I fear my extended family is a microcosm of the political distrust and antagonism our country is facing today. I will try to present this without bias, but as I clearly represent one side of the political spectrum, I am sure that some of family members will vociferously denounce my objectivity. Fortunately, the most vocal of all, also has huge privacy hang-ups so is quite unlikely to leave comments in all caps following this blog. So we can keep our ranting and ravings confined to the holiday dinner table and the more and more infrequent phone calls.
The right-leaning among us watch Fox news and expound upon its objectivity. The left-leaning among us listen to NPR and say it presents news impartially.
“Well then”, the rightist replies, “you should listen to what Juan Williams had to say on Fox after he was fired, have you heard?”
”No, because I don’t watch Fox news,” the liberal retorts, “and clearly anyone who has just been fired is going to be angry at his former employer and not present unbiased facts.”
“Ah ha,” says the radical right, “you can’t make that judgment without watching his commentary, because he only presented facts!”
“Yes, but did he present ALL the facts?” the leftist responds. ”It’s easy to leave some facts out which in and of itself is bias. He could easily have presented only the facts that showed NPR to be in the wrong and Fox to be in the right.”
“Facts are facts. Listen to what he said and you’ll hear how biased NPR is.”
How did we get here, I wonder to myself. I thought we were talking about our children’s high school classes. I ponder the trip we took, let’s see, from high school classes, to leveling among students, to government being involved in education, to Carter creating the Department of Education, to Obama being a radical socialist, to Bush spending billions on a needless war in Iraq, to Clinton leaving office with a surplus to Reagan getting America on the right track and building a robust economy. Not sure how Juan Williams came up, other than the obvious that he’s currently in the news.
I sigh. “Well you are still welcome for dinner Saturday.”
“You sure?” my brother responds, “you can take back the invitation.”
“No, no, I’d like to see you. Let’s just not talk politics.”
Unfortunately, in the state houses across the country as in Washington D.C., they have nothing else to discuss, but politics. And as in my political discussion with my brother, no one is willing to compromise, no one is willing to bend, no one is even able to cede one point to their adversary. Those in office must internalize significant stress daily if they feel anything like I do after hanging up the phone. In the time we spoke, no, make that argued, no one, not me, not my brother, not any elected official has done one thing to make the world a better place, to bring enlightenment, even simply to extend an olive branch. Maybe my brother will get the hint if I serve olives with dinner. Oh wait, he hates olives. Therein lies the problem.
Suture Necessity: Humor
Humor is a great accompaniment to receiving sutures. As the physician assistant sutured my finger laceration, he told me this was his third career (not humorous) and told me about his experience slicing his own finger (very humorous).
I had ended up on the receiving end of the needle and thread by carelessly attempting to slice frozen bread with a very sharp knife and without a cutting board—something I have been told on multiple occasions not to do. Maybe this time the lesson will stick.
As I tightly gripped my pointer finger against my thumb, my daughter ran for a bandage and extolled the virtues of applying pressure and using elevation in such situations. I had no desire to release my finger as I’m not a fan of watching blood pour out of my hands. But when I finally got the nerve to take a peak at the incision, I knew immediately that a Band-aid brand adhesive wasn’t going to cut it so to speak.
I headed to the ER, my husband cleverly picking the older car to drive in case I was dripping blood, although my daughter had thoughtfully handed me an old bath towel to wrap my hand in just to avoid difficult to remove bloodstains.
“Well, I hope the chili you made for dinner is bloody good,” my husband commented wryly as we sat waiting in the ER. Doubtful we would get any tonight as the waiting room was mostly full and no one was moving anywhere quickly.
The admitting nurse thoughtfully asked if my finger was still attached (which it was) while my daughter texted me to take the pressure off and get the blood flow going to move up my place in the ER line. As the TV show Chuck was about to start, I was okay sitting in the waiting room for a bit and watching TV. So I kept the pressure applied as my hand began leaking blood onto my towel wrap. Unfortunately halfway through Chuck, someone decided that the assorted menagerie of patients would prefer Monday night football and switched channels. I think we should have taken a vote and raising a bloody hand should have counted extra. In any case, I missed the second half of Chuck and so I have no idea if Chuck and Sarah managed to capture the bad guy or not. Now it was clearly time to remove the pressure and get seen sooner rather than later.
In the examining room, the nurse told me that day old blood stains were as hard to remove from crevices around fingernails as from white Ts. I didn’t believe her, but was glad she thoroughly cleaned my hand in any case.
Then after a lengthy wait with only the sound of a screaming child in the background, a physician’s assistant came in for suturing. Apparently only on Grey’s Anatomy do plastic surgeons hang around the ER.
“So do you know how to sew?” I asked.
“She means can you sew well,” my husband clarified.
He didn’t answer directly but did tell us about the time he cut his finger on a bread knife at a salad bar, tossed the knife and bread behind the salad bar and then while walking over to meet his friends at their table, passed out in the middle of the restaurant where everyone, but his friends saw him go down.
Clearly he had empathy as well as a more entertaining story. Guess I’ll find out if he also can sew when I get these 5 sutures removed.
I had ended up on the receiving end of the needle and thread by carelessly attempting to slice frozen bread with a very sharp knife and without a cutting board—something I have been told on multiple occasions not to do. Maybe this time the lesson will stick.
As I tightly gripped my pointer finger against my thumb, my daughter ran for a bandage and extolled the virtues of applying pressure and using elevation in such situations. I had no desire to release my finger as I’m not a fan of watching blood pour out of my hands. But when I finally got the nerve to take a peak at the incision, I knew immediately that a Band-aid brand adhesive wasn’t going to cut it so to speak.
I headed to the ER, my husband cleverly picking the older car to drive in case I was dripping blood, although my daughter had thoughtfully handed me an old bath towel to wrap my hand in just to avoid difficult to remove bloodstains.
“Well, I hope the chili you made for dinner is bloody good,” my husband commented wryly as we sat waiting in the ER. Doubtful we would get any tonight as the waiting room was mostly full and no one was moving anywhere quickly.
The admitting nurse thoughtfully asked if my finger was still attached (which it was) while my daughter texted me to take the pressure off and get the blood flow going to move up my place in the ER line. As the TV show Chuck was about to start, I was okay sitting in the waiting room for a bit and watching TV. So I kept the pressure applied as my hand began leaking blood onto my towel wrap. Unfortunately halfway through Chuck, someone decided that the assorted menagerie of patients would prefer Monday night football and switched channels. I think we should have taken a vote and raising a bloody hand should have counted extra. In any case, I missed the second half of Chuck and so I have no idea if Chuck and Sarah managed to capture the bad guy or not. Now it was clearly time to remove the pressure and get seen sooner rather than later.
In the examining room, the nurse told me that day old blood stains were as hard to remove from crevices around fingernails as from white Ts. I didn’t believe her, but was glad she thoroughly cleaned my hand in any case.
Then after a lengthy wait with only the sound of a screaming child in the background, a physician’s assistant came in for suturing. Apparently only on Grey’s Anatomy do plastic surgeons hang around the ER.
“So do you know how to sew?” I asked.
“She means can you sew well,” my husband clarified.
He didn’t answer directly but did tell us about the time he cut his finger on a bread knife at a salad bar, tossed the knife and bread behind the salad bar and then while walking over to meet his friends at their table, passed out in the middle of the restaurant where everyone, but his friends saw him go down.
Clearly he had empathy as well as a more entertaining story. Guess I’ll find out if he also can sew when I get these 5 sutures removed.
Garden Issues
The weeds in my garden have roots in New England that rival the descendants of the Mayflower. My lavender sends shoots up everywhere including right in the middle of my miniature rose plant which is about the size of a softball (decidedly not a bush). My coneflower is, literally, one foot tall. Just when the phlox bloom in their glorious bright pink, their shaky stems decide it’s just too much and they collapse onto the walkway or rest upon the browning yarrow, that I am sure I just deadheaded yesterday.
My garden will clearly never be on a garden tour; it continually confounds me. Yet I love it. Each year in July I tell myself that I really should just uproot the lupine—their brown, crinkly leaves and dried tubular stalks are unappealing, and the phlox behind which I attempted to hide them were taken down by a white powdery fungus. Yet I let the lupine thrive, and the following May as I watch their perfect star shaped leaves hold drops of water after the rain, and their flowers turn from green to pink, top to bottom, I wonder how I could have harbored such destructive thoughts. Then the aphids show up and although I reconsider, I let the lupine alone. Or my Rudbeckia flowers in profusion and within days needs to be deadheaded, leaving its hairy brown stems behind.
Last summer I nurtured my stunted plants along and was rewarded with buds ready to burst into cascades of color. Each morning as I excitedly approached my garden, not a speck of color could be seen. Every bud about to burst had been chomped off by a voracious deer. Then this summer, knock on wood, my buds have all been left alone to unfold into brilliant color. Did the deer take an alternate route? Did it find better grazing grounds where it didn’t have to reach down quite so far to nab a tasty bud?
I would continue to expound about the frustrations and gifts from my garden, but a giant foxtail is creeping in the window and tapping on my shoulder.
Last summer I nurtured my stunted plants along and was rewarded with buds ready to burst into cascades of color. Each morning as I excitedly approached my garden, not a speck of color could be seen. Every bud about to burst had been chomped off by a voracious deer. Then this summer, knock on wood, my buds have all been left alone to unfold into brilliant color. Did the deer take an alternate route? Did it find better grazing grounds where it didn’t have to reach down quite so far to nab a tasty bud?
I would continue to expound about the frustrations and gifts from my garden, but a giant foxtail is creeping in the window and tapping on my shoulder.
Quick Tips for Writing a Camper
The rest bell rings and campers race to the mailboxes to see what awaits. Samantha Saylor arrives first and grabs the stack of envelopes from the S box, quickly reading through the addressee names.
“Santos, Smith, Santos, Strickland, Surrey, Santos, Smith, Shen, finally Saylor!, Santos, Santos, how many friends and family does Santos have?!, Shen, Sargent, another one for Saylor, Santos, Steinberg, Santos”
Samantha hands the stack to the anxiously awaiting Strickland and heads off with her two letters. The high point of mail time has passed—sorting through the envelopes and finding the envelopes with her name on them. Even opening and reading the mail can’t eclipse the excitement of reading through the addressee names.
So take this as your first tip in writing your camper—mail, any mail, is better than no mail. And the contents of the letter or postcard are far less important than the fact that correspondence has been received. Still, writing about your commute to work, or grocery shopping will pale in comparison to a note including a funny story about trying to pick blueberries in the rain or fixing the leaky faucet and getting soaked in the process.
Here are some quick tips for writing your camper this summer:
- Write short, frequent letters rather than long occasional notes
- Include interesting flat items such as a newspaper comic or a photo
- Sprinkle in a few riddles
- Take some time to doodle
- Include a short, funny story. Nothing happened on your commute to work or in your office? Find a few short jokes to include (there are plenty to be found on-line) or relate a story from your childhood.
- Comment on your camper’s most recent letter—great job on learning how to serve in tennis or how cool that her cabin mate is from Montana.
- Include a game like hang man, tic tac toe, or 20 questions on a second sheet of paper that the two of you can send back and forth over the summer to play.
- Remember to write so your camper can read—many of the under 12 set cannot read cursive and that goes for many teens as well these days. 4 paragraphs of loopy handwriting will quickly be scanned for the signature at the end.
P.S. post scripts and post post scripts are always a big hit!
10 Reasons to Send Your Daughter to Summer Camp
At Summer Camp...
Friendships last a lifetime.
When the heat wave hits there’s a cool lake to dive into!
Campfires can’t be beat when shared.
It’s easy to find a quiet place to read a book,
Or a busy place to play with buddies.
Learning how to live with others is essential.
Or in achieving a goal together.
The nights are as spectacular as the days.
But most importantly, every child should have the opportunity to soar!
Friendships last a lifetime.
When the heat wave hits there’s a cool lake to dive into!
Campfires can’t be beat when shared.
It’s easy to find a quiet place to read a book,
Or a busy place to play with buddies.
Learning how to live with others is essential.
There’s a great sense of accomplishment in learning a new skill
Or in achieving a goal together.
The nights are as spectacular as the days.
But most importantly, every child should have the opportunity to soar!
Looking for answers to your summer camp questions? Check out the summer camp blog !
The Outer Banks in Two Days
You could easily spend a week or a month or a lifetime in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but if you’re driving from Florida to Maine, don’t drive inland—enjoy the Outer Banks! Here is a two day itinerary, from South to North with one night in Buxton.
Advance Planning:
- Book a night in Morehead City, NC. This is the last town with decent lodging before the ferry landing (a one hour drive). The Hampton Inn is good quality and right on the water.
- Book ferry reservations on the morning Cedar Island to Ocracoke Ferry http://www.ncdot.org/ferry/
- Make hotel/motel reservations in Buxton—not a lot to choose from and they fill fast in the summer
- Pack your beach towels and bathing suits!
Day 1: Ferry to Ocracoke, Ferry to Buxton
The drive from Morehead City to the Cedar Island Ferry landing is about 1 hour without traffic. Get to the ferry landing at the time requested or you could lose your spot! The ferry ride itself is about 2 ¼ hours. There are a couple of seats with tables indoors, but these fill immediately. So bring books or games that don’t need much space or spend your time on deck looking for fishing boats.
Ocracoke is a tiny, compact town. Pick up an Ocracoke Island brochure at any North Carolina visitor center (including the one on the island). Stop by the Ocracoke lighthouse. There is only parking for a few cars, so if it’s busy you’ll need to wait. If your kids like pirate stories, they abound in this area. Look for pirate references throughout the islands.
For coffee or cinnamon buns definitely stop by the Ocracoke Coffee Co. Excellent coffee, tasty snacks and comfy indoor and outdoor seating— what more could a coffee shop offer? Pick up sandwiches for a beach picnic at the Sweet Tooth and Fig Tree Bakery or Back Porch Lunchbox.
From Ocracoke drive north to the Ferry to Hatteras, stopping along the way for a picnic and a swim. There are several places to access the beach along route 12, so take a break and enjoy the isolated beaches—few people, lots of sand and surf! There is also the Pony Pens along the drive where you can stop to see descendents of the horses that once roamed the island. The ferry to Hatteras does not require a reservation. It is first come, first serve.
Once in Hatteras you can rent kayaks, head to the beaches or climb the lighthouse. The lighthouse lines can be long. If you go first thing in the morning (tomorrow) you are likely to have less of a wait. If your family enjoys maritime history stop by the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum right by the ferry landing. This very small museum has exhibits on the treacherous waterways along the Outer Banks, shipwrecks and piracy. It also had an exhibit on German subs in World War 2 and the use of air power to sink battleships.
Day 2: Enjoy the National Seashore, Kitty Hawk, Drive North
Start your day early with a visit to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. You can climb the 248 stairs to the top for an excellent view. Stop by the visitor’s center where you can view the binders on moving the light house. Kids and adults will be fascinated by the rail and hydraulic system put in place to move the lighthouse further inland (to protect it from the eroding beach) in 1999.
From the lighthouse continue north on route 12. Again there are plenty of places to stop and enjoy the beaches. For a short walk stop at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. You can and should borrow binoculars from the visitor center there. The bird life is most abundant in the spring and fall migrations and during the cooler morning and evening hours, but you are sure to see egrets even in the middle of the day.
An alternative, or additional, walk takes you to the top of the highest dune east of the Mississippi River in Jockey’s Ridge State Park. The ever shifting sand dunes are great for kite flying, dune jumping and taking in the view. There is also a hang gliding school which offers 3 hour lessons in beginning gliding as well as more advanced lessons.
Just a bit further north on Route 12 is the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Small children will enjoy the Jr. Ranger Program and ALL will enjoy the outstanding talk the rangers give on the first flight. Both the indoor talk which is given frequently and the twice daily outdoor program are thoroughly worth attending.
If you have time for one final stop before leaving the Outer Banks, stop at the visitor center in Kitty Hawk to see the Monument to a Century of Flight. See if your kids can find when Amelia Earhart flew, or the moon landing, or when the U.S. post office established air mail service.
Quite a bit to enjoy in just two days—your family will certainly want to return for a longer visit!
whispers of slavery
"And behind the house is the kitchen and 'slave' quarters," our guide told us, whispering the word 'slave' as if its mere utterance might offend, or worse, in some way impugn the good name of the white descendants of Charleston slave-owners. When I further questioned about the slave quarters and numbers living at the Edmondston-Alston House, it was as if the very white (from the roots of her hair to her pale legs peeking out from below her skirt) docent hadn't heard me.
Then when I asked how a merchant in the 1800s could have 6 children and not even one married, I was met with a cool stare that seemed to say, "we don't talk about that dear," as her lips intoned, "no, none were married. Now notice how the interior shutters could cover the windows to keep out the sunlight."
Her reticence to utter the word slave, let alone discuss the horrendous history of slavery in Charleston stood in sharp contrast to our carriage tour guide, Matt. Matt spoke factually and at length about Charleston's influence on slavery in the United States as one of the first major slave trading ports. He told us how the rich rice merchants made a fortune selling rice to England, then returned to South Carolina via Africa where they loaded their ships with Africans to sell as slaves upon returning to Charleston harbor. He pointed out the barbed ironwork adorning several fences surrounding the majestic entryways to antebellum mansions. Matt claimed that the barbs were there for protection in case of a slave uprising and informed us that the ratio of blacks to whites in Charleston was 2:1 preceding the Civil War. The rice plantation owners, with townhouses in Charleston, lived in constant fear of a slave revolt.
Which historical perspective did each tour guide believe to be an accurate history lesson? Did our historical home tour guide really believe that slavery was an inconsequential element of the town home owned by Charles Alston? It surprises me that nearly 150 years following the Civil War, docents in the south could still have difficulty discussing slavery. For my historical edification, I am thankful that at least some, and possibly most, tour guides are able to honestly present the facts of slavery without resorting to a whisper.
Then when I asked how a merchant in the 1800s could have 6 children and not even one married, I was met with a cool stare that seemed to say, "we don't talk about that dear," as her lips intoned, "no, none were married. Now notice how the interior shutters could cover the windows to keep out the sunlight."
Her reticence to utter the word slave, let alone discuss the horrendous history of slavery in Charleston stood in sharp contrast to our carriage tour guide, Matt. Matt spoke factually and at length about Charleston's influence on slavery in the United States as one of the first major slave trading ports. He told us how the rich rice merchants made a fortune selling rice to England, then returned to South Carolina via Africa where they loaded their ships with Africans to sell as slaves upon returning to Charleston harbor. He pointed out the barbed ironwork adorning several fences surrounding the majestic entryways to antebellum mansions. Matt claimed that the barbs were there for protection in case of a slave uprising and informed us that the ratio of blacks to whites in Charleston was 2:1 preceding the Civil War. The rice plantation owners, with townhouses in Charleston, lived in constant fear of a slave revolt.
Which historical perspective did each tour guide believe to be an accurate history lesson? Did our historical home tour guide really believe that slavery was an inconsequential element of the town home owned by Charles Alston? It surprises me that nearly 150 years following the Civil War, docents in the south could still have difficulty discussing slavery. For my historical edification, I am thankful that at least some, and possibly most, tour guides are able to honestly present the facts of slavery without resorting to a whisper.
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