weekend catch-up!

[rivendellrose]

It was a busy weekend, but a good one. Friday night had its own special entry (*g*), then Saturday was coramegan's belated birthday party, at which I ate lots of lovely food and had fun chatting with lots of wonderful people I don't see often enough, and watched three (three!) episodes of MST3K. "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," "Cave Dwellers," and "Space Mutiny," which gave new meaning to the words "eighties" and "bad sci-fi." All of them were quite funny, but I think "Space Mutiny" won for the golf-cart chase scenes. Yes, there were two of them.

On the other hand, the magic hang-gliding scene in "Cave Dwellers" (not to mention Useless Girl and her amazing Hubcap of Sternum-Protection) made it a very close second. Many thanks to maho_kiwi and Laylah for bringing those DVDs over to share with us. :D

Then today was my day to play only-sort-of-inept tour-guide and spend lots of time hanging out and generally having fun with the lovely bluerose16 and her dad, who were very patient about my complete lack of ability to a) properly read emails or b) have any concept of how one might get places by driving in my own city. We went to the aquarium, ogled the adorable otters and seals and all, then popped up to Pike Place for lunch, and out to the U-district so they could see the UW campus, which cooperated very nicely by still having cherry blossoms on the quad, and by not raining. Yay for cooperative scenery. ;) Anyway, it was great to see her and have a chance to hang out in person, which we'll hopefully get to do more often in the future!

Now, back to my regularly-scheduled tedious readings about how hospitals shape the American experience of death. I know it sounds interesting, but, sadly, this writer fails. At everything.

Comments

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

So, with your talents as a tour guide, if I made it out to Seattle this weekend (still in question, but I think almost confirmed?) what spots would you suggest I absolutely did not miss? (I'm trying for 2 days, but might not have the cash for the hostel, so we'll see!)

And awwwwwwwwwww, otters!!!!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Pike Place Market (and the surrounding area) is always my first recommendation - it's free (except for the buying of stuff, which is always a temptation), it's fun, and you can find some damned good food for cheap if you stick with the shops and vendors and not the actual restaurants. There's an Australian meat-pie place across the street on the... umm... Pike side - just a block from the newstand or so, and they have very yummy, filling food for cheap. And there's always the fun of mooching samples from all the food vendors. XD

Other than that... hmm. What kind of thing are you thinking of?

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

The WB showed Space Mutiny once without MST3King it.

I didn't watch the whole thing because I knew at the credits it was going to be bad. Also, the bad guy's laugh SLAYED me. :D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

o_O Seriously? I knew the WB was scary, but I didn't know they were that crazy.

I especially liked how you could tell which side people were on by their hair. Evil guys = slicked hair, good guys = poufy hair. And let's not forget the random bits of soft-core porn, with the Space Ages Witches. (Heh. Spitches. ...Okay, I'm obviously too damned tired.)

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

I MISSED THE SOFTCORE PORN.

Damnit. *makes aw-shucks motion*


And yeah, the hair was funny. :D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Did they cut out the whole bit with the space-witches, since that seemed to be their entire purpose in the plot?

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

No, the movie was just too laughable to watch more than a half-hour of without walking away. :D

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

I love your icon so much!

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

Now, back to my regularly-scheduled tedious readings about how hospitals shape the American experience of death.

That DOES sound interesting. Really. It's something I've thought a lot about, because of my experiences working in a hospital and taking care of dying people in particular.

Too bad the writer sucks, because I really think it's something that needs to be examined in more detail.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's so sad - it really is a fascinating subject, and every now and then there are glowing moments where she really gets into the meat of the matter, but... the rest of it tends to be so repetitive and dry that it's hard to wade through. I love that she deals with each case on its own basis, like a little mini-ethnography, but... dear gods it's tedious to dig through so much detail for four examples in a row for each of her little categories.

What's making it worse is that one of our other major texts for the class is Stiff by Mary Roach, who is just a flat-out amazing writer, totally my new hero in the world of non-fiction, and her prose is just so snappy and fast-paced that even when she's talking about the process of embalming you just can't wait to hear what she'll say next. It's seriously a let-down when each of her chapters end, because I could read her work forever and be happy. So by comparison, this poor other writer just doesn't stand a chance.

Incidentally, I had no idea you worked in a hospital - do you mind my asking what you do?

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

I don't do it anymore, but I worked as a caregiver at nursing homes and hospitals for about four years. I've taken care of both 99yr old men and 21yr old females as they were dying, and let me tell you, doing work like that gives you a completely different perspective on death and dying.

The "American" way of dealing with death is so backwards and repressive and sterilized, which has so much to do with why Americans are completely terrified of death and dying.

I took care of a 21yr old Brazilian girl who had serious brain damage after she was hit by a drunk driver while she was walking home from work. Her parents flew out here to be with her, and I was just amazed at how differently they responded to the whole situation than the American families that I had dealt with before. They weren't trying to hide from what had happened, or ignore it. It was very eye-opening for me.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the feeling I've been getting out of this book, and out of my class in general. The class is called Comparative Study of Death, and it's been really fascinating to look into it as we have - it's really bringing out a lot of stuff that we don't usually talk about, as a culture. I'm happy that there seems to be a backlash of sorts in progress against the medicalized death that you mentioned - our readings seem to be indicating that people are questioning it more, realizing that it's not necessarily the way they want their loved ones or themselves to experience the process. I know I personally feel that way.

That's impressive work that you did - one of my friends worked in a nursing home for a few summers as preparation for medical school, and the stories she told were so sad, sometimes.

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sometimes it was sad, but more often than not I was laughing my ass off most of the day. I worked for a couple of years at a specialized Alzheimer's unit, where all the patients had to be pretty far gone to be accepted to the floor.

You know, those people didn't even recognize their own kids, but they recognized my husband and I. We were one of the few constants in their lives -- they didn't necessarily know who we were (a lot of them assumed we were their kids), but they knew that they saw our faces every day and that we would be kind to them when they were scared and confused. And you know what? That made me happier a whole lot more often than it made me sad.

I actually really miss doing it. It was pretty hard to change jobs and just stop seeing those people every day.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Oh god. Yeah, I'm familiar with that - one of my great-grandmothers had Alzheimer's. I was only twelve or so when she died, but she stayed with us for a bit before she went into a home and it was... quite memorable. It was sad for us, because she was a very strong-willed lady and got a bit violent as things took a turn for the worse (she attacked my grandpa, her son, one night because she was staying with them, and she thought he was a burglar), but even knowing how sad it was that she'd fallen this far, a lot of stuff she did was honestly hilarious, even if we felt sort of embarassed to admit it.

I can easily imagine that it'd be a job you wouldn't want to leave - one of the things that so many jobs are missing these days is a feeling of some sort of accomplishment, a notion that you're doing something or helping someone. And you would certainly get that off of a job like that.

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can understand that it must be hard to see your family member become such a different person than you've always known them to be, but in my experience, if you can't laugh at it sometimes and begin to adapt to the reality of the situation, it's much much worse.

I've seen families come in to visit old men who couldn't even put together a coherent sentence, much less carry on a back-and-forth conversation, and these families would sit down and try to talk to these old men in the exact same way that they had always talked to them. Which doesn't work. It was so much harder for them to communicate with the old men than it was for me, because I had no pre-conceived notions about who they were; I was dealing with they person they are now, rather than the person they used to be. But these families just couldn't see that. It's nice to hear that your family was pretty understanding about your great-grandmother.

I've got a friend whose mother was the youngest person in our state to ever be diagnosed with Alzheimer's (she's in her late 40s, I believe), and she's regressed so far that they've had to put her in lock-down units because she's always trying to get out. Every time he goes to see her, the nursing staff will tell him how they found her wandering around naked, or sitting at the nurses station naked, or in the dining room naked, and instead of being embarrassed for her (when she clearly is not embarrassed for herself), he laughs and carries on and continues to love the person that she is, rather than the person that she used to be. Very healthy reaction, in my opinion.