Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

They’re making some changes at the hospital and Pam’s been helping out by role playing.
Now, at shift change for nurses, the departing nurse and the incoming nurse go into each of the rooms of their assigned patients. The one leaving goes down a check-list with the one coming on duty that covers the diagnosis, meds, treatments, special notations (e.g. “fall risk”) and the like. Then they talk briefly with the patient, asking him/her if they have any questions, concerns, etc.

To establish this protocol all the nursers are practicing the hand-off by role playing, and Pam is playing the patient. Sometimes she does it during her workday, but Monday, and again today she goes in (at pay) when it’s not her day to work. The nursing supervisor gives her a role to play. Monday she was an elderly woman (type cast?) who was diabetic, had a stroke a year ago, had recently broken a hip, was a fall risk, and was admitted because of disorientation. The two nurses come in and go through the check list and then interact with her, all the while being evaluated by the supervisor.

Pam is enjoying this a little too much, especially since the nurses are all 5-C people she works with on a daily basis. Monday she spent most of the time lying on the bed coiled in the fetal position and unresponsive. Then, when it came time for them to ask her questions she sat upright, tried to walk out of the room and mumbled incoherently. (I’m passing on this one.) Even the supervisor couldn’t figure out what was going on, since this was entirely off script.

Jack came to us from months in a foster home. He clearly thinks the routine there should also happen here. That includes something he really enjoyed every evening about 8:00. We have no idea what it is but he whines in distress at its absence. Every time we move he gets all excited. “Now? Now?!” And it seems to be something that the lady of the house did, because if Pam even shifts in her chair he’s right on it.
Maybe he got supper and dessert every night??

There’s actually a city in Greece named Megalopolis.

The more I use it the more I like the Kindle. But it takes some getting used to.
I wrote my sermon outlines on a yellow tablet, B.C. Two years A.D. (After Desktop) I was still using that tablet for sermons because my mind wasn’t comfortable composing on a keyboard and screen. I used that behemoth (remember when they were horizontal and you set your monitor on top?) for lots of other things, but getting my sermonic thoughts out of my head and into the keyboard just didn’t work. Eventually I made the switch. I think it just took me time to get used to putting thoughts on a keyboard instead of paper, and once I’d spent enough time doing it with other things it was easier to do with sermon outlines.

I can feel the same thing with the Kindle, but to a lesser extent. Hitting a button instead of turning a page, holding that slim digital device instead of the weight of a book...all the tactile differences made reading feel almost foreign. The sensory differences intruded on the mental processing. But now that I’ve spent considerable time reading on the Kindle those differences have all but passed from my notice. Instead, I like the convenience of picking up that small, light weight device and giving the power switch a quick slide to wake it up. Within half a second it’s right where I left off. I haven’t used any of the search functions yet, but I can see how they’ll come in handy for finding that passage where.... I can highlight a passage and go back to it later via a “search highlighted passages” function, and it digitally dog-ears those pages.

My next purchase will be either the download of Condoleezza Rice’s new book or a novel. I’m curious to see if reading a novel feels different from this piece of non-fiction.

Chandler, a suburb SE of Phoenix, has a new city hall. It comes equipped with signs in the restrooms advising people not to drink from toilets and urinals.
Was that a problem in the old building?

The number of Federal workers earning $150,000 or more per year is ten times what it was five years ago and has doubled during the Obama administration. (USA Today) The President wants to increase Federal employee salaries by 1.4%.

Elder meeting tonight. Good guys and we work well together. I’m not big on meetings, but if they gotta happen they should be like these.