L'aventure américaine

Can you imagine waking up in the hospital? You wake up and everyone knows your name, they know your family members' names, they know what your job is. They insist that it is 4 months after what you know it to be. There are signs around saying who and where you are, but you have no idea why you're there. I can't even imagine how frightening this would be. I have a huge respect for my patient, who I'm spending the day with, who wakes up about every 10 minutes and has no idea what's happening (i.e. he has no short-term memory). He rarely gets angry and has only been mad at me once (when he is angry, it's more at the situation than at a person). I hope that if anything like this ever happens to me, I have the grace to be a relatively sweet, confused person as opposed to a mean, disgruntled one.

This video was sent around during the primaries here in Indiana and elsewhere and I think many Obama supporters saw it. However, I believe that we might need a refresher in hope. We've stopped using "Hope" because somehow, this slogan has become trite in this election, but isn't it more true than ever? Isn't hope the reason that we always vote? I don't know when hope became a slogan for the naive, but it is this hope that allows me to maintain faith in this country that, despite faltering, holds so much potential. Yes We Can.

A few weekends ago we had a typical Greene County weekend. Except that it wasn't so typical anywhere, except maybe 1920. Mackenzie, Ivan, Art Boy and I all headed down to my parent's and divided the sexes. Mackenzie, Mom and I stayed inside all day making pies (eight, I think). The boys headed out, harvesting apples for the pies, went spelunking in the cave, went swimming in the pond and drank beer, chopped wood, and played basketball. We reunited for a Jochim chicken and fruits of my parents' garden. Of course, we ended the meal with some incredibly fresh, incredibly delicious apple pie. Obviously, we enjoyed it.

So, I had a slight meltdown this week and I have to laugh at how dramatic I am. And what a baby I am. Especially on little sleep. My friend, Tony, just finished his Marines camp (SEARS training or something like that), in which he doesn't get to eat or sleep for several days in a row. He told me that he went 60 hours with no sleep and had something like a 1/2 apple to eat. He said he was amazed at what his body could do and how he bonded with his fellow Marines. I, however, with plenty to eat and averaging about five hours of sleep a night, started crying when I got an "Out of Office" reply from the woman who makes our schedule, which meant that I would have to work a full 12 hour shift instead of an 8 hour shift. I guess this finally proves it... I'm not cut out for the Marines. Damn. I have been working quite a bit and while my job is so much more enjoyable than my last job was (I got the woman who yelled, 'F*** you' to me one day to really like me t