Friday, June 19, 2009

2nd year mammogram is fine!


I celebrated by watching Penn and Teller's Bullshit show on "Breasts"

Sunday, June 14, 2009

reading Mrs. Gaskell


The Kindle has changed my reading habits. I cannot resist the brand new $9.99 "hardcovers". But all the great Victorians are available for free or a few dollars. So I've downloaded all of the Brontes and Mrs. Gaskell, big hunks of Dickens and Trollope, and good old Wilkie Collins. I read some of this treasure trove every day.

Right now I'm thinking Mrs. Gaskel is the best of the lot. None of her characters are carictatures. She is so respectful of the people, servants and masters and tradesmen alike, while plying her wicked humor everywhere. She does food even better than Dickens and has pelnty to say about clothes and furniture.

Carol Shields was writing about Jane Austen when she said, "the true subject of serious fictin is not 'current events', on-going wars or polictical issues, but the search of an individual for his or her own true home". I'm fond of Jane, but I prefer Elizabeth.

And Cranford is everyone's own true home. I think of Brendan Behan reading this "very comfortable class of a book" in his borstal cell at the age of sixteen. Lingering over the description of the cherry brandy.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

nothing good can possible come of this


I haven't seen "Nurse Jackie" yet but all the reviews make this show sound like the best thing that ever happened to nursing. There is the problem that the lead character is addicted to prescription drugs, takes them a work every day, and trades sex for drugs with a pharmacist. And I should be grateful to Showtime for having a nurse in a feature role?

Then there is another new nursing show (I've forgotten the title already) starring Jada Pinkett Smith. I see from the promos that she is a "chief nurse executive". The promo, of course, features her doing CPR in the ER. I hate to bring this up, but it doesn't take eight years of college to learn CPR. It is taught to anyone off the street in three hours. I would like to see this character do something really hard, like face a federal inspector, negotiate with the nurses union, or approach the medical staff about an abusive and dangerous physician.