"not in these boots"

Google "Jacksonville".............but be sure to add Oregon because the default is Florida....

It's an old mining town.  I bought some boots today..... really. I did.... pics to follow

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BETTE MIDLER - In these Shoes - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8F5vMwMSe4

Bambi and Faline......in Ashland

After our Crater Lake morning, we drove further south to Medford for the next installment of our moving-to-Oregon chores.   I had to study for a pre-employment test--just kidding. It was just a federal urine drug screen with documentation in quintupulet, and twin seals over two cups and a temperature-taking (on the urine) to make sure I hadn't brought someone else's pot-free/poppy-free urine into the bathroom strapped in a secret vial to my thigh. Oh, and also 5 vials of blood-- not to make sure my cholesterol and sugar levels were safe to practice medicine-- but to make sure my immunity to hepatitis B and measles and tuberculosis were all in order.  

Now JUDD, on the other hand, had to endure a different kind of urine drug screen at the Workplace Wellness department of the local hospital to make sure he is not an impaired educator.  He had a somewhat secure/somewhat invasive drug screen to make sure he wasn't cheating the system. The Medical Assistant didn't explain what was going on. She said, 'Empty your pockets into the safe box. Don't flush the toilet."  When  Judd came out, they poured the urine into 3 vials, sealed each with a label that JT had to initial. Then into a plastic bag and a "your company will be in touch."

Then, the real stressful work started:  looking for a residence.  Judd was on Craig's list.  I was on Zillow.  I had a couple names of a couple realtors from the physician recruiter at the VA.  From my May-interview tour, I thought I wanted to live in Ashland--"uber-liberal", closer to California...... But when we drove there to cruise by about 9 rentals to check them out, we were disappointed in the traffic and congestion and some of the armpit-to-armpit neighbors.  And longer commute, including about 20 minutes on Hwy. And deer?!!!!   Seriously, it looked like reindeer on the sidewalk or Bambi and his lover in your driveway. The next day, we were willing to explore other options.

Can't see the deer in the neighborhood,  but check out his silhouette rack!

"Bend sucks! Don't move here."

The first day in Oregon, we stopped in Bend and discovered Spork for lunch.  "Vibrant restaurant featuring Mexican eats, Asian fusion plates & craft cocktails in a stylish venue."    We fell for it and it was delicious.

Also spotted a bumper sticker:  "Bend Sucks! Don't move here."  Might as well say, "Oregon sucks! Don't move here." Clever ploy, but not working-we're moving here anyway.


We were driving south around Mt. Hood and other pointy peaks and saw bizarre black rubble along the road side. Not knowing what it was or why nothing was growing there, we spontaneously pulled over at the next right.  Around the curve, we stumbled upon another national monument and stopped in for some education and a walk:  Newbury Volcano National Monument contains several volcanic wonders. Lava Butte is a 500 foot cinder cone formed from an eruption covering 6000 acres over 7000 years ago.  We did not have correct hiking boots or head lamps with which to hike the mile long lava caves so we took the trolley to the top of the butte and ask the Ranger questions about how the cone was formed and why some areas grew vegetation and some didn't. When the volcano blew, it dropped, in some areas, 50 feet of rubble. Not much grows there.  When a nearby volcano blew, it sent ash as far as Lava Butte and beyond.  Ash can hold enough moisture that moss and molds start to grow and then trees etc. It makes for a very varied landscape.

photograph by Daniel Woodrum on the blog, Take my Trip

Crater Lake is just amazing.  It's deep (1946') and wide and azure and ringed by snow-covered mountains. I mean big mountains--just about as big as a Mt Washington sitting on top of a Mt. Kathadin:
11,250 Mt. Hood
6289 Mt. Washington + 5269  Mt. Kathadin = 11,558
In the distance Mt. Ranier -- even bigger  14,111.

That white dash in front of "The Phantom Ship" is the 37 passenger tour boat

We walked around some of the park and then drove as far as they would allow us around the eastern rim.  Roads are still closed due to snow.  The funniest sight (to us) were the markers along either side of the road for the snow plows.  In Maine we put up 4 foot poles.  At Crater Lake they put
up 30 foot poles!!!

<------- Judd here, admiring his senior national park card: good for free entrance to any national park for life !  At $10 it's a bargain but you over-62-year-old's better get yours soon--the price goes up to $80 next month. You can order them on line.

Changes to the Senior Pass (U.S. National Park Service)

https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/senior-pass-changes.htm

Jul 11, 2017 - On August 28, 2017, the price of the America the Beautiful – The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Senior Pass will increase for ...

China, ME to Dawson House Lodge.......are YOU scared yet?

July 17 – Monday – Maine to Dawson House Lodge, Chemult, ORE  2 hours south of Bend

The travel day started at 9am Sunday from our SO China driveway where Judd had to go jump start his own “Big Blue” truck in order to sell it to the guy, also standing in the driveway.  The deal was done, minus $100,  and we were off to Biddeford Pool to see the Taft/Smiths in their new summer cottage. Amazing home and vistas; super hospitality and chowdah..

Arrived Boston Airport Hilton via Australian Siri…..barely…..after a few loops in Ted Williams tunnel.

 $39/day for parking – Are you serious????

dinner at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market with the Korean navy in town

we DID see the premiere of the last Game of Thrones season—thank you hotel TV

6am flight to Portland Ore : hippy looking dudes in airport, pirate-y looking, kilt-wearing, triangle hat dude—we pegged them as “Oregonians—yeah, we got that.”

Not 20 min into the 5.5hr flight, the steward calls overhead, “if there’s a physician on board, please push your call light.”  I’d always wanted to deliver a baby in-flight..…but have never gotten to. I got to reassure a youngish patient that the experienced reaction she was having from mixing a couple “unprescribed meds” wasn’t critical. But the steward was super friendly afterwards. Towards the end of the flight, we started seeing snow-capped ice cream cone mountains below.  The man in the seat next to me was pointing out Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams and at one point, Mt. Rainier in the distance. The dude from Poland worked at one of the dams along the Columbia River, which Judd has been studying due to our recent enchantment with The Oregon Trail book. (We’re reading it together in anticipation of our cross-country drive to Oregon but I have sworn Judd off the covered wagon crap.)

Once in Portland, we decided to drive to Crater Lake via Bend, a little further inland, and the drive was stunning.  We were mostly stunned because around every curve in the road there was another white capped mountain. Mt. Hood is about twice the elevation of Mt. Katahdin where we recently camped. What we thought were mountains in the East are pretty itty bitty mountains compared to the west. We had a break in Bend and a fabulous lunch at Spork. 

We pulled into our sleep-over town about 5:00pm. (Chemult) The inn keeper said she had just given our reserved-for-over-a month-room to someone else by mistake.  We said we didn’t care which room we got so she remedied the issue quite quickly.  This is a frontier-like town RIGHT on the highway 97. We had to dodge 16 wheelers in either direction to cross over to the Subway at the local gas station or to schlepp our ice chest with tonic back from the “Market: grocery, hardware, fishing, camping, hot deli.”  It appears the Wheel Café is not open for dinner. We could go to the Chalet (this must be a destination resort town in the ski season) but decided to go for Subway salads on our porch. We were exhausted from the travel day.

And then a day later, Carol and Omer tell us we stayed in the haunted Jessop RooM!!!!!!

Yikes!

http://www.oregonhauntedhouses.com/real-haunt/dawson-house-lodge.html

Go WEST, young man!

Who even said that? I'm hearing Horace Greeley did, but why?

I've been job shopping for a bit and had a few interviews around: D.C., Vermont, NY, MA.  We've talked about where to move/whether to move but we've stopped talking. We're headed to Oregon August 1.

I'm neither young, nor a man so don't know that the above is sound advice, but we're going anyway. People at work ask if I'm going to move so far to be near my kids. "Why no, no, I'm not.  I'm leaving the state where my kids are."  We're going for a few years for a nice stable benefited position in a Mediterranean climate. Here were the pics and temperatures in May when I first visited. These temperatures seem pretty heavenly compared to Maine's spring. One to three kids will house/cat sit for now. They can vacillate between excited and scared like I am right now. 

So the house is in disarray with boxes, full and empty, all over the floors and flat surfaces. Boxes for the China library sale are gone, boxes for Goodwill, boxes for the cellar of stuff I'm not moving, boxes of kid art and trophies for each kid, boxes of stuff to move. Now there are even boxes of stuff I can part with but not sure Judd can (i.e. partial quarter collection from every State, stamp collections not opened in 20 years), awaiting his return from fishing and hiking to sort with me.

  And lists......the lists start. Lists of whom to contact. Lists of where stuff is for the kids (i.e. fuse box, generator instructions, waffle iron, pizza brick.) Lists of where important papers are. Lists of phone numbers of helpful resources. Lists of what to pack from each room. Lists of where the lists are. I even have a list from on -line on how to make lists.  More to come.......

Harry & David's Pear Orchards

Table Rock

"How long have you been a nurse?"

6/14/17 was my last day doing home visits

Whew! I was very sad and grumpy the last few days.  I would be excited that the farthest I'd have to drive was Belfast but then I would be scheduled in a criss cross back and forth across Belfast north/south/east /west then back to north of Belfast. I would become truly upset at the inefficiency of it.  I would leave early to start early but if I called one client who either didn't pick up the phone or who couldn't see me early, I'd sit for 1-2 hours in my car playing Words with Friends. Or drive the extra 20 min to Belfast for a lunch and bathroom break then back the 20 min to the original neighborhood.

Judd was good about coming up to  Oxford or Bangor for a hotel vacation once a week when I was stranded for a month at a time.  We'd hit a new restaurant every week. I did replenish my stock of hotel shampoo and conditioner.

One man had a thank-you card waiting at the end of the visit  and wanted to tip me $20.  I told  him he couldn't do that but that I'd take the card.  I left the cash at his wife's end of the table. He said "you girls stick together." One little old blind lady was accompanied by a neighbor "in case." I guess, in case I turned out to be the scary one. Anyway, with all the questions about are you safe at home, do you need ramps or handles in the bathroom, do you wear a seatbelt in the car, the neighbor outs the lady and reveals that the lady's hobby is rearranging her furniture and that sometimes when the lady goes in the cellar she forgets to wear her lifeline device. I guess the neighbor thought I should add these questions to the safety inventory. We all did laugh that rearranging your house when you're blind was a funny hobby.

A couple thoughts about that time and my discomfiture. As I've said, the work wasn't difficult and much of the displeasure was the inefficiency.  But it really felt that I wasn't doing the clients much good.  They still think of themselves as a patient when a doctor is in the room. So they wanted to tell me about their medical problems not so much their healthy screening/safety issues. If they were really sick, I had to say, "you need to see your Primary Care provider (PCP) about that. Here's I'll write it down on your reminder sheet."  And I know I wasn't helping the PCPs because they're swamped in the office and trying their best to fit these questions into a "normal" 15 min appointment. So it really felt I was only helping the insurance companies and my own pocketbook. It started to feel worse and worse as the second month ground on.

I guess I know of one person whom I did help.   Her BP was very elevated and we checked it again and it was even higher.  I said she really need to get into her doctor in the next week or so and not wait for her check up in 4  months.  After a call back, she had seen her provider and was starting a medication and getting checked regularly. She and the doc were appreciative and I felt less like a mercenary.

There were more than a few people who asked me how long I've been a nurse (and then looked scared when I said I've never been a nurse.) They said they couldn't believe they'd send a doctor to their home. Should I hear that as, "I can't believe a lady in a white coat is a doctor." or just let it go?

That job is over. I let it go.
The next new adventure starts now.

Meet the Stress

The stress from the job is not doing the annual wellness exam. It's mostly a lengthy questionnaire about lifestyle and habits with the up-to-datest recommendations for how little to smoke or drink or eat and how often to get screening tests to catch cancer or osteoporosis early.  The stress is not knowing, each hour 5-6 times 6 a day, who or what will be behind the door.  The bonus stressors are "will the technology work, will my cell phone have a signal if I have an emergency, will the person talk/take so long that I'm late to the next person, etc. " That kind of stress.  And after a few sketchy places the first work week,  I know the full spectrum of surprises that can lurk behind the door.   I don't even have to be creative and dream up scenarios. 

from Urban Dictionary

There was the guy my age who led the conversation with, "WoW! I've never had a LADY doctor before." And then as I'm seated at his kitchen table and his dog is snarfling under my skirt, he says, "Fido hasn't seen a LADY's ankles for a while." (Name changed to protect the dog.)*

Then there was the man who, unlike Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, who uses antlers in all of his decorating, this man uses boots in all of his decorating.  In the center of his kitchen table sat a big hunting boot filled, very vase-like, with artificial flowers.  And I could see a coffee table centerpiece of a life size black Army boot spilling out a bouquet of American flags on sticks. We got started with the questionnaire. I do look up to make eye contact with the client in between my data entry into the iPad, and I noticed that I was being aimed at by no fewer than 4 GI Joe dolls posted around the kitchen counter in all the corners. I didn't really want to think about where all the other guns in the house were.*

The day I was most worried was an address that must not have been on the scheduler's map. My 20 min route finder just kept spinning in a lost cell service circle.  The guy gave me directions over the phone 20 minutes further into the western woods that any cell map would allow.  "I'm in Milton TWP...go past the big chicken barn on the left and then  6 more miles and then..... " I got to a drive way, which was a football field length of muddy pot holes and had to stop the car and walk.  When I got to the smallest of 3 trailers, the man came out to welcome me in. The trailer had about the floor space of a king sized bed.  He had a TV and cook stove and composting toilet and a table the size of a long playing record in there but he could barely turn around. It was a little too close for comfort to fit two of us. The only seat was his bed by the round table so I said no thank you, I'd stand.  I was thinking the whole time, "how do I get myself nearer the only door? "  It was a good thing I had a premonition before arrival and took a picture of the driveway with the car out front so police could trace an ID in case anyone needed to come look for my body.*

Some homes are hard to spend 40-60 minutes in because of the reek of tobacco or the milder stench of urine or infection. More people than I knew seem to be hoarders where there is not one square centimeter of space on a table, couch or chair (sometimes floor!) to sit or put my bag. One lady was being treated for a brown recluse spider bite -- and quickly, before I could conjure up spider threats, she assured me she got the bite in Texas before coming home to Maine.  Well, I'll be googling what other kind of biting creature can live in a hoarded house!

* By the way, nothing bad happened. But stress levels were not lowered until I was back to my hotel for the night, getting the list for the next day's stress visits. Perhaps that should be added to the list of stress related words in the Urban Dictionary.