Lisa HamiltonAs astonishing as it is that this tiny hick town in #Appalachia would even know what pi is, but our grocery store is selling their bakery pies for $3.14 on March 14th! #food #pie #pi #math #SmallMiracles
Yes I will be buying one :-)
Paul Anomaly@3x10to8mps Viva Pi Day! This will be my first year since 2003 not celebrating it with a classroom of students. But the past month living in a rural Appalachian village has definitely taught me to never underestimate what folks in The Hollers know about; I know quite a few K-pop fanatics around here, one of whom has taught herself to make restaurant-quality Korean and Japanese food from YouTube.
@PaulAnomaly Haha you're lucky. When I moved here, the grocery manager didn't believe me that there were pickles other than dill so I showed him a jar. He still refuses to carry any
The nurses at my hospital didn't know there were different types of "orientals"
This community, actually the whole state, doesn't understand there's more to the Internet than Facebook- even government offices only have Fb pages (so I am out of the loop)
And churches keep anyone from getting vaccinated bec it's the "mark of the devil and you'll go straight to hell"
Oh and they're sure all Jews have horns
So hollars vary widely :-)
@3x10to8mps Oh, the information penetration is definitely uneven all around. I'm always surprised to see how few businesses and government offices in my county have functional websites. And I was truly shocked to find out my daughter had to opt out of weekly Bible study class in a public school. My wife, a nurse, definitely had to fight hard against anti-vax propaganda; our family lost at least one unvaccinated member to COVID, but I expect we would have lost many more if not for her tireless and stubborn "Nobody gets to hold the new baby unless they're vaccinated and masked" rules.
@PaulAnomaly Thank goodness she held that line! Every nurse in my (former) emergency room (all locals) quit rather than get vaccinated so we went through the pandemic with traveling nurses passing thru. It was probably better actually- in this area a CNA is considered a nurse. There are almost no RNs. It's not good for the surprisingly high level of acuity of the patients we would get.
One candidate for county judge is running on how many guns he has, with ads showing him hunting and fishing. The other is trying to impress with his knowledge of Old Testament bible quotes. I wouldn't vote for either 😱
@3x10to8mps And yet, one of those candidates is what you'll get. Ouch. The curse of democracy: MOST people get what they deserve.
Living in a health care desert is taking some getting used to. Thursday my wife and I drove six hours to the nearest branch of my HMO; Friday I had surgery and drove six hours home. We're working on finding child care so we can do the trip again in a month for follow up.
While travel nurses are awesome, I'm sure they wrecked the budgets of those hospitals; they're much more expensive. The most immediately obvious thing to do would seem to be firing any employee not following basic contagion prevention, but of course that's not a realistic option if you're already running a hospital in a location where no qualified RN would want to (take a pay cut to) work (in appalling conditions).
Most people in America have no idea what life is like in most places in America. And so the people in most places feel invisible and neglected, and they ain't wrong...
@PaulAnomaly Six hours is a lot. I've had to drive to Altoona and to Baltimore for medical care. Gets expensive.
I think some people retire to small towns not realizing the choice to be far from cities means they will have a 3-hr transport by a basic volunteer ambulance to a critical access hospital or maybe end up paying for a helicopter ride when they get sick or injured. And it should be a conscious choice. I think that's why those retirement villages spring up near medical facilities