I'm melting, oh what a wicked world..................eep

We are having a heat wave here on the sunny Oregon coast. I mention sunny because the evil wicked weatherman explained that there is a tropical high just off the coast allowing all the hot Arizona weather to come here for a couple of days.

I went outside earlier at work to take some books to the car and it felt warmish. Later at 4 pm I went outside to get in the car. The car has a temperature gauge, it peered up at it and gasped it read 101 degrees!

A HUNDRED AND ONE FREAKING DEGREES!!!

I cranked on the AC and by the time I crept home it had gone to 103

OY! It simply did not feel that hot. I watched the local news and officially it was 93 at the North Bend airport and people were emailing pictures of temperature gauges; one was from North Bend and it clearly showed 105 degrees. I spent the evening fainting in my chair with the box fan on. Today is going to be another hot day, so get out the sun block, people!

H1N1

This is a picture of the H1N1 (Swine flu) Virus.






This is a picture of the Alpha numeric swine flu mask. (We obviously don't get to wear ours to the beach...) Our Respiratory Therapy department announced that all associates must be fitted for these masks. The fitting takes about 20 minutes, you put on a mask, sit inside a hood and they squirt a mist composed of sugar water in the hood. When you can taste the sugar water, the test is over. They also announced that we had had "an exposure" to H1N1 recently and we must be prepared. Cough...cough...

They also seriously considered having all associates shower before leaving to go home for the day. Okay that might keep the water bill down at my house.

Vaca

I decided to make a quick dash to Idaho over the Labor Day weekend to celebrate our birthdays with Mom, mine is the sixth, hers is the seventh. Dash? Quick Dash? Okay it was more like a ten hour grind. Gas was anywhere from $2.69 to $3.09 and I paid for it at both ends of the spectrum. I drove to Emmett by way of Eugene, Sisters, Redmond, Prineville, John Day, Prairie City, Vale, Ontario, Emmett. There was road construction because it was....SUMMER...actually it felt like most of the little secondary canal bridges on Hwy 26 had all been converted to single lanes with traffic lights on each end,so I had a rest now and then from driving waiting for the five minute red light. The picture above is the Crook County Courthouse in Prineville, the light was shining through the obviously empty bell tower but I thought it was a very distinctive building.



This is the bouquet that Ellen sent to Mom for her 83rd birthday. Thanks, Ellen it smelled so good! She received about 20 phone calls on the 7th. Over all, we didn't do much, played Scrabble, watched a few cooking and design shows, ate a few small meals, read books,napped and played more Scrabble.

We went to Boise one day to try to find some smaller bras for Mom at Sears. Due to the economy I am sure,there were three people working on each floor of Sears, we finally got a real live person to go find some product but there was none available in the brand and size that she wanted. Fortunately there was a phone number to call in the Mall and security brought us a wheelchair, so we were able to be fairly mobile. We also had lunch at Shari's, it was the half sandwich and cup of clam chowder and a free piece of Lemon Meringue pie. The pie was consumed over a period of three days...delish!

We didn't get much visiting done as most people were on the road somewhere and it was nice to simply be in one spot and not run around trying to catch everyone and have a visit. Next time!!

We got Mom's Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care filled out,witnessed and copied. Richard has a copy, Mom is going to get a copy to her pertinent health care folks. Currently she is back on oxygen and when she is on oxygen she cannot lie down on her bed, it makes her dizzy, so she sleeps in her recliner, which does not recline all that much.

She is not eating as much as she used to that is true, however, she did eat breakfast every day and snacked and I fixed a few simple dishes when ever we both felt like eating. We purchased the best sweet corn and micro-waved corn on the cob, yummy! We had fresh peaches with cream for dessert. Richard and Kathy brought carrot cake type birthday cake and Taco's, Thanks! Very tasty and no one had to do dishes.



This is the bouquet that Ellen sent to me. Loved the purple glads! Thank you!



On Highway 26, near mile marker 88 is a dying cotton wood tree. It isn't completely dead but I am sure that the fumes and athlete's foot fungus have contributed mightily to its doom. There are what look like to be at least a hundred sports type shoes, shoe strings have been tied together and given a toss up into the branches. The fumes must be so powerful that birds do not use these handy vessels as nests. Fortunately this blight seems to be contained to this one tree and there is a slight wide spot in the road to facilitate parking, shoe tossing and picture taking.

I made pretty good time coming back and decided to stop in Elkton to visit with Phil and Jody. They met me in town at Arlene's, which is a combination, eatery, bar, mini store for cigarettes and lottery tickets etc. We had a nice visit and I left there got home to Coquille by 7:30 pm. I think I will take an extra day off to unlax a bit before I return to transcribing radiology reports and coding emergency room visits. Boy some excitement!!

Class paper

Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" when she was 19 years old. She and her lover and a couple of other friends were visiting Switzerland and were bored and they held a contest to see who could write the best ghost story. She won.

I took a Literature Class at the local college in Barrow while I was there and one of the class assignments after reading the book and watching several versions of the book was to write a sequel..the book ended with the monster being chased into the arctic....

BIG MAN

The hunting party found a large unconscious man lying on an ice floe. They saw that he had burned his hands and that his face had been badly stitched in places. The men talked among themselves and decided to take the big man with him to see if he would live or die. The man eventually awoke enough to comprehend that he must eat the raw seal meat or perish. He ate the seal meat, the oil spread to his burns and gradually healed them.

The hunters paddled hard and sang songs and taught the big man their language by pointing or demonstrating what they meant. The big man quickly learned and was soon thanking the men for sharing their meat with him. Before long he was able to take part in the paddling. Occasionally they would stop for a time on an ice floe to hunt for more seal. A polar bear stalked them and tried to take a dead seal until the big man roared so fiercely that the bear was scared away. The hunters called him Big Man after that.

After many days, they arrived at the place the hunters called home. It was a small village and everyone was very happy to see the hunters and made many exclamations over Big Man. During the long trip Big Man decided that he was not done with man and decided to stay with the people he had come to like and admire. More importantly, the people accepted Big Man for what he was, a man, if a bit larger than others and with a few more scars. No one minded his scars, many of the hunters bore scars of their own. The children loved Big Man because he was so tall. They could clamber up his legs onto his shoulders and see farther away than anybody. It took almost all of the children in the village to bring Big Man to the ground in a wrestling match, though in truth he did not struggle as hard as he might.

Many years passed peacefully. Big Man became a valued member of the village. He became a skilled hunter gatherer. He favored gathering berries and roots in the summer and the elder women taught him to recognize important plants for curing sickness. The people came to trust his wisdom and Big Man was content.

In the way of the people he took a wife, once she had made him aware that she was attracted to him. The couple was happy and had twelve children. Big Man named the first five children; Victor, William, Justine, Elizabeth and Henry. He took his wife's advice for the names of the rest of the children.

When Big Man died he had twenty-five grandchildren and five great grandchildren, all of whom were a little taller than average and very, very strong.

Big Man's burial site was marked with two large upright bow head whale ribs. His descendants kept his belongings in a place of honor. He had made soap stone cooking bowls and small ivory carvings. The most mysterious of his belongings was a leather found journal that had writing on the cover. After several generations the site was abandoned.

Boston Whalers came to the area in the mid 1800's and established a trading post. This settlement evolved into a small modern city with archaeologists and anthropologists who discovered the burial site of Big Man by the late Twentieth century. All of his belongings were carefully catalogued and filed under the description written on the cover of the leather journal; "Frankenstein, V". The autopsy report described the body of a well preserved man, wrapped in furs,his teeth were good and he had black hair. The report also went on to theorize that the terrible scars were the result of a hideous injury and that he had survived well into old age looked after by a surprisingly caring society and extended family.

Big Man's belongings and journal remains to this day under the care of The Inupiat Heritage Center, in Barrow, Alaska.