MEOWY CHRISTMAS 

                                                            and



                                 PUPPY NEW YEAR

Thanksgiving 2014 Redux

From November 21, 2014, Hope’s first Thanksgiving with us.


Giving Thanks
By Holiday Hope

Last night, I had a couple of bites of steak, leftovers from Papa’s plate. I would have liked to have had the whole steak, but even a couple of bites for dessert after a big dinner is a long way from starving in Mississippi.

Last November, I was seven months old, weighed 28 pounds and had mange. I was so ugly when my photograph was sent to the Southeast German Shepherd Rescue coordinator, she wondered why anyone would send her a picture of a possum. But she accepted me into rescue anyway.

Southeast German Shepherd Rescue named me Holiday Hope and hoped I’d make it through the holidays. I survived, got my shots and had my mange treated. Gradually I regained my strength, my hair grew back, and I was able to go outside. Not that I was all that interested in going outside. Once a dog has been a stray, the great outdoors isn’t all that inviting.

Some good people whose names I do not know volunteered to drive me on various legs of a journey that took me from Mississippi to North Carolina where my foster mom lived. In late January, 2014, I was adopted into my forever home, and I moved to Virginia.

This coming Thursday is the day humans reserve for giving thanks, but such a wonderful idea should not be reserved for only those who walk upright. Dogs can be thankful, too. I know I am. I’m thankful for the good people of Southeast German Shepherd Rescue who saved me. For Pat who took care of me when I was sick. For the relay drivers who drove me from Mississippi to North Carolina. For Jan who fostered me. For a warm house, a soft bed, for nutritious food, a daily walk, trips to the dog park with my friend, Shiloh. But most of all, I’m thankful for the love my two humans lavish on me. 

There’s a lot wrong in the world today, but as my story proves, there’s a lot that’s right.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thanks to Growltiger for letting me tell my story.

A Large Serving of Crow for the USTA

Growltiger's human attendants watch a lot of professional tennis on television which can be hard on the cool cat's nerves when the ladies are playing. The men grunt when they hit the ball, but most of the women let out a shriek like they're being gutted on the Streets of London (reference). If two shriekers are playing, the decibel level is probably somewhere around the noise level of the Concorde breaking the sound barrier.

Madam X  doesn't watch ladies tennis, but Dr. X has a higher tolerance level for ear-splitting screams. That or he's harder of hearing.

Growltiger has watched a lot of tennis over the years, and she prefers to watch a strong, baseliner with a two handed backhand who plays a power game which is the game most of the shriekers play. So imagine the cool kitty's surprise when a player she'd never seen before came out onto the court, played the serve and volley game Growltiger doesn't like to watch and Growltiger found herself rooting for her as she defeated Number Four seed, Simona Halep. 

At first, Growltiger was skeptical.  Taylor Townsend doesn't look like the usual female tennis player. She is overweight, didn't have long, stringy hair braided in a pony tail or plopped atop her head like a cow pie (Halep) and most unusually, wasn't dressed in tennis clothes. Instead, she wore baggy, ill-fitting, dark shorts with no logo on them and a loud, lime green Nike top. (Probably an indication Townsend is not ranked high enough to warrant a clothing contract).  But not having a clothing contract isn't the half of it.

As USA Today put  it, few tennis players have suffered the ups and downs Ms. Townsend has (reference). Growltiger would put it another way. Few players have been rooked by the their own Tennis Associations as badly as Ms. Townsend. 

In 2012, Ms. Townsend was the Number One junior women's player in the world, the first American to achieve that ranking in three decades. She won the junior singles and doubles titles in Australia, and the doubles titles at  Wimbledon and the US Open. But USA Today (reference) reports the United States Tennis Association (USTA) had "concerns" that Townsend’s "fitness" was an issue. (Her fitness) "was not where it needed to be to compete at the highest levels going forward". So out of concern for her "fitness" player-development executives, headed by then-general manager, Patrick McEnroe, "withheld funding for her to travel to such competitions as the U.S. 18’s nationals and the US Open."  Let me reword that for you, dear kittens. The USTA considered Ms. Townsend too fat so they wouldn't pay for her to travel to tournaments. What with the cost of airline travel, food and housing, that was tantamount to abandoning the number one junior female tennis player in the world.   

Their concern, Mr. McEnroe claimed at the time, "was for her long-term health...and her long-term development as a player." Yeah. Right. And President Trump has just named Growltiger as commander of the new Space Force.  

Quoting US Today, "Townsend had to come up with her own funds to travel, but the money was much less of an issue than the stigma that came with the  (USTA) decision". Keep in mind, dear kittens, Ms. Townsend was a teenager when the USTA basically called her a fatso and refused to provide funding for her to compete. If that wouldn't wallop a teenager's confidence, nothing would.

According to the USA Today article, the USTA later reversed itself and reimbursed Ms. Townsend for the funds, but the damage had been done. Townsend won only four matches in 2015 and considered quitting tennis. 

During this week's U. S. Open, all the sports hype was directed at fifteen-year-old Coco Gauff while Ms. Townsend quietly struggled through what is known as the "qualifiers" which essentially means she had to play a tournament before she was allowed to enter the Open. No wild card offered to this once top ranked junior women's player in the world.  

Through it all, Ms. Townsend remained gracious in winning and in her eventual loss last night to 15th seeded Bianca Andreescu (Canada). One cannot help but wonder where Ms. Townsend might be had not the USTA decided she was too fat for prime time.  At any rate, with Ms. Townsend no longer in the tournament, the ladies game can go back to being the loud, resounding, ear-splitting bore it was before Ms. Townsend appeared on the scene.

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References:
London Knife Murders: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8104412/london-stabbings-2019-knife-crime-statistics/

Townsend's Ups and Downs: 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/tennis/2019/09/02/2019-us-open-taylor-townsend-overcame-lot-haters-break-through/2192543001/

A Trip to the ER

Two weeks ago, Madam X was eating in a local restaurant when the fillet of flounder turned out not to be: Well. Filleted. 

Madam ended up with a fish bone stuck in her throat. 

The bone refused to be dislodged by a hush puppy, so Madam retreated to the ladies room to try to retrieve it with a finger. No luck. So with nothing else to do, Doctor X took Madam X to the Emergency Room.  

The following is a faithful account of Madam X's adventure as told to me, Growltiger, Madam X's faithful housecat -- and sometimes personal scribe.

A very nice woman at the desk by the Emergency Room door greeted Madam X.
ER Employee Encounter #1.  "What is the problem?" she asks pleasantly.  

Madam X: "I have a fish bone in my throat."

The woman at the desk instructs Madam X to check in with the nurse who was standing at the computer about five feet away who most assuredly could have heard Madam X. The nurse is pleasant and cordial. "What is the problem?" she asks. ER Employee encounter #2.   

Madam X explains she has a fish bone in her throat.

The nurse points Madam X to the admitting clerk sitting behind the same counter at which the nurse is standing.  ER Employee Enounter #3. 

Like the other two employees, the admitting clerk is pleasant, cordial and competent. The admission goes quickly, and Madam X is instructed to take a seat in the waiting area.  

A short time later, an EMT appears and calls Madam X's name. ER Employee Encounter #4.  

The EMT takes Madam X to the treatment area and hooks Madam X up to a monitor that records oxygen saturation in the blood, heart rate, respirations and blood pressure which is naturally slightly elevated since Madam X has a fish bone stuck in her throat. 

The EMT leaves, and a few minutes later, an RN with a pleasant, professional demeanor arrives.  This is the fifth ER employee Madam X has encountered.  "Is everything all right?" the RN asks.

"No," Madam X replies, "I have a fish bone stuck in my throat."

The RN takes a peek, doesn't see the fish bone and leaves. 

After a short, reasonable wait, the ER physician appears (ER employee encounter #6); a tall, striking woman who happens to know Dr. X. who is sitting patiently in a chair hoping he won't have to be sitting patiently most of the night while Madam X is in the OR or waiting to go to the OR to have the fish bone (by now labeled a foreign body) removed from her throat.

The ER physician takes a peek and says, "I see it!" 

Dr. X perks up knowing if the ER physican can extract the fish bone in the ER, there won't be a visit to the OR complicated by a full stomach from the madam having consumed most of a flounder fillet before finding out the flounder wasn't filleted.  

Having spotted the fish bone, now renamed a "foreign body", the ER physician  -- the most expensive employee in the Emergency Department -- disappears to collect the tools and instruments she needed to extract the bone. She returns with a headlamp, an alligator clamp and a tongue depressor. After assembling the instruments on the tray beside the bed, she asks Madam X to tilt back her head and open her mouth at which time she inserts the tongue depressor, depresses the tongue, grabs the alligator and deftly extracts a fish bone about an inch and a half long.

Operation Fish Bone having reached the best possible conclusion, Madam X is discharged...relieved and grateful for the excellent care she received and the quality and pleasantness of every employee she encountered in the state-of-the-art modern American Emergency Department.

Still the experience, happy outcome that it had, illustrates why health care costs have soared. Each ER employee (six in all) required a salary and benefits including social security, Medicare payment to the federal government, employee health insurance and retirement. 

Wouldn't it have been more cost efficient for the employee at the door to have been a triage nurse who either sent the patient straight back to the treatment area or to the admitting desk? And rather than have the EMT attach Madam X to the monitors, could that not have been done by a LPN who having ascertained the patient had a fish bone stuck in her throat then assembled the necessary instruments to extract same once the physician got there? Four employees rather than six? A savings of two salaries and benefits while at the same time saving the physician the time she spent having to gather her own instruments?

Growltiger is no hospital administrator, but perhaps that is the problem. Few administrators have ever worked the Emergency Room when a patient arrived with a fish bone in his/her throat. Administrators work in offices, not on wards, in Emergency or Operating Rooms. Their job is to administrate. And what do they administrate? Employees. Departments. Things, not people. Thus the more employees there are, the more the need for administrators to administrate. Come to think of it, isn't that the problem. Isn't administrative costs what drove up the cost of government, university education, primary, elementary and secondary education, too? And, increasingly, health care?  

Welcome to the United States of Administrators.