Views From My Office Window

I'm a Home Hospice RN and I spend all day
driving around rural Oregon.
This is what I see from my window.
~ Keith

White Christmas 2007

~ Keith

Merry Keysmas

At 4pm Pacific Time today, recorded in Marion County, Oregon: Keith & Cathy Seckel are the new owners of a spacious home with an even more spacious yard. Address change cards are forthcoming.

Merry Christmas indeed!

~ Keith

I'm Old

When I was two years old, I had surgery on my right eye (that's OD for those who care) and I wore a patch for awhile -- over my good eye, to strengthen the weaker one. I've worn glasses ever since then.

Yesterday I passed a milemarker: I got old: I now wear bifocals.

The cool thing is, I don't mind. I like the idea of getting older -- I am finally starting to feel like an adult (at least on the outside). It is a new adventure in every part of my life: driving, reading, walking down stairs, anything that involves my eyes.

~ Keith

Readability

Saw this over at Lynda's blog and decided to check it out.

Get a Cash Advance

I don't know if I should be bummed that my writing is so juvenile, or happy that my blog is so readable.

I guess I'll choose the latter.

~ Keith

Gossamer

Washing dishes
Tiny spots of food
Stick to the plate
Jet nozzles blast fiercely
Water drops mercilessly pelt
And
Stuff stays stuck
Yet
Ever-so-lightly touching it
Single fingertip barely brushing
WHOOSH
Away it goes

I wonder

How can something so tough
So resilient
Be
At the same time,
So very fragile?

Autumn's rainy arrival
Spiders' webbed bridges everywhereWinds blow fiercely
Large drops mercilessly pelt
And
Gossamer strands
Hold firm
Yet
Ever-so-lightly touching it
Fingertips barely brushing
WHOOSH
Away it goes

Still I wonder

How can something so tough
So resilient
Be
At the same time,
So very fragile?

Two Hospice admissions
Two patients so similar
Family dynamics blow fiercely
Disease symptoms mercilessly pelt
And
Two gossamer lives
Hold firm
Yet
Ever-so-lightly touching it
Divine Fingertips barely brushing
And
WHOOSH
One life goes away
But
Temporarily
Miraculously
One life lingers

Again I wonder

How something
So very fragile
Can
At the same time
Be
So unbelievably tough
So amazingly resilient?

~ Keith

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

Crackberry

My job as a Home Hospice Nurse has me driving all over the boonies in Polk County, Oregon. All of the 100+ folks on staff here carry a Blackberry 7250, and we are constantly in communication via eMail -- I get around 40-50 eMails a day on it, and I'm new here, so it will go up as I get more busy.

It is also my work cell phone, and our company has an unlimited data plan, so my Blackberry also carries my gMail, Google Maps, Google News, and Google Search apps, plus access to WeatherUnderground and 2 push-messages a day from AccuWeather. Yes, I'm a geek, but it is also handy to know what weather to expect as I am driving around in it all -- especially as the rains have now hit hard, and winter is still over two months away.

It is really nice to be out and about in a new area, and have the world at my fingertips. As such, I now use it even when I am off duty. I have become "that guy" with the holster on his belt. No, I have not stooped to wearing black socks with white tennis shoes or wearing a belt with shorts -- and I've never worn socks with sandals.

But I am now gloriously, hideously, happily addicted to having it with me at all times.

It is, indeed, my Crackberry.

~ Keith