Indians

Now that I have your attention!!! I grew up in the 50's as a young "cowboy" fighting imaginary "indians". As I grew older, I was able to travel out of the state and was intrigued with the dichotomy of people like the Sioux, Arapaho. Cherokee, Nez Perce, and the "dreaded" Apache.  Such a noble people who find it difficult to fit into the modern American society. Some have done it very well, yet some struggle severely. We also call them "natives" and "aboriginals" although some people say they are actually descended from Eastern Asian travelers who came to this continent via the Aleutian chain where the northwestern part of this continent nearly touches Asia. I think there is a Sarah Palin quote (true or not); "I can see Russia from my house". How the descendants of Adam and Eve got here is not so important as the fact that these people lived in North America for several hundred or several thousand years with what appears to have been a very uncomplicated lifestyle. We know about them only for the few years between the arrival of Europeans on the eastern shores and the present day. Having made several trips into the western states during the past few years, we have been able to see more into that life. The Cherokee "trail of tears" is fairly well known. I wasn't aware of a similar event when Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce led his remaining people on an attempt to escape to Canada. (http://www2.gsu.edu/~eslmlm/chiefjoseph.html)
(http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/joseph.htm)  They were intercepted only a few miles from the Canadian border after a valiant run. I'm sure there are descendants with similar qualities to Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, etc. functioning today. So where am I going with this???
Yesterday I was in the vehicle listening to WEFT when "my" blues program ended and as always, Antonia Gonzales of National Native News came on. (http://www.nativenews.net/ ) talking about the "Miss Indian World" competition that is being held this week in Albuquerque. (http://gatheringofnations.com/miss_indian_world/index.htm)That started the thoughts to swirl in my head. You see, I had understood that the original European explorers who thought the world was round planned to sail to India to trade for spices, etc. by going west. When they landed in the Carribbean Islands (don't know where that name came from), they thought they were in the "Indies" and later called these Islands the "West Indies" and the people "Indians".,  So, now 500+ years later, I hear about a competition among these people calling it "Miss Indian World" among people from North America who are apparently calling themselves "Indians".. Hmmmm!!!! So what do people from India think about the "Miss Indian World" competition?? Are they eligible? Are there Sioux, Arapaho and Apache people who resent the use of this term for a competition among their people? Really, I'm not trying to stir up trouble, but if anyone can help me with the use of this term by those who were mistakenly called "Indians" by ignorant white folks, I would appreciate it. I know that a word that was commonly used by white folks about another race of people although now taboo to white folks is often used within that race quite commonly in recent years.
You probably know that the old TV program, "As the World Turns" is ending this year. That title, however cannot be retired. Although it is easy for me to consider myself as a speck in the sands of time, I have to also consider this whole group of people. When you look at biblical history maps, you see the different people groups who have inhabited those lands. It is my assumption that this land was also present at that time. Who were the first people to inhabit North America? Where did they come from. Where do the Sioux, Cherokee and Arapaho fit in this pattern. Were they the "Native Americans" as we often refer to them, or were they simply those who were here when the white men came to explore "new lands"? (Obviously, only new to white folks.) I need to stop now before I make myself crazy. Let me know what you think.  Oh: I also must wonder what the Japanese think about the title given to the North American professional baseball championship playoff:  the WORLD series. Hmmmm again.

Empathy with a hambone!

Just like I find it interesting to play in other people's shops with my locum work, it is also fun to cook in other people's kitchens. Finding myself in that situation, I found a hambone in the freezer. Soooo.... what you see to the right is what we had for dinner. Before we dished it up, I decided to fish out the bone to make it easier. I noticed that it was in fact the "stifle" of the pig. For the non-medical (or non-veterinary) folks, the stifle is "knee".. Aha!. Now you see the relationship of this post. Although most of the cartilage had separated from the bone, I could recognize the meniscus. One of the menisci was intact and the other was pretty much cooked away... I'm guessing that is what my medial meniscus will look like to the surgeon. Oh well. With my surgeon doing 6 of these a week, and myriads of orthopedic surgeons in the world, I am certainly not alone. The great thing is that all in all, I am hearing some great things once folks make it through the massive physical therapy. In the meantime, I'll just do what I can. Maybe I won't be dissecting the next hambone I come across. Now if you want to see something interesting do a bing search for hambone images. What a wide range of images although most of them are dogs. However, my facebook friend (and pharmacist) has an English Bulldog pup named "Meatball". Idn't that great?

More information revealed

In the February 1 "Yogi Berra" post, I mentioned that I had torn the meniscus in my knee. That was from a quick report from a nurse via phone message. Yesterday, I finally got to meet with the surgeon and see the MRI images. A very interesting meeting. First about the surgeon. I had heard that he was very good and worked with university and high school athletes and that he lives "just across the road" from our addition. After meeting him, I also found that his dad and several other relatives are veterinarians, some of whom I have taught. I don't think I told you that because of the pain and lack of time before leaving for Corvallis, I called to make an "emergency" appointment back in January. My regular doctor was booked, but I got in with a physician's assistant who seemed to know what she was talking about.... and scheduled the MRI. Well, her dad is also a veterinarian. I do remember speaking with both of these dads while working at the university.

So what did I learn yesterday? I went into the meeting thinking that there was a small tear in the cartilage which would need to be trimmed up a bit by arthroscopy and I would be "as good as new" in a few days. I got a surprise. This image is very much like that of my knee. The image on the left is "as is" and I have retouched the one on the right. The bright green triangle is the normal lateral meniscus. In these images, fluid is white. You can see that on the medial side fluid has replaced the medial meniscus. Adjacent to the place where the meniscus should be, you see a large white area in the bone. This is bone contusion or edema (fluid and inflamation) in the bone caused by irritation from bone on bone contact. This tells us that the medial meniscus is not just torn, but gone.. It has been destroyed and no longer provides the normal cushion. All options presented for therapy are temporary except a "knee replacement" surgery. I'm guessing that will only be on the medial side, like this image, but will know more at my next meeting. What I do know is that it will be a 3 day hospital stay and lots of physical therapy. They expect me to be "out of commission" for 4-6 weeks. Obviously with Georgia's other foot in the offing, it seems like our home will be a recovery ward for a while.  He does surgery on Thursdays and does about 6 of these each Thursday. He is booked into July, so unless there is a cancellation, I will be pretty much "as is" until late July. Instead of being out of commission for a few days in April, I now expect to be down for several weeks this late summer. Yes, prayers are accepted. Thanks.

The battle is on!

Yesterday, I hobbled around the yard to check thing out. At this point this little yellow crochus is the only bloom. However, the daffodils and tulips are peeking their tendler little heads out of the muclh with the promise of a spring full of glorious blooms.  Having had this promise in past seasons, I face it with a bit of apprehension. I am aware of 2 ways in which those blooms may be stolen from us. The first is similar to that faced each year by the Florida fruit growers; the freak freeze that comes just as the buds are about to open (or fruit ripen). Not sure I can do anything about that. I do have lots of mulch around and over them, which should help for a while. We'll just have to wait and see. I don't see myself putting floating row cover on and off as the weather people over-estimate the threat of freezing weather as they seem to love to do... Anything to create a sensation.

The second threat to bountiful blooms are those pesky wabbits. So far, I didn't see any nibbled buds. I know that the daffodils are safe because they don't like them. But... they seem to love the tulips and crochus. So I did my first "gardening" of the year by spraying "liquid fence" on everything. My first volley in this battle for the blooms. Last year, I won. Two years ago, I lost. So here we go with another season "on the brink".. (Sorry Bobby)

Life on the Road at 31 Degrees



A cabin at the Lodge at Suttle Lake



Snow on the Roof of the Suttle Lake Lodge



Yes, it's me complaining again. I was going to name this post "Welcome Back Yogi".... If you read the earlier post when I was describing repeat patterns, you would understand. However after a couple of thousand miles of glancing down at the outside temperature guage on our dashboard to see 31, I decided to use this name. There's nothing inherantly wrong with 31 degrees, except when there is moisture involved and you are on the road. Here I slipped in a couple of pictures of the Snow at Suttle Lake Lodge that I left out of earlier posts, then starting in the Oregon Cascades where we first encountered 31 degrees and lower and ending in St. Joseph, Missouri where we seem to have left that number, there are images of the beauty of freezing rain and fog when you're not driving.



Out our window at Suttle Lake Lodge



Although we dealt with that off and on through the mountains, I had such a feeling of relief as we passed Laramie because that meant we weren't going to get stuck in the mountains by deep snow again. That was also when we realized that coming up out of Laramie, we were surrounded by pine and cedar trees. We hadn't seen that since the Cascades. All that space. Then we passed by Cheyenne and were commenting on the nearby clouds covering the rock formations. All of a sudden the temperature dropped and we were in those clouds. Time to back off the 75 mph. Again, it was beautiful, but not fun to drive in. Sorry; no pictures.



Georgia in the Cascade snow.



Seems that in North Platte, Nebraska, there was a meeting of 3 forces. The wet storm coming up from the south. The cold blast from the northwest. And us!. All across Nebraska (See the post about our trip out across Nebraska.)  it was pretty much the same. The roads became clear after about 100 miles, but that ominous number 31 hung in there and the windshield was waffling between needing the wipers to needing the defroster. You felt like you could go ahead and drive on, but at 31 degrees, you knew there could be ice patches at any point. There were several cars and trucks along the road to attest to this fact. At Lincoln, we left the "old route" that we had used so often and thanks to Garmen and Mapquest, found a shorter route through Springfield, Illinois by dropping down to St. Joseph, Missouri and taking the divided 4 lane (non interstate) 36 across Missouri to Hannibal. Garmen showed me this coming home last summer, rather than going through St. Louis as I traveled from Denver on I-70. Although the temperature rose a little, we did experience a little of the only kind of precipitation we had missed to this point; hail. Not a lot, but just enough to know it was there, and raise our BP a bit. As we make the last leg of the trip home today, the temperature promised to be in the high 30's and low 40's. That will be such a relief, although it looks like another day of rain.. But in this case, wet rain, not freezing rain. Relief at last????

 





A native waiting to cross in Eastern Oregon



Beauty in central Nebraska



Another chapter closed

Thursday afternoon, I finished my 4th class teaching in the radiology course at Oregon State University. Friday evening said goodbye to the clinic for the 6th time. This trip may not have been as exciting as the past. I ended up spending a lot of time on crutches to spare my bad knee and Georgia was sick most of the time. We did revisit the Lodge at Suttle Lake, Three Creeks Brewing company in Sisters, and Tidal Raves seafood grill in Depoe Bay. Got to order in that fabulous Cirello's pizza a couple of times and got lots of stuff at New Morning Bakery. Guess those things make us "regulars" in Corvallis. We didn't eat out as much as in the past, but there are a bunch of new places in "town".. And we were told about some that weren't so new. Dr. Gordon put us on to Mexico Lindo which was great Jason and Misty got us to go to Sam's City in Albany..  It was fantastic also. I'm afraid that our previous favorite oriental place (China Blue) has to take a back seat, except that we have to go to Albany to get it. When we first arrived, Dr. Kinsley started talking about  Le Patissier http://www.lepatissier.net/ a French bakery.. Finally as Georgia was working on getting ready to leave, yesterday morning, I went down and picked up some pastries for the trip... It's an OMG place. He was so right. Apparently it isn't that new, but we hadn't heard of it before. I had never really cared for croissants,  but now I see that I had never really had one. Those pop and serve Pillsbury things are a joke. So now Le Bistro will have to take a back seat also. It is right around the corner from the Market of Choice. That's about all of the new eating we did. Just didn't feel like doing more. Next time, we have a list of other new places that were suggested including the one where Iovino's used to be. Here is their website... looks good. http://delalmarestaurant.com/   Because of a family health issue we are now heading home as fast as we can. Not as fast as my trip last summer, but certainly quicker than we had intended. One of the things we had planned to see was the Oregon Painted Hills. Look it up. We must work that in to a future trip. For now, it's "hit the road Jack"... but hopefully we'll be back.

Three weeks down already

It is hard to believe that we have completed 3 weeks working at Oregon State University. Although illness and aches and pains have made parts of the adventure a bit laborious, it has really gone quickly. These past few days have been a bit interesting to us. Here we are in the Willamette Valley with mountains and snow all around us. Yet, the cold and snow that hit the valley yesterday seem to have caused real chaos. Schools closed, wrecks on highways, and all that comes with really nasty weather. Yet, as best I can tell we had about 2 inches of beautiful fluffy snow. One of the pictures here that I took with my cell phone is the same spot in front of the vet school where I showed you the sprouting flowers 3 weeks ago (last post). Georgia will be posting some pictures she took out our apartment windows that morning. If not on her blog they will be on her facebook.

For me the main adventure was this morning as I walked out into 26 degree air for the first time since we got here. (Supposed to be in the teens tonight.)... I relived a morning in January when I went to the car to make my trek to the B and B in Gas City for breakfast...  In that instance, the car door froze in the "open" position. This morning, it was frozen closed. I did get into the passenger side and started the car, thinking it would warm from the inside while I went back up to wait in the warm. Guess I didn't wait long enough because I still had to climb in over the console, bad knee and all. By the time I got to work, I could open it from the inside to get out. I wasn't looking forward to climbing back out over the console. Oh for those fantastic bench seats of the 50's and 60's. With the temp drop tonight I'm a bit apprehensive about this happening again tomorrow. Hopefully since it didn't rain or snow today, there won't be enough moisture there to freeze it shut. I do have some stuff  to unfreeze, but it didn't work in Indiana, so I'm not too keen on that.  nuf for now. skk