Remembering "Aunt Vicki" Victoria Sorrells

Aunt Vicki was the most beloved person, so full of life and fun. She was a giving, loving, character who gave so much of herself despite her personal and physical hardships and trials. She had a zest for life and a sense of humor like no one else. No one could tell a story, really weave a tale, like Aunt Vicki could. I miss her terribly.

Larissa Kelly lost last night on Jeopardy

It was a crushing defeat for Larissa Kelly last night on Jeopardy. She set a record and I had high hopes that she'd be the long-running female equivalent of Ken Jennings.

Alas! It was not to be.

Larissa's momentum shifted after her error on the last question in the first round. She made a big wager, but came up with the wrong question. Psychologically, I think it did her in, sealed her fate even before the second round had begun. She never got off the blocks from that point onward. I think she was tired.

The only good news in any of it is that she will be back for the Tournament of Champions and I hope she smokes 'em all then and shows 'em whose boss.

Larissa Kelly on Jeopardy

Larissa Kelly, 28-year-old from Newton, Mass., has already broken a record for the highest amount of cash winning of any woman who has ever appeared on Jeopardy. She is on a roll!

She is absolutely delightful with a mild-mannered, gentle, quiet, sweetness, and adorable innocence that cloaks her incredible facility to nailing the answers in every conceivable category on Jeopardy.

She is unassuming and conservative, but can clearly kick it up in crunch-time when she has to and she is blazing a trail. I adore her. I hope she will not only be on Jeopardy as long as Ken Jennings was, but that she will even exceed his run.

Go, Larissa! Go!!!

Photography by Jaynie Jones

See my photography at ... double-click on any of the tiny images to see the complete image in a larger version.

St. Lucia suicide

With the approach of Mother's Day (the most painful day of the year) the agony and heartbreak that have enveloped my life for the past nearly fourteen years reaches a crescendo. Each year I wonder how I can bear it, how I can endure it another time since my daughter's suicide mission to St. Lucia in 1994, and my beloved son having disappeared from my life ten years ago.

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA volunteers) needed for children now

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) volunteers are needed in Seattle and King County and elsewhere around the State of Washington.

One of my dearest and most treasured friends, Kimberley McKaig, is a CASA volunteer. She gives her heart to help the neediest children and finds such joy in doing so. She passed along via e-mail a request for her friends to give some thought to not only consideration of becoming a CASA volunteer, but to also think of new avenues of ways to get the word out that there are much needed and highly rewarding opportunities for volunteerism with the children in these most difficult situations.

Kimberley writes so well (that's part of being a CASA volunteer is writing reports for the courts) so I am taking the liberty of posting here what she wrote. Please share it and think about it; consider the needs of the children and think of how you might be able to help.

Contact Information for CASA and more information on volunteering can be found at:

http://www.washingtonstatecasa.org/CASA/whatis.htm

Now here is what Kimberley passed along and I hope it will start you thinking...

I'm sending this to you who know about the work I do as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer, representing abused and neglected children in the court system. These little ones (under age 13) have been removed from their homes and are in the care of the state...

Our program, which currently has over 1,000 volunteers in King County, is experiencing a shortfall of new volunteers to meet the needs of these kids...all very needy of personal representation.

I quote below from the newsletter our CASA office sent out, in case you might have an idea of a way you could (comfortably for YOU) expose the program to someone(s) you know...at work, church, to family, friends, whatever....

Of course response is great, if you have an idea for me to send to the CASA office to be followed up on. As you can see below, you are not the one who has to do the work, (other than to perhaps put out materials you receive, if you have access to a venue).

CASA is mainly looking for referrals our office can pursue as an opportunity to publicize the program. I suppose it goes without saying, but if not, I will say that this is a powerful opportunity to carry the grace and love of Jesus just as he did while he was here, to “the least of these.” It’s the best...indeed the only reason to do it.Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this!!!

Kimberley McKaig

QUOTE from the CASA newsletter:

**If you or a family member works for an organization that permits posters, flyers, brochures, bookmarks, etc. We have a good assortment of attractive CASA materials that we will send or bring to you at no charge.

**If you or a family member works for an organization that occasionally uses speakers for community information events, let us know. We have many CASAs who are experienced at public speaking, enjoy telling the CASA story, and will come to your site.

**Similarly, if you have access to an Intranet Bulletin Board in which volunteer opportunities are posted for employees to see, let us know. We can easily supply a CASA announcement.

**If you live in an apartment building or condo which could make use of any of the above, let us know. If you frequent a Community Center or recreational facility, look around to see if other groups publicize their programs there, and let us know.

**Let us know about websites you’re aware of that feature volunteer opportunities. If we’re not already using them, we’d like to give them a try.

**Pay attention to news stories by reporters who might be good prospects for a CASA feature, and let us know. Often you will see public interest stories about local citizens doing interesting and important work. Those reporters like to interview “good examples” in the community, such as CASAs. We will do the outreach if you give us a good tip.

http://www.washingtonstatecasa.org/CASA/canyou.htm

Concise "Twitter" text message leads to release from Egyptian jail

If you've ever wondered about how potentially valuable the blog can be and/or text messaging, the following story will make the answer abundantly clear as it did for James Carl Buck.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html

Best Mexican dinner ever: Carne Asada Platillo

Tacos Guaymas, family-owned, with several Northwest locations, has a restaurant between Pine and Steele Streets in Tacoma right on 38th Street, not far from Tacoma Mall which yields a spectacular view of every evening's sunset.

For the best, most authentic Mexican food it is not only the most flavorful, but the presentation is spectacular and portions are grande.

I've never had anything at Tacos Guaymas that I didn't just love and want to rave about and would definitely order again.

However, my favorite meal of all time is superior at Tacos Guaymas (located in a former Taco Time location) and when/if you have the opportunity order the Carne Asada Platillo for the best dinner ever.

This picture from last evening's dinner says it better than I can describe it.

Mmm-mmm-mmm- good...

To-die-for good.

Delicioso!

Tony Hazapis dies, but will forever be remembered

Tony Hazapis, former executive director of the Seattle AFTRA office (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), died March 22, 2008, in Seattle. He had been hospitalized since December.

Tony was such an incredible, phenomenal human being and accomplished so much in his lifetime of service to mankind and to our AFTRA union members in particular. He was a great guy, a bright guy, had a wonderful laugh and a winning way with people.

He used to listen to my radio show, The Overnight Club on KOMO AM 1000, from Seattle. His favorite song of all time was Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto. The song was originally a hit in the 1960s, but it remained Tony's favorite song throughout his entire life. He'd call me on-the-air occasionally to request that I play it for him.

We became friends through work-related issues surrounding my employment and lack thereof, and kept in touch off and on over the years.

Ironically, it was only a few months ago that I heard Sukiyaki being played on the radio in the middle of the night on 570 AM KVI, Seattle, as bumper music during Coast to Coast AM with George Noory (Art Bell's former haunt).

Instantaneously, when I heard Sukiyaki wafting out of my radio speaker here at home, I thought of Tony and all the times he had called me to play that song for him. I dashed off an e-mail to him and told him that if per chance he was still awake and could turn the radio on to KVI and do it quickly, he could still hear the rest of Sukiyaki.

Tony was awake. He was astonished that I was awake...and that I was still remembering after all these years that he loved that song so much. He picked up the phone and called me since he knew by then that I was awake also -- even though it was after midnight.

We talked for a couple of hours. We laughed a lot. I don't even remember now what all we talked about, but we covered a lot of ground.

The irony of that conversation was that over the years Tony has been building a collection of recordings of Sukiyaki by various artists not just the original one in Japanese, but he even had acquired a more recent version in Spanish. I think there were nine of them altogether. As we talked, Tony played each of those renditions of Sukiyaki into the telephone for me. It was hilarious. Nutty as hell, but hilarious, simple, heartwarming, innocent fun and sharing. Tony's wife, Dale, was somewhat bemused by our wackiness and affinity for Sukiyaki, but she was tolerant of it and was good natured about all the laughter in the middle of the night...and the endless playing of Sukiyaki.

Little did I realize that that would be the last time I'd ever hear Tony's voice. I'm so glad that we had that time together to share our thoughts and his joy in particular, his pride and joy in having amassed a collection of recordings of Sukiyaki.

You'd think with all of the really, really big deals in his life (union contracts and other labor matters, dispute resolutions, etc) that those would have been the really big deals.

But I think one of the simple pleasures that he took such pride in was having built a collection of music -- variations on a theme, you might say -- various artists' interpretations of his all-time favorite song Sukiyaki.

The circle of life is complete. In this context, it began with Tony Hazapis calling me and asking me to play Sukiyaki for him. It ended with our last conversation, when Tony played Sukiyaki for me.

When I hear Sukiyaki, I'll think of Tony. I hope you will, too. As a tribute to Tony and his love of that song, I'm including the lyrics here...

Sukiyaki Lyrics (English)
It's all because of you,

I'm feeling sad and blue

You went away,

Now my life is just a rainy day and I love you so,

How much you'll never know

You've gone away and left me lonely.
Untouchable memories

Seem to keep haunting me

Another love so true,

That once turned all my gray skies blue

But you disappeared,

Now my eyes are filled with tears

And I'm wishing you were here

With me soaked with love

all my thoughts of you

Now that you're gone

I just don't know what to do

If only you were here,

You'd wash away my tears

The sun would shine,

Once again you'll be mine all mine

But in reality,

you and I will never be 'cause

You took your love away from me.
ChorusGirl,

I don't know what I did to make you leave me

But what I do know is

That since you've been gone

there's such an emptiness inside,

I'm wishing you to come back to me.
If only you were here,

You'd wash away my tears

The sun would shine,

Once again you'll be mine all mine

But in reality,

You and I will never be 'cause

You took your love away from me.

Oh -- Baby you took your love away from me.

Sukiyaki Lyrics (Japanese)

Ue o muite arukou

Namida ga kobore naiyouni

Omoidasu harunohi

Hitoribotchi no yoru

Ue o muite arukou

Nijinda hosi o kazoete

Omoidasu natsunohi

Hitoribotchi no yoru

Shiawase wa kumo no ueni

Shiawase wa sora no ueni

Ue o muite arukou

Namida ga kobore naiyouni

Nakinagara aruku

Hitoribotchi no yoru

WhistlingOmoidasu akinohi

Hitoribotchi no yoru

Kanashimi wa hosino kageni

Kanashimi wa tsukino kageni

Ue o muite arukou

Namida ga kobore naiyouni

Nakinagara aruku

Hitoribotchi no yoru

Visit Legacy.com to record your own online greeting for Dale and the family.

Tony Hazapis' life on Earth ends, but legacy lives on

Tony Hazapis lived in Oregon and listened to my late-night radio show on 50,000-watt KOMO from Seattle. Tony joined The Overnight Club and would call in a request from time to time, always for the same song -- his all-time favorite -- Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto from the 1960s. I always enjoyed our telephone conversations during the radio program. See additional tribute to Tony at and more details about Sukiyaki. http://emeraldprincessa.blogger.com/

As time went on, Tony, who was an attorney, eventually moved from Oregon to Washington where he became the executive director of the Seattle local unit of AFTRA while I was still employed at KOMO, because I stayed nearly ten years at AM 1000.

AFTRA is the labor union for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
Tony was well-known, well-liked, highly regarded by all who turned to him for assistance with various labor-related issues both in the workplace and upon termination. He helped so many people. He was a rock. He had a deep, inner, abiding strength and calmness, a confidence that he exuded. He really knew his stuff. He knew the law. He knew the union contracts. He knew the regulations. And best of all he knew how to ensure that he would prevail on behalf of the AFTRA members.

Tony died last Saturday, March 22, 2008, in Seattle, after having been hospitalized since December 2007. I was profoundly sadded on learning of his death. What a loss!

I invite you to read Tony's obituary notice in the Seattle Times newspaper:
http://www.legacy.com/NWclassifieds/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=106411224

To post and share your own memories of Tony or to write a note or condolence to his wife and family, or even just to read the anecdotes I've shared about Tony in the online Guest Book, visit
http://www.legacy.com/NWclassifieds/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=106411224

Noose news: will Duke be lynched?

Duke's Chowder House has three Seattle locations, plus one each in Kent, and in Tacoma, Washington.

dukeschowderhouse.com

For the past couple of years I have subscribed to receive e-mail announcements and coupon specials from Duke's.

Today I received the offer shown here featuring Duke's deer-in-the-headlights photo with a noose hanging prominently in the picture with the caption "Managers blame Duke for recession." The ad conveys that Duke faces lynching by his restaurant managers.

Funny? Comical? Knee-slapping hilarity?

I wrote to Rich Carr of Duke's marketing department and expressed revulsion at seeing a noose in their advertising. I did not find it appetizing nor would it entice me to patronize the restaurant. I added that the noose as a symbol would also be especially offensive to African-Americans.

Rich Carr replied with the following statement (italics supplied):

The imagery, the verbiage, the impact of the message were all developed to cut through the clutter of your average email and/or marketing campaign. And, while we acknowledge your viewpoint, we also meant this to be ‘tongue in cheek’ as ALL Duke’s emails are. I don’t see the reference to African-Americans as you state, as the history of the hangman’s noose go back to Colonial America as well as England during the 16th and 18th centuries as a form of capital punishment. Period. Will it be used all the time, certainly not. Is it a powerful image that relates to Duke’s missive, yes. Does it spur people to read more? Certainly.

Most Duke’s Email Club members appreciate his sense of humor, use of imagery, and the text he writes himself. It’s Duke…his approach has never altered in his 30 years in business as the last thing we ever want to be is ‘another’ email, but something people talk about, buzz about, tell their friends about, and realize that humor in all its forms sometimes offends albeit that is certainly not our intention.

Again, I appreciate the feedback and will forward directly to Duke should he want to weigh in. However, I feel he’ll echo my comments as these collaborations are just that.

When he wrote, "I don't see the reference to African-Americans..." and continued the defense of the noose (referring to its use in "Colonial America and England in the 16th and 18th Centuries...") underscored how out of touch and insensitive he/they were in the use of the noose as a symbol for their advertising. 400 years of the unspeakable, shameful horrors of slavery and he does not "see the reference to African-Americans?"

I would bet any amount of money that he ran a Google search for the "history of the noose" before he wrote that little bit of trivia, that factoid that he threw back at me about "Colonial America and England"...yeah, right, like he had that on the tip of his tongue!

Hello?!?

I wrote again and set forth a couple of outrageous, hypothetical scenarios, which I was confident as a matter of good taste Duke's would never even consider using in an ad, simply as a means to make the point that African-American people have a profoundly different visceral reaction to the image of a noose anytime or anywhere and that reaction is different from how white people perceive it.

Duke's would be hard-pressed to find a Brit or other white person whose reaction would be the same as an African-American's painful reaction on seeing a noose utilized in an advertising campaign flippantly as if it is or can be an object of amusement.

• I challenged Duke's to show the ad to black employees and ask for their gut reaction to it.


• Does it make them proud to work for Duke’s?


• Or does it make them fear for their jobs or fear a hostile work environment? They may be afraid to answer truthfully


• I encouraged him to give employees an opportunity to weigh in on it.


• I suggested that Duke's distribute a simple, anonymous survey card that would only require a check mark as a reply:

“Seeing a noose in an ad for Duke’s: a) bothers me, b) doesn’t bother me.”

Rhetorically, I asked if they'd consider putting a "Whites Only" sign at the entrance or if the next ad campaign would feature Duke being "tarred and feathered." Of course not! It would be outrageous. I pointed out those scenarios in an effort to help Duke and Rich 'connect the dots' hoping they might come to realize that a noose is every bit as offensive.

Rich Carr replied that (italics supplied):

This is not a racial email, nor will we entertain attempts to take it that direction. Your ideas of ... have obvious racial undertones and in no way reflect anything we’d ever produce or distribute.

That's great news! I appreciate the affirmation.

It's unfortunate that Duke's didn't think through the implications of using lynching and a noose in their current ad prior to distribution of it. By blogging about this topic, creating dialogue about it, it is my hope that a broader understanding and insight will come about as a result. Readers and writers in the blogosphere can let their voices be heard. Lift every voice...

Growing a gaggle of geese

The exquisite beauty of birds of all kinds thrills my heart (as noted in my earlier blog post), and for as much as I love photographing seagulls and other seabirds, I grew up on a farm and among our menagerie, we also raised chickens. I had a pet chicken named "Chick." Wow! The creativity was really flowing when I was kid. We also had a dog named "Pup"...because she had so many...14 in one litter alone. And she was the dog we kept trying to get rid of. We'd put an ad in the newspaper to sell her (back in the days before Craigslist and such)...people would come and "buy" her from us, but always within a few days, no matter how far away the new owners would take her, "Pup" would always find her way back to our farm.

Well, I've gotten off track now with my rambling about "Pup"...that goes back decades in terms of memories...

But in more modern times (in the 1980s) when we lived on the little five-acre farm on the East Side of Tacoma, we had geese: Embden geese, the huge, gorgeous, whiter-than-white geese.


Linus and Lucy shepherding part of their gaggle of geese/goslings along in our pasture

We started out with just two that were given to us by Dr. Ted Rothstein, who lived in Bellevue, at that time, but has since relocated to Washington, D.C., and George Washington University. The pair of geese he gave us were named Linus and Lucy.

It wasn't long before Linus and Lucy were blessed as parents. Lucy laid a clutch of 17 eggs and every single one of them hatched. The goslings were precious. A couple of them didn't survive long, but the other 15 grew to maturity.

There is no end to the love story about these magnificent birds...

The geese were fond of chasing our horses out of the barn. Sometimes they'd clamp on to the horse's or pony's tail and take a wild ride almost like water skiing being towed behind a boat, one of the geese would hang on and not let go as the horse or pony would run wildly in circles around the pasture.

On one of those occasions, one of the geese sustained an injury to its webbed foot when the horse stepped on it. We kept that goose in the house (yes, our house, not the hen house) inside a shower enclosure for nearly a month where I administered hydrotherapy to the mangled foot with the shower spray, and fed the goose antibiotics and food via a funnel. If you've never had the privilege of administering medications and food to a squirming goose with a funnel in its throat, you really have missed out on something. After the first few times, the goose seemed to understand that what I was doing was intended as being helpful and it became cooperative and would even open his/her mouth to allow me to place the funnel without pulling away.

As time went on, the once gangrenous-looking traumatized foot returned to a healthy color indicating life in the tissue, and he/she was able to return to the rest of the family at that point in time. It was quite a thrill to have succeeded in restoring the bird to health.

Ordinarily, Linus, Lucy, and their offspring resided in the barn, but they were free to roam about the pasture or the creek that formed part of the perimeter of the property.

One year the kids and I went on a three-week vacation through Oregon, California, and Mexico driving South on 101 most of the way (part way on I-5), and then up through Death Valley and Mammoth Lakes, and on to Crater Lake on the return trip to Washington.

Neighbors looked after all of our pets while we were on the long road trip.

When we returned home, to our complete surprise, our gaggle of geese had moved out of the barn...and onto our front yard. There they all were: waiting for us to come home! What a welcoming party it was to be greeted by all of the geese. Interestingly, once we were home, the geese readily moved back to the barn on their own volition. It truly was as if they just wanted to be there to greet us on our return, as if to say, "We've missed you."

Seagulls, Sandpipers: seabirds make my heart sing

Bird pictures thrill my heart!

The biggest thrill of all (for me) is to feed the seagulls at the beach, at Ocean Shores, Washington, on the Pacific Ocean coastline.

Prior to digital photography, taking 35-mm color pictures of the seabirds was my biggest vice: I used to spend thousands of dollars each year on film and processing. The savings by now (since having a digital camera) are tremendous...although I cannot say that I have literally saved a dime, because I have no savings whatsoever, but at least I haven't been having to spend it on shots that didn't quite turn out right, always striving for the ultimate seagull picture.

Diagnosis to death in 28 days: KOMO's Larry Nelson silenced by cancer

A broadcasting career that is one for the record books is the legacy left for us by Larry Nelson who, for 30 years served up the friendliest, guy-next-door, morning show from the KOMO Breakfast Table on AM 1000. Larry died overnight, 3:28 a.m., Thursday, November 29, after being diagnosed only 28 days earlier with end-stage, inoperable lung cancer that had metastasized to his spine and elsewhere. The diagnosis was a shocker, but the elapsed time from diagnosis to death was absolutely stunning.

Larry was the consistent, familiar, reliable friend who got the morning started through every season of the year not only in Seattle, but throughout the vast expanse of the geographic coverage area of the 50,000 watt KOMO Radio signal.

Additionally, I had the privilege of being the warm-up act for Larry’s show with my own program for nearly a decade, The Overnight Club with Jaynie Dillon, from 1981 through 1990. Having been the one to prepare the way for Larry and the morning news team, headed by Stan Orchard, each and every weekday, I’d like you to know that Larry was the same person in-person as he was on-the-air. He arrived in the studio eager to start the day, always with a kind word, a smile, a focus, and pure joy at the simplest things in life: a place to go, something to do each day, a heart filled with gratitude, an appreciation for motivational and inspirational books, and always sharing with the audience the day-to-day things in his own life that others could relate to and learn from; it was a winning combination. Stan has created a Web site in memory of Larry, http://LarryBNelson.com

Stan Orchard and I both went to KOMO from Tacoma radio stations. We had worked together at KTNT and KNBQ-FM starting in 1976. I was at KTAC & KBRD-FM when I was called to come to KOMO for an interview. Stan and I both were brought on board at KOMO by the (then) new Program Director Ken Kohl. It was a magnificent, magical time in radio with Ken Kohl's visionary, innovations in programming such as the hiring of the very first female announcer in the nearly 60-year history of the radio station (Yes, that was me).

The KOMO tailgate parties prior to the Huskies’ games were memorable for the hilarity, spontaneity, and the over-the-top production done by Production Director Eric McKaig week after week. The creative output was beyond comprehension. Eric is with CBS Radio, in Seattle, now as Creative Director and that he is.

Larry Nelson and the KOMO Morning Show were often on the road -- and beyond -- including remote broadcasts from international locations. Notably, we had recorded quite literally thousands of Northwest listeners’ greetings and wishes for peace. Then Larry and KOMO’s Michael Hamilton hand-delivered the Geneva Peace Tapes to the Russian and U.S. delegations in Geneva at the Peace Talks between Reagan and Gorbachev.

Formerly with KOMO Radio News, Patti Payne, now a columnist with the Puget Sound Business Journal could tell you endless stories about traveling with Lar. Patti and I shared an office at KOMO. She was a terrific office-mate and treasured friend. We shared many a laugh over the years and many a tear in recent days.

It was a grand time, that era of Larry Nelson’s radio career at KOMO. Those of us who worked with and around Larry were all blessed for having been in his presence. He was the heart and soul of KOMO Radio at its finest.

Share your memories of Larry Nelson and The KOMO Breakfast Table. Lar has left the world a better place for having been here, and the Northwest a better place than anywhere else.

An October sunset on Mount Rainier

What else needs to be said? It was fabulous!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Over in the blogosphere among my postings on The News Tribune's site under the "In The Neighborhood" section, I've been enjoying some lively exchanges with other locals about coffee, why people drink it, why they are willing to pay so much for their espresso and latte concoctions, and then somehow the topic turned to chocolate.

I wrote about the great recipe I tried recently. It was found on the bag of Snoqualmie Falls Lodge Oatmeal. Those are the best oats you'll find. Great for oatmeal and maybe even better for baking.

I want to share the recipe for Peanut Butter and Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies and the one modification I made to it. I had no chocolate chips on hand, so I finely chopped some rich, pure, dark chocolate into the mix in place of chocolate chips and achieved an excellent result. It's an interesting cookie recipe also, because it contains no flour whatsoever, just the oats. No added salt either, just baking soda.

I wanted so much to show the cookies and share the recipe, but was confounded by just how to go about uploading images. Previously, on The News Tribune's blogs it was a snap, but there was a system crash awhile back and I think that perhaps it is no longer possible to upload images there. If it is possible, it was beyond my ability to figure it out. Then it dawned on me that I can post the image here on one of my other blogs and then simply include the link to Emerald Princess Online over on The News Tribune's "In The Neighborhood" blog so anyone who wants it can find it and bake a batch. Mmm-mmm good! Yummy, crun-chewy, satisfying mouth-feel... Munch, munch, munch...

P.S. If the print is a wee bit too small for you to read and write down the ingredients, let me know and I'll reprint the recipe in another posting.

USPS Evergreen Station, Tacoma: Closes 24-Hour Self-Service Unit

(Depicted are two paintings that were found inside the 24-Hour Self-Service Unit at Tacoma's Evergreen Station, July 2007) But now this...

A vital, essential, useful, absolutely necessary (how many ways can I say it???) time-saving, customer convenience of immense value, an important facility-within-a-facility is a thing of the past.

Postal officials in their infinite wisdom (no, let's make that finite wisdom) have SHUT DOWN the 24-Hour Self-Service Unit at the Evergreen Station.

Way to go, postmaster! NOT!!!

All that is left now is the electronic machine inside the main building by the post office boxes that requires a credit or debit card to make a purchase.

• Real money is out; plastic is the only kind accepted.

• No longer are you able to purchase stamps from a coin-operated vending machine.

• No longer are you able to purchase a book of stamps from a vending machine that accepts paper money.

• No longer are you able to purchase as few as one or two individual postage stamps at a time during any hour of the day or night at the 24-hour Self-Service Unit, because it is no more!

It has ceased to exist.

In its place now is a sheet of paper that lists retailers around town that you can drive to and purchase books of stamps from instead.

Congestion at Evergreen Station, the Regional Mail-Handling Facility on Pine Street between Tacoma Mall and 38th Street (RMF, for short) and what many think of as simply "the big post office" in Tacoma is bad at almost all hours that the facility is open.

• Traffic is heavy.

• Parking is inadequate.

• Count on an almost unbearably long line waiting in the serpentine queue to get to the counter and conduct any business with a postal employee.

• The dread pushes one's endurance and frustration level to the max -- not only the annoyance of the long wait for service, but the aggravation of NOT being able to do all the other things you need to be doing, but instead stymied, trapped like stockyard cattle in the chute or stanchion waiting in the merciless line to reach the counter.

• Top that off with the apparent lack of adequate staffing to handle the volume of traffic inside the Evergreen Station and it only makes it worse.

If you have been there, you know the drill: there might be two or three people working, and then even with the ridiculously long line, maybe a 45-minute wait for your turn to get up to the counter for service, you can almost be assured that one of those two or three workers will announce that he/she is going on break just about the time you get to the counter.

Okay, so that's the day-in, day-out scenario at Evergreen Station during business hours.

The FABULOUS thing about Evergreen Station has for years been the 24-hour Self-Service Unit on the north end of the building where you could buy stamps in any quantity from one to a bookful or multiple books of stamps, receive change, weigh a package, calculate its necessary postage, and a large, bin to deposit packages into once you've taken care of all the necessary details. The clanging of that big metal bin was as reassuring as it is when you place a bank deposit into the night depository and you hear the clanging of the bin after you have dropped your deposit envelope down into it, and then pull the flap open again to make sure your deposit has dropped. There's a bit of reassurance and security in that clang and in the second clang when you recheck it.

That's the way it WAS in the Self-Service Unit at Evergreen Station, too.

Clang!!! And you KNEW that your parcel had been securely deposited inside the facility and would soon be winging its way to its intended recipient.

• The vending machines in the Self-Service Unit accepted paper money and coins of every denomination.
• Interestingly, they also dispensed cash-back in the form of golden Sacagawea dollar coins, which you don't see anywhere else.

Perhaps you'd only have a $20-bill with you and may only have needed a small quantity of stamps, let's say $5 of stamps and you could count on hearing the cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching of 15 of the golden Sacagawea dollars dropping into the change slot.

The 24-hour Self-Service Unit allowed anyone to expeditiously handle many of the same things that would otherwise require waiting in that queue inside to do during regular business hours.

The Self-Service Unit was an oasis.

An oasis!!!

Countless times over the years I have been there at night perhaps to send a payment out in the nick of time before its due date, trying to beat the deadline of the last pickup time or processing business mailings and either been able to help someone else who a) needed a stamp or didn't have the right change, or b) been helped by another patron when I might have needed a stamp or a coin.

People who used the 24-hour Self-Service Unit during the evening or overnight hours always exhibited an attitude of gratitude. Call it pure joy that they could access the facility and still get their items into the mail in time before the last pickup for the day.

Now the Self-Service Unit is no more.

Closing the Self-Service Unit was an ill-thought-out concept and I hope others will join me in raising a hue and cry over the closure of it. This is a 24-hour world we live in today. Never has it been more important or more necessary than it is right now to have that 24-hour facility.

Jaynie Dillon Jones Voice-0ver Demo Sampler

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African-Americans have higher mortality and morbidity than Caucasian Americans: I know why that is. It is no secret.

This is my husband, Charles Jones, at St. Joseph Hospital, in Tacoma, Washington, with severe congestive heart failure, kidney failure, and having a stroke.





I'm Jaynie Jones, http://emeraldprincessonline.blogspot.com/ and am happily married to an absolute gem of a gentleman, Charles Jones, who has complicated, disabling medical problems and was hospitalized at St. Joseph Hospital, in Tacoma, Washington, last week under his health insurance plan with Group Health Cooperative. He was treated for severe congestive heart failure, runaway high blood pressure, chest pain, kidney failure in "iminent" need of dialysis, and went on to suffer a stroke while hospitalized on Tuesday that was verified by CT Scan.

To the family's dismay, Charles was discharged from the hospital the day following his stroke even though he was still suffering symptoms. Jaynie was so distraught about the physicians' decision to send him home so soon after a stroke that she wrote the following letter to St. Joseph Hospital, Group Health Cooperative, all of the doctors, and the nursing staff to have this letter placed in his hospital record for future reference if any adverse events occurred subsequent to Charles' early release from the hospital.



When Charles called me at 3:30 in the afternoon and announced that he was being discharged and that I was to be there at 5:30 to bring him home, I was in a state of shocked disbelief. But in the time before I dashed over to the hospital, I wrote a letter of protest to have placed in his hospital record. With having had a stroke one, needing dialysis, and being sent home the following day with still some of the same symptoms unresolved, and having not been seen by a neurologist to even evaluate the sequelae of his stroke, this was deeply troubling to me. Charles was too weak and confused to put up a fight.


When I picked him up at the hospital to bring him home I handed the letter to the nurse and asked her to see to it that it was placed in his chart. Apparently someone read the letter late that evening, because a nurse called him at home to discuss it. Subsequently we have received several calls from Group Health. Hopefully this trend will continue and Charles will not suffer more ill effects from mismanged or marginally managed care.

________________________________________________________________________________


Let the record show that…Charles called to inform me this afternoon that he is being discharged to home from St. Joseph Hospital today. Discharged to home where we have one flight of 15 stairs and another flight of 8 stairs for him to climb up and down.

His discharge is premature and alarming to me as his wife and now caregiver that he is seemingly being discharged so soon when his runaway blood pressure (224/117 when first brought in on Saturday) has only been down in a more nearly normal range for less than a day.

Charles told me that Dr. Hwang had been in to see him today and informed him of the results of the CT scan of Charles’ head yesterday.

The CT scan was performed on an urgent basis due to the sudden onset of severe pain behind his right eye, coupled with diaphoresis, nausea and vomiting.The doctor reported the findings of the CT scan to Charles today stating that it revealed that he has had a CVA, but that it was his opinion that the radiologist had “over-read it.” How dismissive!

Charles has severe congestive heart failure, high-output failure, a fistula in his upper arm that measures 29.9-cm in greatest dimension, no surgical plan for revision of that to reduce the pressure or the heart failure that is now severe, end-stage renal disease despite having had a kidney transplant after four years of dialysis, but now the transplanted kidney is failing.Charles creatinine’ last week was 2.6, 3.8, 4.1, and now nearly 5. Dr. Hwang informed Charles that with the rapid elevation of his creatinine to nearly 5, he needs to go on dialysis “imminently.” This imminent need for dialysis has arisen out of the high-dose diuretics that have been used in recently days bringing his blood pressure down.

At Group Health Urgent Care, we cautioned Dr. John Vandegrift about how Charles’ transplant had gone into shock in 2000 when he had become dehydrated in Eastern Washington and on our return to Tacoma had presented to the ER at St. Joseph Hospital and had been loaded up with Lasix to pull the fluid off and that further compromised the kidney function, nearly destroying it. Dr. Vandegrift was in complete understanding of that and agreement and was judicious trying to get his blood pressure to a safe range.

After transfer from GHC Urgent Care by ambulance for admission to St. Joseph Hospital, Dr. Bonnie Sand met with both Charles and me in his room and we shared his history in detail with her. She was a thoughtful, completely engaged, intelligent physician who truly seemed to understand not only the history, but the complexity of what was happening at that point in time. She was well-informed and she inspired our confidence not only by how much time she spent with us, but by how carefully she listened to both of us and our concerns. She, too, recognized how precarious it could be, if Charles was diuresed too rapidly and the toll it could take on his renal allograft.Sadly since admission to St. Joseph Hospital, the rapid diuresis has once again brought the transplanted kidney to nearly complete failure with need for dialysis again being “imminent.”

We well recall what it is like to start back on dialysis. The cramping, weakness, light-headedness, the renal diet, all of these adjustments are ahead.When Charles first developed ESRD in the early ‘90s, he was admitted to the hospital and time was taken to get his dialysis going and get this smoothed out.

Now, here he has had a stroke one day and is being discharged from the hospital the next day with the same symptoms he had yesterday at the onset of the CVA, and he is still suffering from the head pain, nausea, et cetera, but he is being sent home in this condition and given Vicodin.

• What kind of logic is involved in this?
• And yet he needs to be on dialysis, but is being sent home?
• In this condition?
• Symptomatic?
• Having just had a CVA by CT?

• He feels devalued as a human being and as if he is being kicked to the curb.In our experience (his and mine as his wife) every doctor always says (in various office settings and in the hospital) that they just don't know why African-Americans have poorer outcomes, dramatically shortened life expectancy and so on, but that research statistics show that it is true that from the standpoint of morbidity and mortality, African-Americans with an array of chronic diseases such as CHF, heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, other cancers, kidney disease, et cetera, do not do as well as whites, they will suffer more complications and they will die sooner, at an earlier age than Caucasians.

  There is an answer to the ‘mystery’ and I can tell them that the answer is no mystery at all: It is because of the way the care is managed for African-Americans, not just relative to access to health care, but how such care is managed. That's what shortens their lives. The decision to discharge Charles to home from the hospital today is one such example.

  How can the hospital or physicians involved in this decision send a patient who has had a documented CVA one day sent home to the rigors of stair-climbing and the need for dialysis when that has not been implemented?I called Group Health and made an appeal to four different people there that Charles’ needs better care, closer monitoring, and consistent follow-up because of the nature, severity, and complexity of his various medical and health care issues.

  Were it not for their failure to follow-up and maintain continuity of his care, monitoring his blood pressure, et cetera, this could have been managed and prevented. Instead, he has not seen in clinic by a Group Health physician since last year.

  There has been no scheduled follow-up.

  He had no idea about how dangerously high his blood pressure had become, because Group Health just keeps renewing his medications and standing orders for lab work once a month.

  The failure by Group Health to consistently and aggressively manage Charles’ extremely complicated medical conditions has resulted in where we are today with Charles, a 41-year-old African-American man who has had:

• one kidney transplant now in failure again,
• facing dialysis,
• having had a stroke,
• rampant, runaway blood pressure, and now he has been left
• feeling hopeless and depressed,
• like his life is futile and
• there just is no hope to get better.
• He has been told to limit salt and
• lose weight,
• lose weight,
• lose weight,
• but no one offers any direction for that, no suggestions about how to accomplish that and no recognition for the fact that he has dropped 35 pounds on his own over this past year.
• He has asked repeatedly about being considered for lap band bariatric surgery. His requests for lap band have been ignored or put down.

So why are African-Americans consistently the ones who come out on the short end of the stick relative to their health care and the outcomes they experience in contrast to the Caucasian-American population? It is decisions such as the one today at St. Joseph Hospital, to discharge someone to home the day after a stroke, when dialysis is “imminent” (but not started), and when astronomical blood pressure has been brought down for less than a day.

Let the record show that the mystery is solved about the research statistics and why blacks have those bad outcomes.

Charles and I hope that this will not be one of those times, but just as a patient would be required to sign a form stating that they were refusing recommended medical care and by their own volition going AMA (Against Medical Advice), this situation is essentially the flip side of that. Charles is coming home from the hospital against our better judgment.

We both want to go on record that we oppose this plan. I am a blog writer for The News Tribune and I intend to blog about how Charles’ care has been managed.

The nursing care at St. Joseph Hospital has been excellent. The nurses have been consistent and professional in every way. They are compassionate and good communicators.Should there be any adverse consequences of the physician’s decision to discharge Charles today, it is now documented that Charles and I both objected to it and informed you of our concerns this day for all of the foregoing reasons.

Signed by: Jaynie Jones, Dated: March 14, 2007

Machine-dispensed information 24-hours a day

Totally blogalicious! The News Tribune has invited a select group of citizen journalists (including moi) to blog for the newspaper. What a hoot! I just posted my first blog there. Below you can read the text of it. What fun! EmeraldPrincessOnline

http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/neighborhood

During the years of my career in broadcasting I had occasion to become acquainted with countless interesting characters. Not just my coworkers, but the listeners who called in and/or wrote to me.

One listener used a customized rubber stamp on the back flap of every envelope. The rubber stamp said, “machine-dispensed information 24-hours a day.” There were two phone numbers on the next line.

I tried to imagine what sort of “machine-dispensed information” he was making available to those who would call either of those two numbers, but I never could have imagined just how bizarre it could actually be.

Eventually my curiosity got the best of me and I dialed the numbers to see what on Earth it was about.

One of the numbers played a 3-minute recording of him detailing not only his vital statistics, but even what his annual income, how much he budgeted for food, et cetera. He explained in the first recording that he had made these two numbers available for anyone to dial-in and listen to his thoughts, just in case anyone might want to know his thoughts.

Anyone.

He worked in a cannery where his only contacts were the people at work, but due to the noise of the machinery, there was no conversation that could be heard. He had no social life outside of work, but longed to be connected in some way. So he had devised the “machine dispensed information” concept. (The second recording was a full 30 minutes in length and he changed it out daily with rambling messages about various scenarios, all simply top of mind.)

I reflect back on his desperate effort to reach out, to find someone who would care to communicate somehow.

As bloggers we write what is in our hearts and on our minds as a means of potentially reaching out and connecting with the unseen and unknown reaches of the Internet. He had his “machine-dispensed information” and now we enjoy the modern equivalent of it that we call blogging.