors mark the obvious path.
The Sky Bridge. I have no insider gossip but this seems the obvious entry into Tower One (us) from a Tower Two across the street to the west. The sky bridge would be a bit wider than the double door and aligned with it.
After walking the length of the Arts/Crafts Room, which would become a nice space suitable for the long-awaited cocktail lounge with outdoor seating, T2 residents would walk out into the Bistro and all of our other fourth floor spaces. Most would never take an elevator before leaving, which is more than you can say for a 5th floor crossing utilizing a path through the executive director’s office..
The alternative path to cross 8th Ave? The Tunnel. Well, let me search for that nice picture I have of the gray west wall of parking level B2 where the air shaft is located. (Found it. Note there were blue skies above.)
Out of the Tunnel, into the Cold.
(My eyeball estimate is that the tunnel would need to be several stories deeper than B2, requiring a new bank of elevators, but let us assume that the B2 depth will suffice even though the tunnel’s top would be scraping the underside of the sidewalk and street.)
T2 residents would then stroll, unheated, to wait for our busy three elevators, coming and going. To endure the wait, the cocktail lounge might be located there with outdoor (or at least unheated) seats near the potting bench so T2 residents could admire our cars. Like The Crosswalk, it means outdoor clothing for the trip between Towers.
The Crosswalk. I’ll try to be optimistic and design a super crosswalk: imagine a raised flat speed bump, perhaps made of bricks. Big floodlights, flashing yellow caution lights. Maybe a push-button stop light. With parking eliminated for two spaces north and south of the crosswalk, both sides of street (loss of 8 spaces total, plus the loading zone needs for the T2 entry). Crosswalk positioned to be a straight shot to that ramp rising via a switchback to the 8th Ave entry to our 1st floor. Maybe a rain canopy over all but the street crossing itself. Super enough?
Going out in the rain and navigating the ramp would certainly deter attendance at any programs in T2’s auditorium, cut down a T2er’s use of our dining alternatives and vice versa, etc. Such an economical shortcut might suffice in San Diego but not, I think, in rainy Seattle with people in walkers and wheelchairs and the ADA considerations.
It sure would be nice to know what they are thinking. At, say, the next Skyline Update. Even better, for us T1 types to have some voice in the choice.
On a drier day, I shot pictures of that improbably tall apartment building at 7th & Cherry whose crane has engendered so much dinner table conversation.
Then there is the corner of Boren & James with two facing projects.
From Dorothy W: it’s a bit long but fascinating
Are you a collector? Or if you aren’t do you wish you had been? A friend has his house full of cash registers. Of course, he worked for NCR and just can let them go. Below is a video of another type of collector. He started collecting all kinds of medical devices. Some were state of the art, but now might be viewed as quackery. Do some of our treatments face of same fate?
“We challenge you to make it through this video of 12-year-old Grace VanderWaal with her ukulele without feeling an overwhelming urge to cry.”
Tomas Friedman writes that he is looking for a few good men to step forward from Trump’s appointees. He’s looking for strength and sanity. But asking them to sit down and talk sense into our President may be too much even for the battle hardened generals. But Friedman gives it a try in this Op-Ed piece from the NYT. Can Trump be saved from himself, or is this a Greek tragedy where character is the determinant of the outcome?
Daniel Callahan wonders if death is in trouble. Have we pushed death back so far with the advances in medicine that we no longer die of old age? It’s an interesting thought. Death may be intellectually inevitable but it’s always touted as a “battle” and a “defeat.” We expend billions looking to “wipe out” a condition only to have another take its place. I suppose what we’re trying to do is flatten the aging curve so that there’s an unexpected precipitous drop at the end rather than the dwindles. That’s what heart disease did for us, but now sudden death from a heart attack is in dramatic decline. The unfortunate pervasive drug ads make us think that, yes, science will continue to solve that next problem for us, then the next.
But in reality I wander into old age with a sense of unease. What’s waiting for me? A fall with a broken hip? A lurking pancreatic cancer? A stroke? Or, God forbid, Alzheimer’s. This is where a type of beneficent denial can help. Know the inevitable but get on with fun living – yes, a day at a time. Compartmentalize death. Expect loss, but move on. All easy to say, but I’ll keep trying as I close in to that point where the actuaries say I’m over the top. And I need to admit, it’s not in my control.
From Crosscut: “In the Yakima Valley, nestled east of the Cascades, the fruit trees are waking up. Signs along State Highway 24 advertise openings for “piscadores,” or harvesters. At the Doornink Fruit Ranch in Wapato, expert hands prune hundreds of acres of cherry, apricot, pear and apple trees.
Phil Doornink represents the fifth generation of his dad’s family to grow tree fruit. He and his wife, Karen, call themselves professional gamblers. They worry about the weather, the bills, the fruit. They worry about getting enough workers and paying everyone fairly. They wonder where the next new regulation will come from and how much it will cost. Or which of their neighbors will be next to pack it in and sell their land.
And now they wonder about Donald Trump.”
