Hospitals are trying be more user friendly today, or so it seems.  When I visited Laura earlier this year in Rhinebeck, every time a baby was born they would play a lullaby throughout the hospital.  (I asked what did they play when someone died.)  Anyway, yesterday in the hospital in Poughkeepsie, the baby unit was full of adorable baby pictures hanging on the walls in the hall.  An inviting section overlooking the Hudson was café like, with small tables and chairs, coffee and tea available at all times for use by visitors and patients. Liz's room was larger than most rooms, even equipped with a refrigerator and a sign on the door reading "don't enter until 7am", reminding me of a hotel "do not disturb" sign on a door knob.  I didn't look in the bathroom, but I heard it was spectacular.

Several bottles of water and soda were available on the counter, as well as a pitcher of water which to our surprise was wrapped in a tiny diaper.  A nurse making the bed explained that the diaper was on the pitcher so it wouldn't form condensation and get the counter wet.  When the nurse saw that was of interest to us, she told about a surgeon in the hospital who wears a sanitary napkin on his forehead to keep perspiration out of his eyes.  Now this was even better than the diaper wrapped pitcher.  Laura looked disgusted and said, "If I was going into surgery and the doctor had a Maxipad stuck to his head, I would be upset."  We thought about this for a while, did he use a rubber band to keep it in place or tie it on ?  Liz wanted to know why he didn't wear a head band like tennis players do.  Maybe he just thought it was a way to get a laugh out of the patient.  Like I said "user friendly" - a stand up comic for a doctor.

Mother turkeys are starting to come for corn with their babies.  Yesterday, it was a mother with nine babies, today one with thirteen.  They are adorable chicks and remind me of years ago when my mother brought home a dozen baby chicks.

She had seen an advertisement in the paper advertising "buy a pound of feed, get a dozen free chicks".  Bucky could never resist anything free.  (A&P used to give the first volume of encyclopedias free - we had several A's - we knew everything about Aardvarks, Alaska, and aviation, but that was it.)  Anyway, our father was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack, and Bucky brought home the baby chicks and the feed.  We made a corral in the living room, put down newspapers, and there they were. - peeping and hopping, delighting my younger sisters and brother.

When they got a little bigger, Grandma took them to a farm, all but two of them, Little Tim and Big Tim.  Little Tim was stupid - we found out they were males, roosters, who crowed at the early light.  Little Tim could only crow "Cock a " never could finish the doddle.  Of course our neighbors didn't like the noise, and Grandma and Poppy didn't like them scratching in their hedges.  So, when we went away for a week to Milford and the beach, we came home to no Little Tim or Big Tim.  Grandma said they joined the others at the farm, but we had a suspicion that she handled them in her own way. 

Cute little turkeys, cute little chicks, everything is cute when it's little .  Timmy says that's so we don't kill them.

I read in the New York Times today that in Italy a nun, Sister Cristina, had beat out the competition and won in Italy's Voice TV show.  I went on the internet and saw her doing "what a Feeling" from the movie Flashdance and Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper's song with another contestant.  What a voice and to see her dancing around on the stage in those clunky nun shoes, habit flying, plain little glasses, I had to laugh out loud and even clap my hands.  Between her and Pope Francis, I think there is hope for the Catholic religion.