Botswana! Better than the Commercial!

Sable antelope

     There is a current commercial in which many species of African animals are seen frolicing in the African river, living in complete harmony. The lion drinks next to the zebra. The meerkats ride on the back of a crocodile down the peaceful river. It is an idealic scene and it makes the object of the ad memorable. But for me it always reminds me of our views of wildlife in Chobe National Park where indeed it is almost as harmonious. I decided to tell you a little about Botswana and include some photos here. We haven't viewed any of our trip photos in this blog for a while. In this post, you will see some of the animals. Birdwatchers look for my next post in which there will be photos of many of the beautiful birds to be seen in Botswana.

     National parks and game reserves occupy 17% of the land mass of Botswana. Some naturalists have counted 165 species of mammals, 160 reptiles, 80 fish, and 550 birds have been counted among these hords of animals.

     Chobe National Park is located in the northeastern part of the country and is known for the Chobe River which runs through it and serves as watering hole and grazing center on the surrounding grasslands for herds of unulates and many of the country's 35,000 to 45,000 elephants. You can view these animals quite closely as they frolic in the water. But don't get between a mother and her calf at this National Park. The mother will charge the Land Rover in which you are riding, though she seldom if ever really comes in contact with the Land Rover. Still it is a thrilling experience. By contrast, in the game reserves near Kruger National Park in South Africa elephants are so used to the Land Rovers that it is the only place where a herd of elephants will encircle the Land Rover and pass by, the elephant cow even allowing her calf to be separated from her by the Land Rover. There the animals are very trusting. In Chobe, the animals are numerous but still wild.

     Pods of hippos are cooling off peacefully in the River pools. Water buffaloes, giraffes, white rhinos, and rarer black rhinos, zebras, wildebeests, impalas, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, vervet monkeys, kudus, and water bucks are common. Occasional sable antelope are seen. White backed vultures, Maribou storks, and other large birds stalk the shallows. Gorgeous smaller birds are wonderful photographic subjects such as lilac breasted rollers, glossy starling ( an irridescent teal colored bird unlike our black starling), and helmeted guinea fowl stroll in flocks across the dirt roads of the park. Tawny eagles are seen in treetops and circling and a couple specie of hornbills come up the to camp to beg for food.
    We stayed at Chobe Lodge and there are warning signs to watch out for hippos out of the water and warthogs and to stay away from the docile looking water buffalo. Several of the local restaurants serve some of these wild game meals, not taken from the reserve areas, of course.
     We did not have time in our month long Southern Africa trip to also include the Okavanga Delta. This area is about an hour's flight by small plane form Kasane airport near Chobe. The Okavanga is the world's largest inland delta. Animals are very numerous here as well. Camps are common and safaris are usually very productive. But guests are discouraged from walking about on their own, and are escorted by knowledgeble guides from tent or cabin to dining tent etc. This is also true in the national parks and game reserves of South Africa. After all those wild animals are just out there! Botswana is one of the few places we have visited to which I want to return. I want to see the Okavanga also, maybe at the time of year when the migration of huge herds of wildebeest out of the Kalahari desert occurs. Will have to see if we have time in our life to make this return trip.
     Botswana is also just over the Zambezi River from Victoria Falls, one of the greatest water falls in the world, competing with Iguasu in Brazil. Victoria is just a short motor coach or van trip and a ferry trip across the Zambezi.

Photos.

African wild dog

Honey badger

The females of the lion pride

common warthog

                                                                     Impala

Cape Buffalo

Baboons

Nile crocodile

zebra

                                          Hippos and impala in the distance

Cataract Surgery

A Fragment of Vision!

     I have spent  a few days twice during the last month taking care of my 93 year old mother after she had cataract surgery. She is basicly blind from so called "wet" macular degeneration. But she had enough peripheral vision to get around in her own home to live independently. In fact, she still bakes cookies and makes macaroni salad and potato salad ( her own recipe with both mayonaise and Henri's Tastee Dressing) to take to church pot luck events and fundraisers. However, lately her vision shut down in both eyes due to a rapid progression of her cataracts. Now in today's world of discussion about money spent on seniors and particularly during the last months or year of life, one might say: "Why would you do cataract surgery on a lady who is already blind from macular degneration?" It is a reasonable question. But this 93 year old woman still lives independently by herself, still contributes to the community, and is still sharp as a tack with her mind. How do you deny such a surgery to her, even if it only provides a miniscule improvement in her vision? Well, fortunately her retinal specilist agreed and found a doctor to do the bilateral cataract operations as soon as was possible. Well, this 93 year old breezed through the surgery. Oh, she was a little nervous about the first surgery; her systolic blood pressure reached 180 probably due to this anxiety. Indeed, she had only had surgery of any kind once before in her life -- the removal of a diseased gallbladder more than 30 years ago. And this was an operation on the eye for which she would be awake. But a little short acting IV sedative (Fenenyl) and she breezed right through the surgery. She said it went so fast she thought they were just preparing her eye for the surgery and she was told that it was over. (Well, this adept eye surgeon averages 7 minutes per patient of actually removing the cataract. The patients are moved through at about the rate of 30 minutes per patient in the OR.)  Of course, it might have also helped that I was with her, a retired physician, and even more so that her second daughter works as a teaching RN in the operating room of that hospital and could keep us all posted on exactly what was going to take place when. Mom was discharged from the recovery room about 2 hours after the surgery ended.  I stayed with her for 2 nights after each surgery. I could tell an improvement after the first one. Before the surgery she had begun to feel around just to get past the table in her kitchen, or to get through doorways. She had become uncertain and indeed a little unstable on her feet. The family feared a fall would put her out of commission for good. But immediately as we arrived home after the first surgery I noted that she was moving around with more confidence. She knew where that table was and where the edge of the door frame was. And as the swelling cleared, she could begin to use her machine which magnifies print such that she can read a few words again. These are little things but in her case every fragment of remaining vision is important.
     She is looking at a long and lonely winter. She used to be one of 4 widows, all over 80 in my small home town of Pecatonica, IL. But now my aunt has entered a nursing home near her daughter in central Illinois. My 94 year old cousin has had to stop driving and has been in and out of the hospital and is currently in a nursing home recovering from one of those hospital stays. The 4th widow also has macular degeneration and is also suffering from dementia. My mother's local support system is being decimated by age and debility. We three daughters will have to attend to her more frequently this winter and we are thinking of employing a companion to come in a couple of days a week to just be there for Mom. She was getting sick of the Talking Books that were coming in the mail, so I updated her subscription there and am getting her some Talking magazines and some newer and different books topics. She "watches" some television and enjoys the History Channel. We are keeping that going. Phone calls from family members help and her fellow church members are wonderful about taking her to church events and to her doctors' appointments.
     All of this prompts me at 67 to consider what my husband and I might need in our old age. One never knows how the cards dealt to us are going to play. We can plan for some expectations such as having long term care insurance in place, but we can't forsee everything. I just hope I have a family and a support group like my mother's and the strong will and determination that she has at this advanced winter of her life.

A Dowdy Stamp Club? Not!

     Since I have retired I have been participating in a couple stamp clubs locally -- the Milwaukee Philatelic Society and the American Topical Association Chapter 5. Many of the same people are involved in these two clubs and in many of the other local clubs that are part of the Wisconsin Federation of Stamp Clubs. Generally the members of these clubs are past 65 like myself because no doubt such people have more time to work on their stamp collections. Both clubs work on attracting youth into the hobby because if we don't we will be the last of this hobby. One of our members has worked very hard at attracting youth, and has won an Award from the National organization due to her hard work. I have been helping her out at a monthly youth stamp meeting and occasionally at other functions where youth are encouraged. Generally the members are kind, gentle and friendly people. Many are educated but not all have college degrees. Recently through my youth worker friend, I have learned of a member who does not fit this mold.
     First my firend told me about this individual because he was begging stamp material from all members of the club to be used at his youth table at local stamp shows. He claimed to be going to many local schools, and to Boy Scout and Girl Scout troups, and 18 children's hospitals in Southeastern Wisconsin. I am a retired MD and I know there are not 18 children's hospitals around here. There are two if you count Milwaukee and Madison. There are a few local hospitals that do admit children to a small children's ward but these children are usually in the hospitall for only short times, many times just a night or two and would not be candidates for a stamp collector visitor. So we began to suspect he was exagerating a little bit. He began saying that he had a terminal disease, perhaps cancer and was dying. That was about 2 years ago. Then he began telling his life story and maintained that he had been a fireman, then an EMT and then went to medical school, was an MD and had worked at a hospital ER as the ER physician in central Wisconsin, until he was in a car accident and had a head injury that affected his memory. He claimed that he had to go back to school for 2 years to try to get recertified, but says the Federal Government would not let him go back to practice, so he decided to start his work with stamps and youth. As an MD, I know that states license doctors and the Federal Government has nothing to do with it. Also there is no 2 year refresher course for a doctor.
     In current technological times, we can check on such claims very easily. All MD's licensed in Wisconsin back to the 1920s can be found on line. This gentleman was not listed. Once I approached him and asked him if he was an MD. He nodded, said Yes. I asked him where he did his residency and he didn't seem to understand what I was asking. He said, "Well, let me start at the beginning. First I was a fireman, then I was an EMT and then I became a physician." I then asked him where he went to medical school. He said in Chicago, the one that is on the west side, but he said he couldn't recall its name. He aid he has trouble with his memory since his car accident. He has totally taken in the secretary of the stamp club who writess the newsletter. There was one long article about him and his MD and his devotion to youth stamps and there are many short little blurbs written by the secretry commending his dedication or asking for donations of stamps for his program.
     He has taken in other members of the clubs also and got elected to the Board of Directors of one of the clubs. Now he was in a position of authority and we needed to figure out what to do. We were still debating about the best course to take when this year's Milcopex stamp show came around. I volunteered to organize and man the hosptality table at the show. I saw this imposter working around the show, helping set up and helping the dealers under the supervision of the secretary of the stamp club. He looked like he was being conscientious and I hoped that his need to tell these tall tales had passed. But after the show ended my friend sent me an email which arrived coincidently with the newsletter for the next stamp club meeting. The secretary was again writing about this stamp club imposter saying that he had an exciting announcement to make and she would let him have his fun and glory and make the announcement at the next meeting. My friend filled me in in her email. This man was now claiming that he had won an award for his youth activities from the "National Postal Museum" in Washington DC, a fully paid for trip to Germany for 81 people. He was unable to go on the date it was originally offered, he said, because he had to work at Milcopex. My friend was able to check this out, and a lady from Canada had actually won this award, but it was not a trip to Germany or anywhere else. In addition, several people had overheard this man telling dealers at the Milcopex to only donate children's material to him, because if they gave it to certain others, it would be sold for money and not given to the children. Here he was obviously aiming at my friend's reputation. He has always known that she was on to him. Now he is getting into a libelous area. A decision of what to do had to be made. Finally through various Internet conferencing it was decided that a member of the Wisconsin Stamp Federation who is also a member of our stamp club would speak to him privatedly, tell him we had evidence of the falsehood of his stories, ask him to resign from the Board, and ask him to desist from this behavior. He would be allowed to stay in the stamp club as long as he did these things. Well, he sat through the Board meeting, then picked up his belongings and didn't stay for the stamp club meeting during which he was supposed to make this announcement. It was all rather anticlimactic. I was hoping for a public confrontation, but that didn't happen and that was probably for the best. Time will now tell whether this man who has some sort of psychiatric need to tell tall tale about himself to the detriment of others -- whether he will be able to change his behavior and be a productive member of the club. Who would have thought that a benign hobbyist group like a stamp club would shelter such a person in its midst.

Retirement: It's great!

    
     Today I attended my medical clinic retirement luncheon. About 20 of us retired docs from our clinic get together for lunch once a month. We pick a different restaurant each time and move them around town; sometimes we try new restaurants. Our discussions range from travel reports about trips taken, our families and their happies and their sads, and also, of course, our run-ins with medical care from the other side of the check in desk. At least, we can share the latter, because it is bound to happen. Almost everyone of us present has had something to be treated or has a family member going through medical stuff right now.

     I love retirement! People ask me if I ever miss my patients or my medical practice. On rare occasion, I do miss having that doctor identity, but it really does not occupy a large part of my thoughts. I tell people, "Yah, the other day I thought about that for about 30 seconds." That does seem to be the way of it. I was ready to retire when I did it. I have a lot of interests and wanted to spend more time on those interests. That's where the name of this blog came from. A doctor friend that I used to share an office with often called me the Renaissance Woman because I had so many interests and had read and done so much with those interests. She felt she could ask me about almost anything and I could give her an answer or I could describe a personal experience that answered her question. So she called me Renaissance Woman. The term was usually Renaissance Man. The definition of this term started because during the Renaissance there was much less knowledge about fields of study so one person could be knowledgeable in multiple fields in the arts and sciences such as Leonardo Da Vinci, as an example. A modern definition for the use of that term applied it to a scholar who was in a position to acquire more than superficial knowledge about many different interests. The term was first recorded in written English in the early twentieth century when it was used to describe a person who is well educated, or who excels, in a wide variety of subjects or fields. Usually it meant that the man was accomplished in areas of both the arts and the sciences. Since I had been called a Renaissance Woman due to my many interests, I decided to call myself that in my blog. As my profile says, I am interested in gardening, writing, water color painting and drawing, learning piano, geneology, reading, keeping fish, travel, interior decor, stamp collecting, toy collecting, exercise, tennis, medicine, birdwatching. As you can see I don't have enough time to tend to all my interests, but I try.

     I was going through some stacks of papers and I found this list of quotes on retirement that were in the Editor's Note of Physician's Money Digest, June 30, 2003. This was a throw away newspaper that was sent to all doctors free, paid for by the advertising within. I should explain what "throw-aways" are. Doctors pay for subscriptions to receive medical journals and some newsletters or newspapers that have scientific articles in them. These subscription journals are peer-reviewed. That means that the scientific articles are judged by a panel of experts and/or an editor before the article is accepted to be printed in the journal. But there are many medical journals or magazines that are not peer reviewed. Doctors or other experts are asked to write articles for them, and the article are accepted without peer review. The advertising fees pay for the publishing of the journal. There are no subscription fees. Now there is often good articles and good information in these "throw-aways." But they are usually not kept, or bound. They are read and thrown away.

     Following are the quotes from that Editor's Note:

     The things that should accompany old age; fairly good health to the end, an unceasing interest in life, and the affectionate esteem of a largre circle of friends.  William Osler, MD

    A doctor is happiest twice in life -- the day they hang up a diploma and the day they take it down. Howard J. Bennett, MD

     Our lives bregin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

     How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.  George Washington Carver

     Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.  Scottish Proverb

    Love prefers twilight to daylight.  Oliver Wendell Holmes, MD

    There is an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job.  Peter Drucker

     A person can stand almost anything except for a succession of ordinary days.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

     Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retired.  Samuel Johnson

     Sooner or later i'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.  Margaret Mead

    The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.  Coach Vince Lombardi

     I have never liked working. To me a job is an invasion of privacy.  Danny McGoorty, Irish pool player

     The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.  Lilly Tomlin

    I retired because of illness and fatigue. The fans were sick and tired of me.  Coach John Ralston

     My doctor work interfers with my life.  RenRae

Note: The Wordle image that I opened this post with contains the words that were used most often in all of these above quotes with their size relating to their frequency of use. There is a wonderful site online that creates these wordles. You can paste in text, or link to a URL or other site and then tell the application to create a Wordle with these words. You can choose the shape, the directions of the words, the colors and the font. Very artistic, isn't it? This is especially useful if you are creating a genealogical image because the surnames and the places of birth will stand out with the most common ones being larger. Try it at this site: http://www.wordle.net/



   

Like a Bird by Asaf Solomon

Bird's Eye View

"Asaf Solomon, a dedicated Galilean, nature lover, and farmer, photographs the land of Israel while flying over it in a powered paraglider, a picturesque craft that gives the passenger a sense of freedom and tranquility, as well as the opportunity to take photographs from an unorthodox angle."
 
The above introduction is from the Magazine Eretz. We have his book "Like a Bird" showing his magnificent photographs of the land of Israel from the sky. Patterns, birds, nature and archeological landmarks vy with each other to produce a view of Israel that I have never seen. I have been there 7 or 8 times and of course my husband lived there until he was 33 years old. But every time we go to that little country we find something new to see. There is a new national park, or some new event to see. This little country unbelievably has 60 some national parks. They do a wonderful job of preserving their important holy legacy -- holy in three religions. But this book shows still a new view. I recommend you get this book if you can find it. It is in Hebrew, but that doesn't matter; you will just miss out on the short titles of each photo. But the photographer Asaf Solomon has a website and you can see a few of his views there. This book is a wonderful coffee table book of a smaller nature and will certainly arouse interest and conversation in your home.
 
"Like a Bird" by Asaf Solomon. 2009 Kinnaret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir -- Publishing House Ltd. St. Or Yehuda 60212, Israel  ISBN 978-965-517-351-2
http://www.kinbooks.co.il/

     The above photo is taken from the jacket cover of the book. It is copyrighted and printed here with permission of publisher and author. It is my favorite. It shows the Star of David plowed up in a field, in the Hula Valley in the north of Israel. We have been there in the fall of the year when 10s of thousands of cranes are stopping there on their yearly migration from Europe to winter in Africa. In this photo, the tractor is scattering seed just on the Star of David outline. The cranes are therefore landing and feeding on the Star. For a lover of Israel and a birdwatcher like me, this is a wonderful photo.

The Spy Network!

Russian Spies in the Family! (Names changed to protect our relatives and friends)
    

    We recently had more overnight Israeli house guests. This time it was a first cousin, once removed to my husband, Amos, on his father's side of the family. Emma, the cousin, and her husband Dimitri grew up in Communist Bessarabia, which is now the independent country of Moldova. They lived in the capitol city, Kishinev, and immigrated to Israel in the 1980s. Dimitri was more or less a favorite "nephew" of my father-in-law Moshe. Moshe helped Dimitri and Emma get settled in Israel and helped Dimitri get a good managing job with the electric company in Israel. Emma is a pediatrician who practices in Israel. They now have two grown sons and grandchildren. We had become friendly with Dmitri and Emma and had hosted them before in our home in Milwaukee. They seemed a very nice couple and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. We had even traveled with them from Virginia where we were all at a family bat mitzvah to our home in Milwaukee, through Gettysburg and Niagara Falls and other stops along the way. On that trip we stopped in downtown Chicago on the way home, and we took them up on the Sears Tower to see the view. Then Emma asked us if we could leave them in downtown Chicago and they would catch a bus up to Milwaukee at the end of the day. They wanted to do some shopping, she said. We offered to wait for them and go entertain ourselves for a while and pick them up at a set time. "No," she said that wouldn't do. They insisted on staying by themselves in the big city ostensibly "to shop."

     Well, it was a few years after this trip together, that we learned the unimaginable. Dimitri was indicted for spying for Russia, and agreed to cooperate and tell all about his years of gathering information from Israel, perhaps some through his electric company job and relaying it to Russian authorities. Dimitri and
Emma claimed that they never passed any information that was not already known by the Russians. We never knew whether their release to be able to leave Russia and emigrate to Israel was contingent on this spying. They still had family in Russia, her brother and his offspring, and maybe the Russians would put pressure on them or punish them if the spying were to end. We never knew. There has been the recent Russian spy story of the large spy group embedded in American society. This was probably a similar situation. Like the US spy ring, it did not seem that Dimitri and Emma made a lot of money for their efforts. They did like to go out evenings and drink or party with friends, yes, but they didn't live like wealthy people. And Emma particularly worked very long hours as a doctor. At the time, we did not think that money was a motivation for this behavior.

     This conviction nearly did Moshe in; in fact my mother-in-law blamed his final heart attack on the stress it induced. Dimitri was sentenced to 8 years in prison.  Emma was not indicted and she continued to take care of the two sons and work very hard as a pediatrician. When we spoke with her on the phone, she usually seemed overwhelmed. Was it worth it? Toward the end of those 8 years Dimitri was allowed out of jail to work during the day and then returned to jail at night. He was released completely a couple years ago. For the first couple years Dimitri was not allowed to leave Israel.

     Now finally, they were allowed out of Israel and they decided to come to the States on a leisure tour. They came to our home on Saturday and we got the Sendik's prime rib supper to have at home that night. On Sunday we went out for brunch at Roots in Milwaukee with its wonderful overview of the city of Milwaukee. Then we drove the couple around downtown showing them views, over Lake Michigan, of the Calatrava Art Museum, and of the River Walk. This time again, as happened years ago, Emma asked for us to leave them alone downtown to walk the River Walk, and shop. This reminded us of the occurrence years ago in Chicago. Emma had asked us a couple times while driving them around the city, "Are we in downtown now?" Were they meeting someone in "downtown Milwaukee" to pass information? I doubt it. I just think that Emma is kind of a nervous lady and she just needs to be on her own. She doesn't seem to have a lot of patience to be shown things by someone else. Well, at least, I hope that is the excuse.

     The recent US Russian spy ring that was arrested, and deported back to Russia very quickly has similar descriptions to our relatives. "Nice young couple."  "Raising children"  "Living in Suburbia of the US" "Stylish people"  No one suspected these people in the US of being spies. Likewise I don't think anyone suspected our relatives of such activities. Certainly we didn't. However, Israeli authorities knew there were a lot of these Russian immigrants that came in the 1970s and 1980s who were doing this. They even allowed such people to come forward and confess at one time during those decades, to be pardoned without any penalty. They knew Russia was coercing many of these people with pressure on family members who remained in Russia. Dimitri did not come forward at that time. We don't know why. Had they gotten used to the small amounts of money coming in?  Therefore when he was caught, he was prosecuted to the full law in Israel. My husband and I talk about this at times. Dimitri and Ella's oldest son was career military for a while in Israel. I often wonder if his parents' activities held back his career at all. Some of the Russian spies in the US had children as well. It was unknown if they were actually their children or not, or other actors for the role. One couple may have been faking their marriage but they had two small children that were probably theirs. Needless to say our experience raises the question of many more living incognito among us who are not who they seem. Hmm! Since our visitors, I wonder if our phone is tapped by the FBI.