I am fortunate to have my work load eased this week because Donna Parrino sent an e-mail that I shall quote pretty much whole cloth.  You probably know or at least know of Donna:  She was with USF for many years, and both then and now, is a leader in Tampa's Latin community.  Retirement brings her an opportunity to read, and she responded to last week's column about what I was reading at Hubby's hospital bedside with her book recommendations.  Here's what she said: Read More 

Hubby remains in ICU, but Patrick doesn't pay me to write about my personal problems, so here's something about my hospital bedside reading.  I said several weeks ago that I was enjoying Rex Stout as clever escapism.  He was a popular mystery writer in the middle of the twentieth century, and I do like his work.  Yet his plots and especially his characters and settings – usually upper-class people in prewar Manhattan – get predictable.  And because mysteries almost axiomatically means murder, I decided this wasn't exactly cheering me. Read More 

Hubby remains in the VA Hospital, where he has spent weeks in both Surgical ICU and Medical ICU.   He's had more complications than you want to know about, but before they arose, he was briefly in a more ordinary room on Fourth Floor South.  Unlike any of the other floors with which I'm too familiar, this one posted a map showing the global origins of the staff.  To be sure, it didn't include any spots in the US, Canada, or Mexico, but there was a multiplicity of pins and names for other parts of the world. Read More