Pat Bean's blog

            A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.  It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy.  ~Edward P. Morgan

What Kind of a Reader are You?

The Heron, one of the Nazca Lines, which is a geoglyph. — Wikipedia Photo

            When I read fiction, I want good writing, and the characters, the setting, and the plot to engage me fully – and if I come across a word whose meaning stumps me, I usually just give it my guess and move on.

            But when I read non-fiction, I savor the words, and quickly turn to a dictionary – albeit these days an online one instead of the thick book I always had at the ready before the days of the Internet – when an unfamiliar word or name pops up.

            Two popped up this morning, the first – geoglyphs – as I was reading Sara Wheeler’s “Travels in a Thin Country: A journey through Chile.”

             Now I know what petroglyphs are but I had never heard the term geoglyphs, which I found in this sentence: “We passed geoglyphs of men and animals, carved into the hillsides by some wandering tribe, centuries before the accursed Spaniards appeared on the continent.”

The sentence itself gave me a clue about the meaning, but I wanted more specifics. And here’s what I found: Geoglyphs are large works of art made from stones or dirt that are arranged in a landscape. Examples given of geoglyphs were the Nazca Lines in Peru and the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, which I recently blogged about for American Profile’s online presence —  http://blogs.americanprofile.com/big-horn-medicine-wheel/ — without using the term.

            My wondering-wandering mind was satisfied with the answer and went back to reading the travel book.

            Later in the morning, as I catching up on my e-mail and reading one of the blogs to which I’m subscribed, I came across an unknown name. The author mentioned the artist Naum Gabo. I had never heard of him, and so I again turned to the Internet — Honesty, I don’t know how I survived before this information highway came into being.

            Naum Gabo, I learned, was born Naum Neemia Pevsner in Russia in 1890. He changed his name to Gabo, and is best known as a sculpture involved in the constructivism movement and as a pioneer in kinetic art. Perhaps you’ve heard of him – but I hadn’t. And I found the Wikipedia short biography of his life fascinating.

            So what stops you in your tracks when you’re reading?

            Bean’s Pat: Failure is not an option http://tinyurl.com/lhltoea Something to keep in mind.

            “I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.” E.M. Forster

When these elephants got out of the water, the mother faced off with us. Our Tanzania guide had parked our land rover too close, the mother had decided, and was warning us not to harm her babies. — Photo by Pat Bean

Understaffed Weekend Emergency Room 

            A child in pain is something mothers all over the world dread, regardless the age of their child. But life is not fair, and facing such a situation happens to most mothers at one time or another.

            As a reporter covering the medical beat, I’ve watched, without blinking, an open-heart surgery and a brain surgery. Yet, watching a doctor put stitches in one of my sons after an accident had me passing out. I would have fallen on the floor if the doctor hadn’t noticed and told the nurse to catch me.

            This past Saturday, I found myself standing by my youngest daughter, who was in the most pain I’ve even seen a human suffer. And the emergency room’s understaffed personnel were dinking around – until finally I turned into a screaming demon.

            It was the right time and I have no regrets.

            It had been well over three hours, and they still hadn’t given my daughter something to ease the pain, or read her charts (or even listened to her husband) to know that she had been suffering for over three weeks and couldn’t even hold a sip of water down.         

            After my tantrum, they finally gave her something to ease the pain and admitted her to the hospital where she got the attention she deserved.

            While her neurologist is still trying to put all the pieces together to find out the cause of her problem, she is being kept as comfortable as possible.

             A blood test showed that one result of her not being able to eat was that her body was starving itself to death – which makes me wish I had screamed even louder at the emergency room doctor, who initially saw her for a couple of minutes, suggested prescribing some pain pills and sending her home – and then disappeared and didn’t’ appear again until I turned into a demon. 

            Having been to an emergency room a time or two myself, and personally knowing what these doctors charge for seeing a patient for two minutes (a charge which is separate from whatever the hospital charges) infuriates me even more.

            While we’ve made tremendous medical advances in the ability to treat patients, doctors seem to have taken backward steps. Even my own personal doctor of 30 years disappointed me a couple of years ago when I went to him with neck and shoulder pain. He said it was just old age creeping up on me, and I would have to live with it.

            My oldest daughter suggested I visit her doctor for a second opinion. I did and he prescribed physical therapy, which eliminated 90 percent of the problem within two weeks, and which is now 100 percent better.

            So I’m not lumping all doctors in the same box. Some have kept up with the times and some do truly care. It’s just that I’ve come into contact with too many lately who seem to care more about money then people.  

            I ask myself the question, why was there only one doctor on call in a big city emergency room? Was it because the hospital was cheap or because the doctor wanted all the patients – and money – for himself?

            Whichever, I’m perfecting my Demon Mother act in case an encore performance is needed.  

            Bean’s Pat:  Let’s Dance http://tinyurl.com/m3bsp3k  I needed a bit of Mother Nature to get my blood pressure back down where it belongs. This helped.

    “Just when you’re beginning to think pretty well of people, you run across someone who puts sugar on sliced tomatoes.” – Will Cuppy

I Was Determined to Identify the Culprits 

Plain gray and white juveniles. — Photo by Pat Bean

           I hung a nectar feeder for hummingbirds from the roof of my third-floor balcony. The hummingbirds came, but then so did a flock of birds that clearly weren’t hummers.

I’ve had orioles drink from my hummingbird feeders, but these clearly weren’t orioles. They were tiny things, which from inside my living room, through a glass door and a screen, appeared non-descript.

I suspected they were some species of warbler, but didn’t know which one.

Yesterday, I decided to find out. Going outside and watching through my binoculars, I saw several of the gray and white birds gather around the feeder, and then a slightly larger one landed. It was an adult with a yellow head and a rust-colored splotch on its shoulder that immediately let me know I was looking at a verdin.

But when a more colorful adult landed, I finally knew my nectar thief was a verdin. — Photo by Pat Bean

I had only seen one other, and that was during a guided bird tour just south of Tucson. According to the range map, their North American habitat only extends to the southern portions of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Neither my guidebook, nor the Cornell Univesity bird website, mentioned anything about verdins, which are a member of the tit family, drinking from human nectar feeders. Wikipedia, however, mentioned that they sometimes go for the dried sugar crusted on a feeder.

Well I want to tell you, that my verdins are drinking the sugar water just like the hummingbirds. And they scrabble with both their own species and hummers for a choice spot on the feeder.

Have I discovered a new bird behavior?

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Birding in Peru http://tinyurl.com/q2hwe5g More birds for those of us who are crazy about these fantastic winged creatures.