On or about: 05-30-08  23:46, Ardith Hinton did engage James Bradley
regarding, but not limited to: Trash or Treasure...  2.

 AH> I can relate.  I had pain & weakness in one shoulder a few
 AH> years  ago, almost certainly as a result of helping Nora sit up in 
 AH> bed after her stroke.  I eventually consulted a physio who 
 AH> taught me how to do this without causing more damage & 
 AH> recommended some exercises.  The family doctor also put me 
 AH> on naproxen until the pain was more or less under control & 
 AH> I had regained as much mobility as could reasonably be 
 AH> expected.  Meanwhile, however, we went to kayaking camp. I 
 AH> was not about to let a little thing like a bum shoulder 
 AH> interfere with what I wanted to do.  I took reasonable 
 AH> precautions by not going out for too long at a time & 
 AH> staying ashore when the wind came up... but I used a lot of 
 AH> aspirin that weekend.  Later... when I'd stopped using 
 AH> naproxen... I felt as if I was up the creek without a 
 AH> paddle (bad pun) just as I did when Nora went off 
 AH> chemotherapy. I reckon it probably wasn't easy for you to 
 AH> stop using drugs either.

Dropping the narcs; was a good thing I remember so little of it. Even the
parts I was lucid for, I remember mostly through the frantic notes I took.
The pain took me into unconscious states but I don't remember getting much
sleep.

The logistics to patient care is something I know so little of also, even
after the amount I *have* seen could spin the head off of Walt Disney's
Tasmanian Devil. After explaining to people what an endo-scope goes into,
and knowing a fair bit of the equipment auctioned off as government
surplus, I still feel like my understanding doesn't equate to the tip of an
iceberg. It never fails, when walking through our under built health care
corridors, where an apparatus will test my thought process. I expect there
will always be that percentage of stuff that I will never be able to
pronounce, nor fathom what orifice it fits into. Even though my curiosity
gets the better of me, I quickly know when I'm getting too much
information. [-;

The physical load to patent care, is another topic I can't pretend to
understand. Even though I do have a few notions about a couple of fireman
carry, I just pray I will never be called on to use it. I would still feel
more comfortable with further instructions before I could be sure I would
do no harm. How people like yourself deals with patent care, while dealing
with limitations of your own, astounds me. I'm pretty sure you do *not*
possess super-human strength, but adapt to the task at hand.

On the top of my mind, is how Chuck Yagar was thrown off his horse the day
before breaking the sound barrier. He asked a grunt/mechanic how he could
close the hatch, he asked the guy, because he wouldn't peep about it, and
he wouldn't be asked any questions if he was caught cutting 18" off a
perfectly good broom handle. I doubt you would have lost custody of Nora,
if your doctor heard about your strain, but Chuck knew the mission would be
scrubbed if he told his. You garnered the relief you needed to get you
through the sticky bits, but most importantly, you gathered the info that
would prevent the symptom from returning or at least not as strongly. Chuck
'flew under the radar', and he finished the mission. I'm pretty sure there
are others in taxing situations, who withhold information to retain
autonomy.



 AH> I also understand how it is when a person has been feeling
 AH> like  death warmed over & then feels better.  During my initial 
 AH> years as a teacher I caught one variety of flu or another 
 AH> about every second year.  I learned that although I felt 
 AH> like a million bucks (by comparison) on the third day I 
 AH> wasn't yet ready to face the world... and I saw many others 
 AH> return to work too soon after a bout of flu or pneumonia, 
 AH> then succumb to complications or whatever.  It seems to me 
 AH> that if you overestimated what you could do you have plenty 
 AH> of company....  ;-)
 
Wha??? There's more nuts like me? 

My gauge has been, when I forget how it feels to be 'normal', I'm at the
cusp of feeling better. When I was working, only a sinus infection kept me
from showing up to a shift, and when the hip called it quits. We were short
of manpower, and it was expected that we would endure quite a bit.

Another odd side effect of post-withdrawals, is I haven't thrown up since.
Now that I've said that, I'll likely toss my cookies tonight.

Say, is it true that influenza is *not* contagious once the carrier shows symptoms?

 
 AH> Uh-huh.  I got rid of a lot of stuff when I was 
 AH> pregnant with Nora... then I had some intensive parenting 
 AH> to do.  Since her stroke we've also added a wheelchair & 
 AH> various other pieces of equipment, often on short notice.  

This is what has me in awe.

 AH> The net result is that I couldn't keep up with the tidying
 AH> & tossing for awhile either. Now I have a backlog, just as 
 AH> you have, and it seems like an overwhelming task. But 
 AH> knowing I'm not alone has encouraged me to keep picking 
 AH> away at it....  :-)
 
But you *are* gaining on it?

 
 JB>  Comes to mind, "Find me a buyer."

 AH> Yes, I can see the story from both sides...

Don't get me wrong. I have no doubt, thousands of these Canadiana jars are
left as refuse every day, and the stories of farmers burning their 'old'
wooden furniture, because they just bought brand new arborite surfaced crap
drives me nuts! I'm sure there are scumbags dickering about paying a
quarter for one of these jars you mentioned, when (s)he is fully aware they
will never leave the negotiations with the markup they are about to
realize.


 AH> ... "Prices slightly higher west of the Rockies."

This, is what I've noticed. Your "location location location" has
little to no snow. There's a tax on that. 


 AH> Last time Dallas & I were in Alberta, i.e. more than twenty
 AH> years  ago, BC salmon cost less there than it did in BC.  The reason we
 AH> were given  was that folks in Alberta don't like salmon as much as we 
 AH> do.  If it was cheaper here we would probably eat it more 
 AH> often... (sigh).  I've heard other stories about how cheap 
 AH> various things are in Mexico, Hong Kong, Thailand, etc.  If 
 AH> you happen to be there anyway you might decide to stock 
 AH> up... if not, you must also factor in the cost of shipping 
 AH> for yourself and/or for all these fabulous bargains.  On a 
 AH> camping trip it's not practical to buy a lot of grocery 
 AH> items which won't keep.

I've heard it was a struggle to get fresh enough seafood here for sushi.
This is *our* tax on surf. While three of our family adore the taste of
salmon, I never did like it. Today, I might smother it in sage, or thyme,
but I don't remember the last time I had better than the canned species.

So, who do you think actually rules the world. I used to be of the opinion,
lawyers and insurance had it sewn up, but then I realized how many lawyers
became politicians. Now, it would seem the petroleum based industries are
vying for a piece of the pie. Now that everyone is nervous their prized
Cadillac or Lincoln might not be fed in ten years, the fear and ignorance
engine is making guys like me horde fuel before every May long weekend.


 AH> 2)  Regardless of expert opinion, the monetary value 
 AH> of an item is only as much as somebody is willing to pay 
 AH> for it.  My father's co-worker seems to have been operating 
 AH> on the assumption that all empty jars are worthless because 
 AH> *he* didn't need any.  My father realized, from his 
 AH> description, that identical jars had been selling for 
 AH> hundreds of dollars each in today's money.  They were rare 
 AH> examples of early Canadiana.  However...

...And what a loss! Because of this co-worker, the damned things got that
much harder to obtain.


 AH> you know they're old... in my experience an antique dealer 
 AH> or an auctioneer may be glad to tell you at no charge 
 AH> whether or not they think it's worth trying to sell these 
 AH> things, especially if you're also offering some old china 
 AH> and/or furniture you want to get rid of.  My father's co-
 AH> worker could have sought advice *before* chucking the jars 
 AH> out with the trash.  If some item is considered valuable 
 AH> because of its rarity, it may become a lot less valuable 
 AH> overnight when more of the same turns up.  I reckon that 
 AH> would be the case with these jars.  But they'd probably 
 AH> still be worth a few dollars to somebody.  :-)

Testament to our throw-away upbringing. Well, the majority of our
upbringing, anyway. YMMV (-|

After hearing time and again, that the original patina on a piece of
furniture holds a great deal of its worth, a local antique auctioneer tells
me, "Refinishing only improves its worth." I was racing, how I
could report him to some regulating board, or if the news paper would find
it worthy to print. Regardless, if *I* know an "expert" is
spewing crap, that expert deserves to find work elsewhere. Because of this
opinion, my sister feels justified in stripping the finish off a turn of
the century beveled glass hall bench. An older oak piece, less applique
carving was valued at $23K, but because it was refinished, it could only be
*insured* for $12K. My new motto, "What the .... do I know?" I'm
really trying to bite my tongue, instead of repeating, "I told you
so." )-:


... James

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20

--- Maximus 3.01