Grandma, What Big Ideas You Have

by Mitzi Chandler

My three-year-old granddaughter, Courtney, gave me a black eye a while back. It happened while she and I were under a blanket hiding from Kelsey,

my five-year-old granddaughter. Courtney couldn’t contain her excitement, so she reared up to inform Kelsey we were not under the blanket when WHAM the top of her precious little head butted against my eye. She rubbed her head, giggled and dashed off to hide elsewhere. I headed for the refrigerator for ice.

For a few weeks my eye socket was shades of yellow and purple—her favorite colors.

I suspect this will not be the last bruising I get from my granddaughters. When life hurts them, it ripples up the generations. When the grandkids hurt, grandparents hurt for their own children and the grandchildren. Double whammy.

I love these little girls more than I did my own children when they were small.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I loved my children with all my heart, but my heart is bigger now. I better understand unconditional love.

Oh, I probably idealize the role I want to play for Kelsey and Courtney. I see my husband and me providing a quiet, calm haven where all things are perfect. The girls will ask life’s important question and we will answer wisely. Soft words to gently discipline…Ha!

Kelsey can already get me so flustered I feel like throwing a tantrum. While trying to reason with her about something or the other, I got so exasperated I threw down the brush I was using to brush her hair. She calmly picked it up and threw it just as I had done. Bad example, Grandma. This is not what I had in mind about grand parenting. In no time at all we were best friends and all was forgiven. I was her favorite toy again. It wasn’t my eye, but my idealism that was bruised. I’m learning. I’m learning.

I’m getting better at being realistic and being a grown-up in charge of children, but I like make-believe better. I love changing identities as quick as you can say, “You be the sister,” or teacher, or ladybug, or monster or whoever it is I’m needed to be to keep the good times rolling. In a mere few hours we gallop to Africa to feed apples to zebras, ride the back of dolphins to the bottom of the sea, hold 101 puppies in our hands, and, of course, we always have tea parties.

The trouble with all this adventure is I get tuckered out and need a break long before they do. That’s when they get bossy. I don’t like that part because I have to get bossy back. So, for a spell we are mere mortals trying to get the upper hand.

A parent’s role, and I grudgingly suppose a grand parent’s role, is to civilize the little ones. But the wonder of it is that in the process we gain something we thought we’d lost. Their innocence and mischief rubs off on us and we get in touch with a precious something that lurks beneath all our guarded grownupness.

And for brief moments, sometimes longer, we transcend reality and feel the magic.

There I go again, but it’s true. When one of these lovely little girls crawls up on my lap, I know I’m fulfilling one of the most important roles of my life. I am a soft teddy bear who loves them no matter what.

Grandparents are fond of saying that the nice thing about being a grandparent is you can always give the children back to their parents. That’s true, and I do when they get too cranky or whiny. But I can’t give back the giant-sized love I have for them or my fears for their well being. It’s not always a pretty world out there, and there are many things that can harm them.

“Stand back, life, these are my granddaughters. Let them through, unharmed.”

Dream on, Grandma.

Tehachapi Hospital plan moves forward

by Norm Clendenin, Project Manager, TV

Delivering a Healthcare facility is among today’s most complex planning, design and construction undertaking. Particularly, having to strategically and tactfully plan the project development/delivery and then manage the project without a defined project scope and known budget projections can be challenging. Elements of this project involves an environmental impact report (EIR), Strategic/Master Planning, Office of State Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) approval with stringent code/regulatory requirements and potential maintenance upgrades, hazmat abatement and renovation that result in needing a highly specialized healthcare team that can understand and fulfill the technical oversight and coordination of challenges necessary to achieve the goals and objectives for the replacement Community Hospital.

I came on-board September 1 with 44 years experience in healthcare facilities and I would like to give my friends and neighbors of the community a brief overview of where we are and where we’re going.

Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District had their un-veiling of the site sign for the future Hospital in Capital Hills at the end of Voyager Street on November 1 and this marks a fresh beginning and the past experiences is so to speak “out-the-window”. Within the next 30 days, I will also be locating in a module office on the site for the purpose of fulfilling the needs in managing the development process of planning, design and construction for the new Hospital. I also will be available to the community to give out information of the progress that we are making to make this a state-of-the-art Critical Access Hospital.

We have a Strategic Plan that is being finalized this month and also a space programming architectural firm (Stephen Wen & Associates) that started November 1 which will give us a Master Plan and Space Program that will provide the data for the medical/diagnostic treatment services that we need in the Hospital to fulfill the community’s needs. This planning will also give the size of the Hospital to be built now with projected growth for the next 25 years as this community grows. This data and information will be completed about February 1, 2009. This information will also give us sufficient information for a Preliminary Project Budget in determining the financial needs.

There are certain advantages to a Design-Build form of contracting such as gaining time and reducing liability for an owner. We have elected to use this form of design and construction method and are required under Public bidding Law to advertise, qualify and receive bids from these design-build teams prior to contracting which will take about five to six months after the Space Programming is completed. We should have this design-build team on-board about September, 2009 to begin the design phase as well as an early start in the actual construction as the construction documents are being completed. The deadline for this hospital under the Department of Health (OSHPD) regulations at the present is to be completed and occupied by January 1, 2013.

All of this is a challenge for the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District, Hospital Administration, Hospital Foundation, and Hospital Guild, but we are all determined to make this replacement Hospital happen for all the Communities within this District.

We appreciate the community support!

Tehachapi Skywatch

“Sun Dogs, Pillars and Halos”

The coming of fall brings a change in the weather that is usually not for the better for sky watchers – astronomy is often washed up, fair-weather pilots are grounded, and flying at all becomes more difficult and a bit more risky. Indeed, when the sky is falling (i.e., raining), we often retreat completely from under the sky. This is because moist air masses from the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf of Alaska begin to make their way south, often reaching the Tehachapi Valley. Yet, this moist air can also be a source of magnificent splendor. Spectacular sunrises and sunsets are frequent. Occasionally, we are treated to sun halos, sun dogs, sun pillars, and even moon halos.

A sun halo, properly known as a “nimbus” or “gloriole,” is a common occurrence as a winter storm approaches. Seen as a bright ring around the sun, it is caused by sunlight shining through ice crystals high in the atmosphere that precedes a cold, moist air mass. (Note that while we don’t tend to think of ice as “moist,” in the weather business it’s still water and therefore “moisture.”) The first sign of an approaching cold front is usually high, thin cirrus clouds made of ice crystals. As the sun shines through these crystals, they act as little prisms, bending the sunlight in very specific ways. From the ground, we see a halo around the sun with an angular radius of approximately 22°. As the cold front approaches, the high cirrus clouds give way to lower and lower clouds, with the lowest clouds often coming right down to the ground at our high elevation. This process usually takes about two days, depending in the speed and intensity of the front. Therefore, a halo is a reliable indicator that it could well be raining or snowing in a couple of days. Conversely, if the forecast is for rain in a few days, it’s a good time to start looking for halos.

Moonlight can also cause “lunar halos.” However, the moon needs to be quite bright to produce a noticeable halo. It must therefore be near a full moon, which is only about one week per month. Lunar halos are therefore an extra special treat.

Aviators who fly above clouds are afforded an extra special treat. If the cloud below them is composed of ice crystals (and you don’t need to be very high in winter for this), you can see a halo projected on the top of the cloud surrounding the shadow of your aircraft. Pilots call this a “glory,” no doubt derived from “gloriole,” an alternate name for a halo. It is indeed a glorious site, to which I was treated several times while flying in New England.

Sun dogs are rarer than halos. They are bright concentrations of sunlight to either side, or directly above or below the sun, giving the halo a diamond ring appearance.

Sun pillars are even rarer, especially in Tehachapi. These are bright vertical shafts of light rising up from the setting or rising sun. While halos can appear high in the sky, pillars are always projecting up from the horizon. As our horizon is surrounded by mountains, you’re unlikely to see one here.

So the next time you hear a lousy forecast, don’t just kick the leg of your telescope and storm off scowling. Instead, consider what special treats may be in store for those in the know and with their eye on the sky.

For more information on these and other such phenomena, just do an Internet search on “sundog.” And if you see something cool, let me know at hawk@ieee.org. We’d love to publish your photographs, too!

Manned Space Watch

Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for a November 14 launch to continue construction of the space station. Atlantis’ servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is still “under review” and has been postponed until at least after mission STS-119 – another space station construction mission – which is scheduled to launch on February 12.

Much beyond that, NASA’s manned space program is in serious doubt. President-elect Obama has proposed a five-year delay in the Constellation Program, effectively putting a moratorium on American manned space flight until about 2020. This will give American aerospace engineering a lobotomy as aerospace engineers head in new directions to salvage their careers. Meanwhile, China is aiming at the moon. Will we ever learn?

Night Sky Watch

With a full moon on the 13th, the evenings will be bright – a good time to watch for Lunar halos. Venus is now dazzling in the southwestern evening sky with Jupiter edging closer to Venus in the south. They will grow ever closer through November until beautifully conjoined with the moon on December first. Mercury and Saturn are rising higher in the eastern morning sky.

Sunrise/Sunset (PST)  5:29 a.m./4:48 p.m.