Little Dorrit & Friends

Almost one week together, all the dogs get along. Little Dorrit's hiney is almost better so she is very playful.

Indian silver

Birthday presents for the girls. The Humming birds were made by Vera Wolff of Crownpoint NM.  The stones I got from Santa Fe Market. Beautiful work.

Corn Smut

I love this stuff! Here is wikipedia's entry:

 Corn smut is a disease of maize caused by the pathogenic plant fungus Ustilago maydis. U. maydis causes smut disease onmaize (Zea mays) and teosinte (Euchlena mexicana). Known in Mexico as huitlacoche, it is eaten, usually as a filling inquesadillas and other tortilla-based foods. 

Virginia Tech has more infor: http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/450/450-706/450-706.html

Here is a recipe to try. I even found one for Corn Smut ice cream. Goya had canned corn fungus which might be worth trying. 

Cuitlacoche with Corn and Zucchini
2 tablespoons of safflower, peanut or olive oil
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
½ medium onion finely chopped
2 ears of corn - shucked
1 ½ pounds of maize mushrooms
10 leaves of fresh sage lightly chopped
2 chile poblanos - roasted, seeded and peeled
4 small zucchinis thinly sliced

Saute the garlic and onion until transparent. Add the corn and zucchini until slightly soft. Add the Maize Mushroom and fresh sage until mixture is well blended and liquid is evaporated. Add salt to taste. Garnish with Chile poblano. This recipe can be used as a wonderful filling for an egg dish.

Another photo of sunglasses

Finally here after waiting a month for them. I didn't get the bifocal so price was reduced quite a bit. It give me something to bitch about instead of feeling anxious about work, or traffic or life. Thank you Perfect Optical for my half blind time here in Alberquerque..I love them. I can see again. It was worth the wait.

Done with Medical Ethics Class ..Kant say how HAPPY I am

Done with my 6 week online class today. LOL I drove through floods, dust storms, tornado clusters and cattle yards studying Mills, Kant, Aquinas and the rest. I don't think it made any difference in my grade that I was confronted by true suffering and the abstract thought of western culture. Suffering still makes no sense, whether it is animals or humans, and there is no reason behind it, no lesson to be learned, and no life force directing it. Luck might be the only thing I acknowledge. I just wrote what my professor wanted to read and let it go that there was any meaning behind it. If someone brags to me how they loved philosophy and got good grades etc, I know they are just plain stupid.

cracked windshield and new dog

Tough weekend again with a trip up north to Santa Fe. Fires, smoke and ash filled the air. A Stone went through my windshield and I rescued a small dog. It was so impacted with feces on it's fur it looked like a 2nd head. Little Dorrit is her name now, and she is doing much better now.

Summary of New Health Reform Law ... interesting reading

I wanted to post this summary here because 1. I had to read it for ethics, 2. I hear so much about Obamacare, 3. I now can disregard what I hear about Obamacare,it the stuff of urban legends and I think someone made it up.
So here it is, Focus on Health Reform: Summary of New Health Reform Law

.http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8061.pdf
What I like so far is that people under 65, but qualify for medicare can receive it. So the we don't have this strange medical class structure any more.
Big pharma, insurances companies , etc, have to pay taxes on their profits, which would support the program. Tax the extremely rich corporations. Robin Hood thought that was a good idea, and it worked well in pre Great Britain.
I post more after I've done my homework.

Before and After

Now you see them, now you don't. Look at the before picture and notice the Sandia mountains in the background. Now look at the 2nd shot, where the smoke from the fire has wiped them out.  We also got ash  falling from the sky that night, which hurt our eyes and gave me a headache.

Shower with a black widow spider

I found this black widow spider in the shower with me this morning. I carefully tried to carry it outside, wearing a towel,  on a wash cloth only to find it was not there. On my return to the bathroom, who was waiting for me on the wall. She does look nice on the green wall, but I'm not thrilled.
If bitten, here are a few things I can look forward to:
The danger of being bitten by a Black Widow is that the victim most likely will not feel it. However, there are some symptoms to look for, which may include but not be limited to: abdominal pains, sore muscles, especially on the feet, a dry mouth and paralyzed diaphragm, excessive sweating, and swollen eyelids. If a Black Widow spider bites somebody they should seek medical attention immediately. The victim is usually given antivenin or calcium gluconate.
Sounds like I'd better find her before she finds me.

Shower with a black widow spider

I found this black widow spider in the shower with me this morning. I carefully tried to carry it outside, wearing a towel,  on a wash cloth only to find it was not there. On my return to the bathroom, who was waiting for me on the wall. She does look nice on the green wall, but I'm not thrilled.
If bitten, here are a few things I can look forward to:
The danger of being bitten by a Black Widow is that the victim most likely will not feel it. However, there are some symptoms to look for, which may include but not be limited to: abdominal pains, sore muscles, especially on the feet, a dry mouth and paralyzed diaphragm, excessive sweating, and swollen eyelids. If a Black Widow spider bites somebody they should seek medical attention immediately. The victim is usually given antivenin or calcium gluconate.
Sounds like I'd better find her before she finds me.

Alamo Navajo Reservation

the Alamo Navajo reservation is about 2 hours southwest of Albuquerque. The clinic serves about 2000 people, in an isolated community, which has a heliport for critical patients. It is one of the older clinics but still very nice and large inside. I only took photos of the front entrance because that is all I had permission to take. Alamo has a wonderful health center which includes a rock climbing wall. They use a state of the art diagnostic tool call the polar, which belongs in all clinics. http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/ It keeps track and measures just about everything in your body. I'll see if I can't put more up later.

Excellent fence

I like the fences I see all round New Mexico. If you look at the photos of the Sandias above, you see these stick like fences. I'm posting a photo of a Buddhist Nun's fensc, where there is a plain iron structure faces with these sticks. I love it.

Arizona Fire smoke out Albuquerque

For the past week. Albuquerque has been choked up with smoke, so thick that we joked it was like standing on the wrong side of the campfire. I'm putting up some beautiful photos of the Sandias, taken from the Sandia Reservation. The mountains should be a crisp as the foreground, but instead look like the Mohawk river valley mountains.

15 minute drying time

How dry is it here? It takes about 15 minutes to dry things out on the clothes line on a sunny day. (Which is everyday)

Old Pawn Jewelry @ 100 years old

This is a Navajo necklace which is about 100 years old. I bought it from a woman who was in the State Department on the Navajo Reservations for over 50 years. She held this necklace as a pawn for a navajo person, and it was never redeemed. It was common practice for white people on the Res to practice pawning with the natives as that there was no banking system available to them. It wasn't just drinking money that was needed, but necessities of life. The woman I bought this from told me that is was a very old necklace when she acquired it, and that was over 60 years ago.  So 100 years is a conservative guess.

Old Pawn Jewelry

Out here, Old Pawn Jewelry is a highly sought after form of Indian jewelry. The story goes that when one needed money they would pawn it, and sometimes not be able to redeem it in the required amount of time. One can only imagine the trickery involved. Oh well, I bought the fetish necklace from an divorcing couple estate sale for @ $10.00. A new form of Pawning...estate sales that is. It was made by the Santa Domingo Pueblo, which is served by the Santa Fe office of the IHS.

All the little animals and colors have meanings that date back centuries. I really don't know how old this necklace is, but the silver is old looking on the clasp.

Husband's birthday gift

This is for W. It is a landscape of New Mexico by a buddhist nun who was getting rid of "things". It is of the Rio Grande, with the spots of nature in it. Trees, bushes, clouds and mountain all seem to be made up of separate dots out here.

Santa Ana Pueblo Field Clinic

Santa Ana Pueblo Clinic is another clinic in the Albuquerque service unit. I should be going there also as an Extern in the next few week. The first photo is the clinic, the 2nd photo is showing tribal offices, which create a streetscape in Santa Ana. This Pueblo, like the others are settlements that date back to the early 1100's.  They built buildings which were about two stories high 2 centuries later. Each Pueblo has been culturally distinct from one another even though Santa Ana , Zia, Sandia Pueblos are close together.

Zia Pueblo Health Clinic story

I had permission to photograph the two clinics, the new one and the old one, from the former governor  of the Zia Pueblo. A Governor, as I understand it, is the head of the pueblo for one year. I saw photographs of former governors in the pueblo headquarters. Anyway, he told me the story the new clinic, that it had been a lifetime quest for him, since he was a small child.
The F G (former Governor) told me that when he was a small child that he would have to stand outside in a line, rain, snow, heat etc, waiting to go into a small one room sod building. It could only hold the doctor, a nurse and the patient it was so small. Later in the 60's, the old new clinic was built. It was a vast improvement, but very small inside, I wonder if 10 people total could fit inside it. So, from the 60's on, the FG worked at getting grants, applications, plans, and who knows what other road blocks, most likely racial prejudice against the one of the smallest, the one of the poorest, and most traditional of the pueblos. Persistence overcame power and money, and a new clinic was built last year, (2010).

Zia Pueblo Health Clinic

 Here is a photo of the new Zia Health Clinic, which is about 3 times larger than the old one shown below.

At this clinic many services are provided. the designed team, consisting of one's health care team, come out to the clinic a number of times a week. As my assignment as a Nursing Assistant, which includes taking vitals, screening for depression, suicide, family violence, activity levels, diabetic concerns, tobacco use and exposure,plus medical history, history of chief complaint, review vaccination records, needs for Pap mammal grams, etc, drawing blood and compilation of Chief Complaint for the Doctor. Whew, just another run away sentence, (Sorry Olivia), but there is a lot to do. I will perform some routine labs, such as spinning down blood samples, perhaps prepare slides (yea), and chart. Our Whole team is divided into 3 teams, each is given a color name. Each clinic is assigned that team, so one knows your team, which always stays the same whether the patient is in the local clinic or downtown. Continually of care with the focus on the patient, not the money or the institution. Don't you want this type of care? It's wonderful.

Albuquerque Indian Hospital

Here's the main clinic where I am an extern. As you can see from my photos that is is an urban clinic. Here patients have primary care providers, a pharmacy , diabetic care, optometric care, social services, medical insurance and referrals for special treatments and psychiatric services. That was a run on sentence but you get the idea. This is a one stop shop for medical care. I've asked if I could be adopted into somebody's tribe so I can get this kind of care. If you think socialized medicine doesn't work think again. This is 100% better care than our hodge podge insurance wilderness.