Nuts to You

Little acorns. Maybe not so little, about hand-palm size. The bisque-fired clay (Longhorn White) unglazed is the white of the caps, the black is black iron oxide rubbed into the markings. I never bothered to glaze them so Susan took over and did some magic with alcohol ink on the bottoms and a little gold paint on the top.

School is out for a while so I'm trying my best to drive her nuts.

I'm listening to The Goldfinch from Audible.com, pretty darn good. Last night we watched Elysium from Netflix (we love to get red envelopes). Nope, just barely 3 stars - overdone acting by the villain and (per Susan) stereotyped characterization of the females. Matt Damon was OK but Jodie Foster ... she could out-do Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the evil stuff.

I've been asked my opinion about the VA hospital horrors. Yes, I was in the military but qualifying for VA care is on a tiered system and the top of the tier is veterans who have a disability due to actual combat injuries. The tiers go down, at the bottom is the group of veterans who just need to see a doctor and had a very minimum time in the service and who were discharged when they were healthy. That group is pretty large because (obviously) everyone would like free medical care and after all, that was what they were promised.  So I'm eligible for that tier but no thank you, I'll go to a regular doctor and deal with my co-pay.

Do I believe the horrors of the wait time? Absolutely. But everyone is ignoring "the elephant in the room." There wouldn't be long wait times if they had more doctors. But they don't have enough doctors because nobody wants to work for the VA because they can make more money elsewhere and not have to put up with petty turf battles and entitled staff/clerks who will get their salary regardless of how they deal with the veterans.

Footnote to the whole mess: I have a friend who uses VA exclusively. He needed to see a podiatrist so in early May they gave him an appointment in mid-August.  No surprise there, he expected that time delay. But.... last week, Surprise! Surprise! they called him  ... Surprise! Surprise!... and offered him an appointment in mid-June instead.  Somebody is running scared.