For someone who reads for entertainment and prefers light fare to heavy, I found She Always Wore Red to be very enjoyable. Why is that surprising? It is the story of a woman who has recently inherited and is learning to run a funeral home. We read about many people, including children, who die. She tackles the issues of abortion of handicapped fetuses, racism and interracial marriage and yet mananges to do so in a story that is basically upbeat and not preachy. It is Christian fiction and against abortion and yet a good character struggles with it. The characters are real, they sin and they go on. It is the second book in a trilogy and I'll be looking for the other two.
Monday, June 16, 2008
She Always Wore Red
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and her book:
Tyndale House Publishers (April 23, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Christy-Award winner Angela Hunt writes for readers who have learned to expect the unexpected in novels from this versatile author. With over three million copies of her books sold worldwide, she is the best-selling author of more than 100 works ranging from picture books (The Tale of Three Trees) to novels.Now that her two children have reached their twenties, Angie and her husband live in Florida with Very Big Dogs (a direct result of watching Turner and Hooch and Sandlot too many times). This affinity for mastiffs has not been without its rewards--one of their dogs was featured on Live with Regis and Kelly as the second-largest canine in America. Their dog received this dubious honor after an all-expenses-paid trip to Manhattan for the dog and the Hunts, complete with VIP air travel and a stretch limo in which they toured New York City.
Afterward, the dog gave out pawtographs at the airport.
Angela admits to being fascinated by animals, medicine, psychology, unexplained phenomena, and “just about everything” except sports. Books, she says, have always shaped her life— in the fifth grade she learned how to flirt from reading Gone with the Wind.
Her books have won the coveted Christy Award, several Angel Awards from Excellence in Media, and the Gold and Silver Medallions from Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. In 2007, her novel The Note was featured as a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel. Romantic Times Book Club presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.
In 2006, Angela completed her Master of Biblical Studies in Theology degree and completed her doctorate in 2008. When she’s not home reading or writing, Angie often travels to teach writing workshops at schools and writers’ conferences. And to talk about her dogs, of course.
Visit her at her website.
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Chapter OneThe nameless cadaver on the cover of my anatomy textbook—a middle-aged man who is no longer black, white, or brown—would be counted among the orange in a census of the embalmed.
Someone should have adjusted the tint before they juiced him.
I flip the book open and study the color photographs of the cadaver’s aortic arch and brachiocephalic veins, then close my eyes and try to commit the multisyllable words to memory. Here I am, near the end of my first semester of mortuary school, and I’m still having trouble keeping my veins and arteries straight.
Behind me, an irate mother in the carpool line is honking, though we have a good three minutes before kindergarten dismissal. She probably has to pick up her child and get back to work before the end of her lunch hour. While I sympathize with her impatience, I wish she’d lay off the horn so I can concentrate.
I open one eye and examine the book propped on my steering wheel. The right internal jugular branches off the right and left brachiocephalic veins, which lie outside the brachiocephalic trunk. Brachiocephalic sounds like some kind of dinosaur. Bugs would like that word.
I turn the book sideways, but the photograph on the page looks nothing like a prehistoric animal. In fact, I find it hard to believe that anything like this jumble of tunnels and tubes exists in my body, but skin covers myriad mysteries.
I snap the book shut as the bell at Round lake elementary trills through the warm afternoon. The kindergarten classes troop out into the sunshine, their hands filled with lunch boxes and construction paper cutouts. The tired teachers stride to the curb and peer into various vehicles, then motion the appropriate children forward.
My spirits lift when my red-haired cherub catches my eye and waves. Bradley “Bugs” graham waits until his teacher calls his name and skips toward me.
“Hey, Mom.” He climbs into the backseat of the van as his teacher holds the door.
“Hey yourself, kiddo.” I check to make sure he’s snapped his seat belt before smiling my thanks at his teacher. “Did you have a good morning?”
“Yep.” He leans forward to peek into the front seat. “Do we hafta go home, or can we stop to get a snack?”
My thoughts veer toward the to-do list riding shotgun in the front passenger seat. I still have to run to the grocery store, swing by the dry cleaner’s to pick up gerald’s funeral suit, and stop to see if the bookstore has found a used copy of Introduction to Infectious Diseases, Second edition. Textbooks are usually pricey, but medical textbooks ought to come with fixed-rate mortgages. Still, I need to find that book if I’m going to complete my online course by the end of the semester.
“I’ll pull into a drive-through,” I tell Bugs, knowing he won’t mind. “You want McDonald’s?”
He nods, so I point the van toward Highway 441.
“Mr. gerald make any pickups today?” Bugs asks.
I ease onto the highway, amazed at how easily my children have accepted the ongoing work of the funeral home. “none today.”
“See this?”
I glance in the rearview mirror and see Bugs waving his construction paper creation. “Yes.”
“It’s a stegosaurus. Can I give it to gerald?”
“I think he’d like that.” I force a smile as an unexpected wave of grief rises within me. like a troublesome relative who doesn’t realize she’s worn out her welcome, sorrow often catches me by surprise. Gerald, the elderly embalmer at Fairlawn, has become a surrogate father for my sons. Thomas, my ex-husband and my children’s father, has been gone for months, but in some ways he’s never been closer. He lies in the Pine Forest Cemetery, less than two miles from our house, so we can’t help but think of him every time we drive by.
I get Bugs a vanilla ice cream cone at the McDonald’s drive-through, and then we run to the grocery store and the dry cleaner. I’ll call the bookstore later. no sense in going there when a simple phone call will suffice.
Finally we turn into the long driveway that leads to the Fairlawn Funeral Home.
Gerald has poured a new concrete pad next to the garage, and as I park on it, Bugs notices that the call car is gone. “uh-oh.” He looks at me. “Somebody bit the dust.”
I press my lips together. A couple of months ago I would have mumbled something about the old station wagon maybe needing a wash, but now I know there’s no reason to shield my children from the truth—we are in the death care industry. The squeamishness I felt when we first arrived vanished the day I walked into the prep room and gloved up to help gerald lay out my ex-husband.
“Come in the house,” I tell my son. “I’ll pour you a glass of milk.”
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Healthcare
One nice thing about having your own blog is being able to write about whatever you please and being able to figure that at least few people will read it. I just read what Denise had to say about healthcare, so I'm going to put in my two cents.
First of all, I believe our current system is broken. I'm economically conservative and firmly believe in the law of supply and demand as the best way to set reasonable prices. We have taken that law out of the healthcare equation. We have basically unlimited demand, a system that is willing to provide an unlimited supply, and which has limited costs for many users. In short, few people walk out of the doctor's office, hospital or drugstore saying "it would be nice to have, but I just can't afford it (or don't want to spend my limited money on that)" For the majority of people in this country, healthcare is paid for by someone else, at least for the most part. Because of that our system has developed a Cadillac model embracing high tech, private rooms, highly educated practitioners and lifetime medications for those with good insurance and a Yugo model of charity care by overworked understaffed public hospitals for those without. There is no middle ground. I had three kids, and the ob charges on each one were over $1000. When looking for an OB, I never asked the price--why should I? By the time it was over, my out of pocket for that baby wasn't going to be any different if I picked Dr. $800 or Dr. $1000. If I was looking for an appliance in that price range, you'd better believe I'd compare prices.
What would I do to fix the system? First of all, I'd get health insurance out of the workplace. What I spend on health insurance and the choices I make in that regard are my business, not my employer's.
Secondly, make health insurance true insurance--something that most people don't use. I've had car insurance for twenty-five years. I've only "used" it twice. I "use" my health insurance that often every month. The purpose of insurance is to protect us from things we can't afford, not to pay routine bills. Over 10% of our health insurance premiums go to pay overhead and profit for insurance company. I wonder how much of the money we spend at the doctor's goes to people who are billing specialists, who make sure the bills are properly coded and submitted to the insurance company. Remember when the "billing specialist" at the doctor's office was also the receptionist, who took your fee, paid in full, as you walked out the door? In today's dollars, I think health insurance policies should have deductibles in the range of $4000/year/family with charges for submitting claims before that deductible was met (if you want the insurance company to keep track of your paperwork, you pay for it)
The third thing I'd do if you made me dictator is to require community-based pricing of policies with your premium tier set when you buy the policy. In other words, I'd require insurance companies treat all people like a group, not like individuals. Once someone gets sick is no time to raise their premiums through the roof. If they have had a policy all along, it should not become unaffordable due to illness. As long as you maintain a policy, your rates cannot be singled out to be raised or lowered, but those who choose not to buy insurance for a while should be penalized--kind of like term life insurance (buy a long-term policy it when you are young and healthy and it is relatively inexpensive, wait until you are old and sick and it costs a fortune).
My hope is that such reforms would encourge the growth of a "Ford" healthcare system. In Europe, most prenatal and delivery care is performed by midwives, with better results than we get with doctors. If price became an issue for people having babies, then maybe they'd shop for midwives. Pediatricians spend lots of time on well baby check-ups. Why not a nurse practitioner? As a patient today I have no incentive to see the NP rather than the doctor--my co-pay is the same, so I'd rather see the doctor. As a matter of fact, most of the routine care people seek today could effectively be rendered by NPs or PA's. Doctors could provide it too for less money if they had an economic incentive to charge less--but they don't, so why should they? People have no economic incentive to seek that type of care. The result is high-priced high-end care that is affordable to those with money and/or insurance and inadequate care for those paying out of pocket.
My brother often quotes what he calls his "golden rule", namely "he that puts out the gold, makes the rules". In this case it mean that the one making the rules (mostly the government) comes up with ways to cut costs, and then the one whose profits are being cut comes up with a way around it. In the meantime positions like "bill auditor" and "medical coder" are invented. If there is a single provider system like the VA or military systems, then the problem is excess demand. Since they can't limit demand by raising prices, they do it by phone trees, waiting lists, referral requirements etc. That's the problem they have in Canada. Insurance companies try to cut costs by limiting hospital stays or requiring second opinions and we lobby legislatures to require them to cover more.
In short, I see the solution to the healthcare problems as being more costs that I see directly. I see giving consumers more of an interest in the cost of individual healthcare encounters and decisions as demand and price moderating. Maybe its a pipe dream but I don't want to give up more control of my healthcare to some government agency.
First of all, I believe our current system is broken. I'm economically conservative and firmly believe in the law of supply and demand as the best way to set reasonable prices. We have taken that law out of the healthcare equation. We have basically unlimited demand, a system that is willing to provide an unlimited supply, and which has limited costs for many users. In short, few people walk out of the doctor's office, hospital or drugstore saying "it would be nice to have, but I just can't afford it (or don't want to spend my limited money on that)" For the majority of people in this country, healthcare is paid for by someone else, at least for the most part. Because of that our system has developed a Cadillac model embracing high tech, private rooms, highly educated practitioners and lifetime medications for those with good insurance and a Yugo model of charity care by overworked understaffed public hospitals for those without. There is no middle ground. I had three kids, and the ob charges on each one were over $1000. When looking for an OB, I never asked the price--why should I? By the time it was over, my out of pocket for that baby wasn't going to be any different if I picked Dr. $800 or Dr. $1000. If I was looking for an appliance in that price range, you'd better believe I'd compare prices.
What would I do to fix the system? First of all, I'd get health insurance out of the workplace. What I spend on health insurance and the choices I make in that regard are my business, not my employer's.
Secondly, make health insurance true insurance--something that most people don't use. I've had car insurance for twenty-five years. I've only "used" it twice. I "use" my health insurance that often every month. The purpose of insurance is to protect us from things we can't afford, not to pay routine bills. Over 10% of our health insurance premiums go to pay overhead and profit for insurance company. I wonder how much of the money we spend at the doctor's goes to people who are billing specialists, who make sure the bills are properly coded and submitted to the insurance company. Remember when the "billing specialist" at the doctor's office was also the receptionist, who took your fee, paid in full, as you walked out the door? In today's dollars, I think health insurance policies should have deductibles in the range of $4000/year/family with charges for submitting claims before that deductible was met (if you want the insurance company to keep track of your paperwork, you pay for it)
The third thing I'd do if you made me dictator is to require community-based pricing of policies with your premium tier set when you buy the policy. In other words, I'd require insurance companies treat all people like a group, not like individuals. Once someone gets sick is no time to raise their premiums through the roof. If they have had a policy all along, it should not become unaffordable due to illness. As long as you maintain a policy, your rates cannot be singled out to be raised or lowered, but those who choose not to buy insurance for a while should be penalized--kind of like term life insurance (buy a long-term policy it when you are young and healthy and it is relatively inexpensive, wait until you are old and sick and it costs a fortune).
My hope is that such reforms would encourge the growth of a "Ford" healthcare system. In Europe, most prenatal and delivery care is performed by midwives, with better results than we get with doctors. If price became an issue for people having babies, then maybe they'd shop for midwives. Pediatricians spend lots of time on well baby check-ups. Why not a nurse practitioner? As a patient today I have no incentive to see the NP rather than the doctor--my co-pay is the same, so I'd rather see the doctor. As a matter of fact, most of the routine care people seek today could effectively be rendered by NPs or PA's. Doctors could provide it too for less money if they had an economic incentive to charge less--but they don't, so why should they? People have no economic incentive to seek that type of care. The result is high-priced high-end care that is affordable to those with money and/or insurance and inadequate care for those paying out of pocket.
My brother often quotes what he calls his "golden rule", namely "he that puts out the gold, makes the rules". In this case it mean that the one making the rules (mostly the government) comes up with ways to cut costs, and then the one whose profits are being cut comes up with a way around it. In the meantime positions like "bill auditor" and "medical coder" are invented. If there is a single provider system like the VA or military systems, then the problem is excess demand. Since they can't limit demand by raising prices, they do it by phone trees, waiting lists, referral requirements etc. That's the problem they have in Canada. Insurance companies try to cut costs by limiting hospital stays or requiring second opinions and we lobby legislatures to require them to cover more.
In short, I see the solution to the healthcare problems as being more costs that I see directly. I see giving consumers more of an interest in the cost of individual healthcare encounters and decisions as demand and price moderating. Maybe its a pipe dream but I don't want to give up more control of my healthcare to some government agency.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Another Author
I just found another author whose books I can mooch. Emilie Richards wrote a lovely story called Wedding Ring about three women, daughter, mother and grandmother. All have allowed sorrow in life to keep them from enjoying the life they have. The story takes place one summer when a neighbor calls the mother and tells her that the grandmother's house is a run-down fire trap loaded with junk. The mother and daughter move in for the summer to clean up, fix up and make arrangments for the rest of the grandmother's life. While there, the quilts that the gradmother makes bring them together and they learn things about each other they have never known. They also all realize that they can make the decision to be happier. I definitely recommend it. If you want it, email me. Otherwise, I'll put it on the bookmooch list soon.
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