Word of the day: Paradigm\PAIR-uh-dyme\ noun: *1 : example, pattern; especially: an outstanding example or archetype. 2 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline.
"Common sense often makes good law!" William O. Douglas, Jurist
Last week, my neighbor Ms. Wilson and I were discussing our property boundaries. I wanted to plant some
Word of the day: Job's Comforter\JOHBZ-KUM-fer-ter\ noun: a person who discourages or depresses while seemingly giving comfort and consolation.
"No revenge is more honorable than the one not taken!" Spanish Proverb
Last week, my neighbor Ms. Wilson and I were discussing our property boundaries. I wanted to plant some Crepe Myrtles and wanted to consult with her prior to planting the trees to ensure I didn't inadvertently plant the trees on her property; both for present and future neighborly good relations.
Without my asking, Ms Wilson proffered a plat of the entire Autumn Ridge Subdivision having each lot marked with their boundaries, selling prices, as well as an attached official realtor communication on letterhead with the selling prices of the two original houses here prior to this ever being a subdivision. The two original houses were the yellow brick house and its "guest house" (my present home) with their "asking" 1985 prices.
I purchased my house in 2002 for flat ASKING PRICE. I didn't blink an eye at the price with no other offers on the table to the seller. In 1985, the previous owner of my home paid a little less than the asking price of it noted on the realtor letter Ms. Wilson gave me. During the time between 1985 and 2002, my home underwent significant upgrades. When I purchased this house in 2002 the information on this letter showed that I paid the previous owner less than $10,000 more than what they paid.
To me this is an egregious wrong. I sure hope I don't learn more details about this, or that another realtor had suggested the price. I wish I had the resources to correct this wrong to the eldery lady I bought my home from. This is sad.
Word of the day: anomaly\uh-NAH-muh-lee\ noun: 1 : the angular distance of a planet from its perihelion as seen from the sun. 2 : deviation from the common rule : irregularity
*3 : something anomalous : something different, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified
"Wisdom is hte reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk!" Doug Larson
NASCAR
Word of the day: anomaly\uh-NAH-muh-lee\ noun: 1 : the angular distance of a planet from its perihelion as seen from the sun. 2 : deviation from the common rule : irregularity
*3 : something anomalous : something different, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified
"Never measure your generosity by what you have given, but rather by what you have left" Fulton J. Sheen, Clergyman
NASCAR
Word of the day: pariah\puh-RYE-uh\ noun: 1 : a member of a low caste of southern India. *2 : one that is despised or rejected : outcast.
"Compassion of oneself is the most powerful healer of them all." Theodore Isaac Rubin, Psychiatrist and writer
NASCAR brings to Bristol some really interesting people. A very welcome mix of everyone. Probably the most populous of that group of NASCAR fans is the stereotypical redneck. This morning I was in the Food City buying some groceries and I turned down the snack food aisle and low and behold there was a redneck in the Food City browsing the Little Debbie snack cakes talking on her bluetooth connected cell phone. The image was moving to see a redneck with a Jabra headset stuck in her ear talking Jerry Springer on the phone right there in front of Little Debbie!
Word of the day: consequential\kahn-suh-KWEN-shul\ adjective: 1 : of the nature of a secondary result : indirect. 2 : following as a result or effect : consequent. *3 : having significant consequences : important.
"We have two ears, but only one mouth, so that we may listen more and talk less." Zeno, Philosopher
It
Word of the day: lampoon\lam-POON\ verb: to make the subject of a lampoon : ridicule.
"Age is like love, it cannot be hidden."
Here are some photos of the houses on my street.
Word of the day: dunnage\DUN-ij\ noun: *1 : loose materials used to support and protect cargo in a ship's hold; also : padding in a shipping container. 2 : baggage.
"The secret of human happiness is not in self seeking but in self-forgetting." Theodor Belk, Psychoanalyst
It was nice to have Charlie and my brother Jeff over for dinner last night. I made Grilled Halibut with Mango-Pineapple Salsa, Asparagus and Steamed Potatoes and Corn on the cob; fresh from the garden. Charlie brought some of his home-grown country tomatoes and I made a sliced Tomato salad with Feta, Olive Oil and Rice Vinegar. For dessert, we had banana pudding as a special request - the kind made from scratch.
Word of the day: curfew\KER-fyoo\ noun: *1 : a regulation requiring the withdrawal of specified persons from the streets or the closing of business establishments at a stated hour. 2 : a signal to announce the beginning of a curfew. 3 a : the hour at which a curfew becomes effective b : the period during which a curfew is in effect.
"Theories: What people have about raising children until they actually have children." Joe Heuer, Humorist and speaker
I've been piddling around my house here in Bristol for the last few weeks and its beginning to come to life and is looking good. Yesterday, I was able to get my windows washed and freon put in my central air. I'd been putting it off until a point where there were fewer more pressing matters.
Word of the day: tortuous\TOR-chuh-wus\ adjective: *1 : marked by repeated twists, bends, or turns : winding. 2 a : marked by devious or indirect tactics : crooked, tricky b : circuitous, involved.
"Life is an adventure in forgiveness." Norman Cousins, Editor and writer
I made a homemade banana pudding (a.k.a. "monkey puke" as Chris used to refer to it); all from scratch. This is something that I make that everyone loves and so do I. I also made a half-assed (city attempt) at making a meal I grew up on -- brown beans, relish, sliced tomatoes, cole slaw, and corn muffins. Not all that was made from scratch. I've just been craving a good home-made country meal for so long that I succumbed and made a less than preferred attempt at it. But remember, I've done it single-handedly.
Oh, by the way, anyone wanting to get me a Christmas gift...here's what I want!
It can be found at your local WalMart in their hunting department. Its "Buck" the animated talking/singing deer head.
Word of the day: tortuous\TOR-chuh-wus\ adjective: *1 : marked by repeated twists, bends, or turns : winding. 2 a : marked by devious or indirect tactics : crooked, tricky b : circuitous, involved.
"Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime "let out all the length of the reins." Mary Cholmondeley, Writer
I
Word of the day: tortuous\TOR-chuh-wus\ adjective: *1 : marked by repeated twists, bends, or turns : winding. 2 a : marked by devious or indirect tactics : crooked, tricky b : circuitous, involved.
"Look upon every day as the whole of life, not merely as a section; and enjoy and improve the present without wishing, through haste, to rush on to another." Jean Paul Richter, Writer and humorist
I
Word of the day: apex\AY-peks\ noun: 1 a : the uppermost point : vertex b : the narrowed or pointed end : tip. *2 : the highest or culminating point.
"Spring is nature's way of saying, "Lets Party!" Robin Williams, Comedian and actor
I slept very poorly last night. My wrist was excrusiatingly painful.
Word of the day: saccade \sak-KAHD\ noun: a small rapid jerky movement of the eye especially as it jumps from fixation on one point to another (as in reading).
"If a flower blooms once, it goes on blooming somewhere forever. It blooms on for whoever has seen it blooming." William H. Armstrong, Sounder
I went to see the doctor yesterday about my medical issue. He was alarmed at first as it appeared to him as something that may require immediate surgery. He did an ultrasound first and found it to only be an infection which could be treated by an antibiotic. That relieved us both.
Those doctors at Georgetown have to be among some of the most beautiful men in the medical profession.
I suppose I spoke too fast. I was just outside piddling around. I lost my balance; fell and broke my wrist. Just what I needed, LOVELY!
Word of the day: discomfit \diss-KUM-fit\ verb: 1 : to frustrate the plans of : thwart
*2 : to put into a state of perplexity and embarrassment : disconcert.
"Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained." Arthur Somers Roche, Novelist and playwright
In just a few minutes, I'll begin my drive back to DC. Hopefully, I'll be able to see one of my doctors at Georgetown University. I'm very nervous that this problem with my health will be serious eventhough I'm not rushing to judgment by self-diagnosing. However, I do know what I've read online and from all the different types of diagnoses it could be, it is more and more like the one which is most serious. I hope not.
Word of the day: ambivalent\am-BIV-uh-lunt\ adjective: *1 : simultaneously holding contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward someone or something. 2 a : continually fluctuating (as between one thing and its opposite) b : uncertain as to which approach to follow.
"We are living at a time when humankind can face whatever threatens it only if we, by which I mean each of us, manage to revive, with new energy and a new ethos, a sense of responsibility for the rest of the world." Vaclav Havel, Czech President and playwright
Today, for the first time since I've known him; I went to visit Charlie at his home in East Tennessee. I took Rhabi along with me and he seemed to enjoy the visit equally as much as I did. Rhabi got to see chickens, turkeys, and sniff smells he'd probably never smelled before. He even got to pee and poo in Charlies yard. In a couple of ways, the visit with Charlie at his home brought back a number of childhood memories; picking tomatoes and vegetables out of a regular full-sized garden designed to support a family and its need for summer vegetables AND winter canned vegetables. We picked fresh off the vine tomatoes which Charlie gave to me. They are so good. He had chickens, turkeys, vegetables, fruit trees, etc. All the things I grew up with on the farm back in Mendota, VA. Charlie showed me all the vegetables he had canned for the upcoming winter. They looked really great and tasty too! He gave me a sample of his green tomato pickles. They tasted just like this relish my grandmother used to make and I've not had since years before her passing in 1991.
I really appreciate Charlie giving me the vegetables and inviting me to his place. It was great to visit him there. He always comes to Bristol to visit me. Primarily the reason being is due to my ichtiophobia. He did cover his fishtank and I was OK.
As we were leaving, Rhabi didn't want to go. He was most excited about visiting Charlie.
Thank you Charlie.
Word of the day: dithyramb\DITH-ih-ram\ noun: 1 : a usually short poem in an inspired wild irregular strain. *2 : a statement or writing in an exalted or enthusiastic vein.
"Do not pursue skills, technique will follw the idea. The idea will find technique, it is included in the real gift." Bernard Leach, Potter
The other night, just after I'd seemingly got my computer all back to normal, an electrical storm came through in Bristol and fried EVERYTHING connected to my computer - from cable modem/wireless router to the computer. So here I am today at the Bristol, VA public library adding a blog entry. This is my first time in the new library. Damn, its beautiful and there was some MEGABUCKS spent on it too.
I remember back in the day when this was the "cruising" area for Bristol. I've met a number of hot men cruising these city streets.
Word of the day: sempiternal\sem-pih-TER-nul\ • adjective : of never-ending duration : eternal
"People who live in glass houses have to answeer the doorbell." Bruce Patterson
'The most wonderful thing that ever happened to Mendota' about to be shut down
BY DEBRA McCOWN
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
MENDOTA – Tiffany Rhymer doesn’t want to have to find another doctor.
"They don’t even treat you as a patient. They treat you as a friend," she said of the staff at Mendota Medical Center.
"When you come in, they know your name," she said, "and they don’t even have to open up that book to know what you’re here for."
The clinic, with three examination rooms and four paid staff, serves people who otherwise would have to drive 45 minutes to get care.
It’s been called the most wonderful thing that ever happened to Mendota.
And it’s about to be shut down.
Wellmont Health System, a hospital group that has operated the clinic since 1998, announced this week the clinic’s doors would close on Sept. 15.
Wellmont officials declined comment but released a statement blaming the closure on "low patient volumes and significant operating losses."
The news sent community leaders scrambling to find someone else to run the clinic. Residents worry no one will.
"There's a lot of older people that uses it that don’t have transportation to town," said Robert Johnson, who carries the mail in the community northwest of Bristol.
Joyce "Maggie" Baker said the staff at the clinic took care of her husband when he had lung cancer and couldn’t travel to the hospital.
They made house calls so she could keep her mother out of a nursing home. They also made sure her grandson could have his finger sewn back on when he cut it off accidentally.
For Charlene Clark, the clinic could have meant the difference between life and death.
When she had a heart attack, the clinic gave her the medicine she needed to stop the attack before she went to a hospital, she said.
"Had it not been there, who knows what would have happened?" she said.
"They closed the school down." she said. "(If) they close the clinic down, Mendota don’t have nothin’."
Mendota, an unincorporated community of about 2,200 people lies nestled between Clinch Mountain and what locals call Little Clinch Mountain beside the North Fork of the Holston River.
Before the clinic opened, 80-year-old Mendota native Edith Benfield said, the community hadn’t had a doctor since she was a child.
Benfield, who works as an office assistant at the clinic, said community members take such pride in it that they plant flowers outside, pull weeds and haul the garbage away for free.
If something needs done, she need only ask, she said.
It was the community that came together to build the clinic after a survey in the mid-1990s showed a need for healthcare here.
With the help of grant money and Wellmont, which signed a 10-year contract, the clinic opened in 1998.
"We are a unique clinic here. We are not like a doctor’s office in town," said Sue Cressel, the nurse practitioner who opened the clinic eight years ago and now serves about 1,000 patients. "We see a lot of real family medicine here, and we get involved with what their problems are."
As nurse practitioner Cressel becomes involved in everything from counseling to dental care to diabetes training.
Every year, the clinic holds a fundraiser to pay for medication for those who can’t afford it.
"We can’t see 20 or 30 patients a day like they might do in town because we do more than just see the patients," Cressel said. "If the clinic leaves, that would take away the one thing that really the community supports as a whole."
Medical students from East Tennessee State University see patients every Wednesday along with a doctor and resident physician.
"The sense of family here is so awesome," said Dr. Ana Restrepo, a senior resident. "They’re really appreciative of what we do here.
"It would be nice of the people making the decision ... would come and see what goes on here instead of just looking at pieces of paper with numbers on them."
Eddie George was president and CEO ofWellmont when the clinic opened.
"Knowing the people making the decision, I know it was a tough decision," he said.
But putting a lot of money into a clinic to keep it afloat "takes dollars away from being able to support the community in which there is a hospital."
Cressel, the nurse practitioner, disagreed, saying the clinic makes money for Wellmont when it sends patients to other Wellmont facilities, including Bristol Regional Medical Center, for care.
"Wellmont’s view on that was that they probably would have captured that revenue anyway by people being seen in other clinics," she said.
Louetta Canter, president of the Mendota Community Association, said she has asked Wellmont officials for more time to find someone else to run the clinic but hasn’t received an answer.
"Wellmont is so big," she said. "It’s such a little community and a little area that we are just not that important to them."
