Car crash friendship

One day in the 1970’s, my wife and three other teachers were driving home from a town north of here.  The entrance to the highway at that point was being repaired.  The final bit of the repair was a bit lower than the roadbed and when the driver tried to leave the entrance ramp, she had to wrench the steering wheel  to overcome the slightly raised edge.  The motion carried the car into the far lane in time to be hit head-on.  

The resulting crash killed the driver on impact.  There were no seat belts in the car but the three passengers survived.  One of the passengers and my wife have had points of contact several times since and have developed a friendship that matters to them both.

It's time!!

I was born itchy and excited for the moment, any moment.  Time to go!  Time to leave!  Time to watch!  (I did have trouble with naps but I have overcome that handicap.)

Being excited for THE moment, whatever it is about, leads to antsy-ness and the problem of being too early, when others aren’t ready.

It was the end

The man I wrote about yesterday did die after some hours of “agonal breathing”, deep intense breathing for hours.  He was a resident in a home for memory care.

Might be the end

Our younger daughter suffered from mental illness.  She was hospitalized in her 40’s.  We visited her there and found her unconscious but breathing hard and rapidly.  The nurse said that she would die soon, that her body had begun breathing at a pace and depth that no body could sustain.  

Lynn’s brother has been in hospice care for a while.  Today, when Lynn went to visit him, she saw that same deep, gasping breathing we had seen in our daughter.

For good health and good mood

I suggest for health and mood, seeing little kids once in a while.  I think there is a natural reaction from adults to little kids, say four or five years old or younger.  I looked up “Is there a natural reaction in adults to little kids” and Open AI returned this:

To understand the natural reactions of adult humans towards little kids, consider the following points:

1. Instinctive Caregiving: Adults often feel a natural urge to protect and nurture children.

2. Empathy Development: Seeing children can trigger empathetic responses, making adults more compassionate.

3. Playfulness: Adults may feel inclined to engage in playful behavior, reflecting a desire to connect.

4. Teaching Instinct: Many adults instinctively want to teach and share knowledge with children.

5. Emotional Bonding: Interactions with kids can evoke feelings of joy and warmth, fostering emotional connections.

Social Responsibility: Adults often feel a sense of duty to guide and support the younger generation.

Stunned

When I was a teen, a girlfriend said I had a stunning body.  Maybe it matters that she said that decades later, working, you know, from memory.

Today, we got some heat.  Heat for us, anyhow.  I put on shorts for the first time this year.  I forgot that I don’t look good wearing shorts with boxer shorts underpants.  I need briefs under shorts.  I had to strip completely.  That girl was right: I have a stunning body.  If a barrel stuns

What is the average?

When I am interested in the “average”, I am usually trying to get a picture of a typical case.  The words average, typical and some synonyms and semi-synonyms are often attempts to get a feeling about a phenomenon.  I was interested in how long people often spend in hospice, a semi-medical service for those thought to be close to death.  

The best book on actual hospice experience I have seen is “The In-Between” by Vlahos, a hospice nurse.  

I wondered how long the typical period between a physician seeing signs that say this patient has 6 months or less to live and that patient actually dying.  The book “How to Lie with Statistics” by Huff makes clear that sets of numbers can be somewhat distorted by, for instance, having a few very high numbers while mostly being numbers that are not high. That same book describes three common measures of “central tendency”: mean, median and mode.  I taught calculation of the “mean”, often called the average, to 5th graders who took the step of adding a set of numbers together to get their sum but often failed to divide the sum by how many figures were in the set.  Doing that gives an average or “mean” for 5, 6 and 7 of 18.   The students didn’t have an adult feeling for “average” or typical. 

Many people placed in hospice care live for a short time while a few live much longer. 

Activities needed

It is the season of the year.  Graduations as well as school concerts both vocal and instrumental.  Plays, games and championships.  But I see there is a big chunk missing.  We have students, sure.  And each year does show they are growing up, passing milestones and making progress.  But what about those who have married and have children?

Don’t think that just because a person has regular employment, you don’t want to see them in action.  We have family members who work at computers, golf courses, investments, and teaching.  We have some retirees.  Wouldn’t it be fun to see them all at their work, solving problems you wouldn’t know what to do with? Quietly, those former members of the cross-country team, those choir soloists have gone to master grown-up skills for which they are paid.  Let’s arrange to visit them doing what they do and get into their worlds!

Beautiful here

 I like to think that every season of the year has its advantages and beauty but spring is easy to like.  With trees developing leaves in striking bright green and flowering trees in colorful blossoms, with clear strong blue sky scattered with extra white clouds, one just has to glance out a window to be distracted and mesmerized.  True, we are subject to mosquito hordes after a little of our blood, strong winds and stubborn cold.  We do have sandy soil that allows extra water to drain but sometimes it drains too quickly.

Stop reading my mind

Google keeps reading my mind.  Before the deluge of comments and information about artificial intelligence, I often found valuable suggestions and angles in the published inquiries other people had made.  Related questions and searches often suggested to me interesting angles and related searches and questions.  

But now I sometimes get annoyed by Google or my computer reading my mind.  I can’t get a search or question completely typed before the question on my mind is supplied by digital forces.  Who should I complain to about brain invasion?