Kipp Hill Farm

A dairy that’s gone to the goats

By Rebecca Eppelmann

Not too far from the hustle and bustle of Albany is the serene countryside of Schoharie County. Here, life is just a little more relaxed and the views are spectacular. When visiting the farm markets this fall, be sure to make a stop at Kipp Hill Farm – the first non-cow dairy farm to win the Dairy of Distinction award from the New York State Farm Bureau – to take a tour and enjoy some delicious, creamy goat cheese.
Located in Sloansville, Kipp Hill Farm sits on four acres, surrounded by 300 acres of empty land, where the bees aren’t the only busy ones. Suzann Kipp, who works full-time as a teacher at B.O.C.E.S. Maritime Academy in Schenectady and runs the farm with help from her husband and grandchildren, downplays the amount of work she does. Spend a few moments with her though, and you’ll soon realize it’s a lot more difficult than she makes it seem.

Starting small
Eight years ago, it was unimaginable to Kipp that she and her family would someday be running a dairy farm, but it seemed like kismet. On a daytrip to Cooperstown with her husband and grandkids, they happened upon a series of For Sale signs and followed them to acres of land overgrown with grass and weeds, “easily over four feet tall.”

Kipp and her husband, who are raising their grandchildren (then 7 and 9 at the time), decided to purchase the property to give the kids a good country upbringing. As a child, Kipp grew up with sheep and wanted her grandkids to have the same experience. “Growing up with animals teaches responsibility and generally makes them better people,” she said.
In January of 2000 the family moved in, gave the land a manicure, and that spring the goats started coming.

“It started as a 4H project,” said Kipp. “We were only going to have a couple of goats and a couple of sheep and go to fairs.”
Both kids loved it from the beginning. Andrea, now in 10th grade, still enjoys working on the farm while Aaron, a high school senior, is ready to get out and see the world and will be leaving for the Navy next summer.

In just a few short years the farm grew, in part, because it had to. Kipp learned that in order to enter goats in an American Dairy Goat Association show, you had to breed them. “Anything over a year old that you show has to be in milk,” she said.

In other words, you can’t bring a “dry” goat to the show, so in order to keep entering fairs, they had to keep breeding. After the kids came the milk, which is when the cheese business started. “It just evolved,” she said. “I should have called it the ‘out of control farm.’” There are times now, she admits, that the farm is so busy they don’t have time to enter shows.
She learned to make cheese “by figuring it out“ and taking a workshop with her friend from Cornell University, the late Dave Brown. She also sought help from other local cheesemakers who were willing to share recipes.

Making the cheese
Kipp and Andrea begin their day by 5am. They milk, feed and give the goats water and are back in house by 6am to get ready for work and school. Later that evening, the process repeats itself. Of the 32 goats on the farm, 12 are currently in the milking cycle. “A good milker will give you a gallon at her peak,” Kipp said. At peak, the farm can get 24 gallons of goat milk a day.

The goats, which Kipp jokingly refers to as her ‘business partners’, are milked in a small room inside an Amish garage that was built to her specifications. There are two doors in the room; one through which goats come and go, the other leading into the creamery.

After the goats are milked, milk jugs are placed in a cooler that was customized to fit the farm’s needs. While larger farms use bulk tanks, which can cost thousands of dollars, Kipp “went back to the old style of cooling.” Mainly, she said, because bulk tanks are so expensive and don’t come in small versions. Years ago, milk was cooled in can coolers; insulated boxes with cold water and ice. For Kipp’s part, she purchased a freezer, the size that you would normally see used in a basement or garage for extra space. Inside, she placed a water and a circulating pump, which work to cool the milk to 45 degrees.

Once the milk is cooled, it goes through the pasteurization process. It is heated to 145 degrees, which is sustained for at least 30 minutes. The pasteurizer, which Kipp found used at a farm in the Adirondacks, holds up to 16 gallons of milk and has an outside jacket which is filled with water. A heating element is turned on to heat the water, and the milk is warmed. After the desired temperature is reached, cold water is run through the pasteurizer and dumped. This process is repeated until the cheese is 75 degrees, at which point cultures and rennet are added, and the cheese sits for 12–14 hours in the pasteurizer. Once removed from the vat, it is drained for about 24 hours through cheesecloth so the whey drains out. On average, Kipp makes cheese about every three days.

Pasteurization is recorded via various thermometers placed in the vat, including a recording thermometer. As simple as the process may seem, it is monitored very closely, and not only by Kipp. The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (A&M) makes monthly visits to the farm to check the recording thermometer’s records, which confirms that pasteurization did in fact take place. Kipp also records what the other thermometers read, how many gallons were pasteurized and then she initials and dates it.

The paper on which the readings are recorded cannot be moved without tearing because of a button in the center and the recordings cannot be altered. A&M representatives take the paper during their visits to confirm the proper steps have been taken. But thermometer recordings aren’t the only thing on the farm that gets checked.

“They do inspections of the creamery, check thermometers for accuracy, check the refrigerator, check inside the pasteurization vat and take samples of milk and cheese,” said Kipp. “Milk is checked for somatic cells to ensure the goats are healthy and there aren’t any antibiotics or any other kinds of medicine in the milk.”
When goats are being treated with antibiotics, they are taken out of the milking cycle.

The result of all of the hard work and attention to detail is delicious, homemade all-natural goat cheese. The goats are fed only all-natural ingredients that Kipp buys from local farmers. On average, she spends about $160 every two weeks on hay and $30 every week on grain.

The cheese comes in 14 flavors including: sundried tomato, garlic, horseradish, cranberry walnut and even chocolate pistachio. It can be purchased online or in person at the farm; plain goat cheese is $4, flavored is $5. Kipp has also impressed a few local restaurateurs who are now serving the cheese, including: Aperitivo in Schenectady, American Hotel and Restaurant in Sharon Springs and the Carrot Barn in Schoharie. Bowmans Orchard in Rexford also sells the cheese.

The farm’s recent Dairy of Distinction award from the New York State Farm Bureau is proof that Kipp is, as she puts it, is “not afraid to pick up the phone and let people know we’re here and have local food.”
Kipp Hill Farm also participates in multiple farmer’s markets in the area, including Cohoes, Empire State Plaza, CDPHP and Waterford. To see for yourself how the cheese is made, visit the farm, but plan to stay for a while. There are also seasonal offerings of fruit, vegetables, honey, garlic, gourmet granola and pastries. For those who aren’t just in it for the food, a petting zoo, custom tours and goat trekking are all available by appointment. Educational farm programs are also available for camps and schools.

For information on Kipp Hill Farm or to visit call 461.6547 or visit www.kipphillfarm.com.

Rebecca Eppelmann is a resident of Menands and freelances in her spare time. She can be reached by email at eppelmannr@gmail.com.

Squash Hunger

Share your love of fresh healthy food with those who don’t get enough nutritious food. Capital District Community Gardens (CDCG) launched the Squash Hunger in 2004 and has since collected more than 24,000 pounds of donated produce from members of the community. They continue to increase this number by encouraging local farmers and gardeners to drop off their extra produce at one of the eight Squash Hunger collection sites in Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties.
Here’s how you can help
• Harvest and share the extra produce from you own garden.
• Donate produce from your farm, your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share or a farmer’s market.
• When picking strawberries or apples pick some for the hungry.
• When shopping for your family, buy extra produce to share.
• Bring the produce to one of eight collection sites throughout the Capital District.

2008 Drop off locations
Produce can be dropped off through October. The following drop off locations are ready for your extra produce:
• Roma Importing Co - 9 Cobbee Rd, Latham – 785.7480
• Capital District Community Gardens' Office - 40 River Street, Troy, 274.8685
• Delmar Market Place - 406 Kenwood Avenue, Delmar, 439.3936
• Greulichs Market Inc - 3403 Carman Road, Schenectady, 355.1530
• Honest Weight Food Co-op - 484 Central Avenue, Albany, 482.2667
• Hannaford Supermarket - 5 Maple Road, Voorheesville, 765.2629
• Hannaford Supermarket - 3703 NY Highway 43, West Sand Lake, 674.2846
• Troy Farmers Market - Troy Marina, 433 River St, Troy. Drop off Saturdays 9-1 at the community table

Facts about Hunger in New York State
• 50% of households receiving emergency food assistance include at least one employed adult.
• America’s Second Harvest estimates that more than 900,000 New Yorkers rely on Emergency Food Programs (EFPs), or soup kitchens and food pantries, each week.
• According to the New York State Department of Health, the total number of meals provided by soup kitchens increased by 3.9 million pounds (61%) from 1987 to 1996.
• An estimated 340,080 children in NYS are hungry, according to the Nutrition Consortium of New York State.
• During the summer months, the problem is more acute when children, who are most affected by hunger, don’t have access to school-based meals.
• ­­­Nearly 80,000 of those using the Food Pantries of the Capital Region were infants or children, 86,000 were adults and 13,500 were seniors.

To freeze... or not to freeze...

By Alissa Lubanski

Freezing foods help you waste less food and saves money and time. There are some foods that just freeze better than others, and there are some foods you probably didn’t know you could freeze. To make your life a little easier, we’ve done the research and hopefully have taken some of the guesswork out of what you can and cannot freeze.
As for safety, foods stored constantly at 0 °F will always be safe; it is only the quality that can deteriorate. However, freezing does not kill bacteria or parasites already present in food, it only keeps them dormant. So practice food safety when de-thawing any foods, such as beef and poultry.

Foods that don’t freeze well:
• mayonnaise
• cooked egg whites, meringues
• most dairy, including cream pies, sour cream, cottage cheese and yogurt
• raw watery vegetables (lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes)
• cooked potatoes (as in soups, stews and potato salads)
• fried food (except for French fries and onion rings)
• gelatin
• spices and seasonings such as curry, paprika, celery and salt, can alter their flavor, become bitter or more strong
• anything with a crumb topping

Foods that do freeze well:
• meat, raw freezes better but cooked can freeze well
• unfrosted cake
• breads
• pizza, pizza dough
• cooked dried beans
• cooked rice
• soups and stews
• sauces, i.e. tomato sauce, pesto

About eggs
Did you know you can freeze raw eggs? As long as they aren’t stored in their shell and instead in plastic containers. You can stir together the yolk and white and freeze together in a plastic container or bag, or freeze the yolk and white separately. Raw egg yolks will need to be broken and stirred with either a half teaspoon of salt per cup of egg or one tablespoon of sugar per cup of egg if using for a dessert. The salt and/or sugar helps prevent the yolks from becoming lumpy during storage. Cooked egg yolks can be frozen without a problem. The opposite is true of cooked egg whites. Raw, on the other hand, freeze just fine (freeze in ice cube trays, one per cube, then transfer to container). Eggs should be thawed in the refrigerator a day before you use them.

About cheese
Freezing cheese can make the texture crumbly and mealy, yet the flavour remains unscathed. So if you are going to grate or melt the cheese, the consistency won’t make a difference. Roquefort, bleu cheese and gorgonzola freeze well, as they are generally crumbled, and should keep up to six months in the freezer. If you are going to melt or grate firmer cheeses such as Gouda, cheddar and Swiss, they can keep for about six months as well. Hard cheeses like parmigiano-reggiano and romano will keep for up to a year.

More tips:
Freeze food as quickly as possible— don’t wait until overripe or until it has been in the fridge too long.
As a rule, the greasier the food, the less time it will hold up in the freezer. Leaner fish last up to twice as long as oilier varieties. Trim excess fat off of meat; it will freeze better and longer.
Blanch vegetables (boil in water for 1-2 minutes then immerse in ice-cold water) before freezing; this prevents deterioration.
Always wrap foods in heavy-duty aluminum foil, freezer bags or both. Make sure there is no moisture and no extra air in the bag or wrapping.

Food Approximate length to freeze

Tomato sauce..............................6 months
Meatballs in sauce........................6 months
Soups/stews...............................2-3 months
Meatloaf....................................6 months
Bacon/sausage............................1-2 months
Uncooked meat (steaks/roasts).......4-12 months
Uncooked meat (ground)...............3-4 months
Cooked meat..............................2-3 months
Uncooked poultry.........................9-12 months
Cooked poultry............................4 months
Baked muffins/quick bread............2-3 months
Casseroles.................................2-3 months
Butter......................................8 months

Invitation to fun times

By Alissa Lubanski

There’s nothing more fun than having friends over for a party. But if you’re stuck in a party rut, try out these ideas that will take your party from subdued to spectacular!
Martini Theme Party
• Dress up! Break out that LBD (little black dress) and get your guy in a tie.
• Martini-making station with chilled glasses, different vodkas, gins, vermouths, olives, cocktail onions, lemon.
• James Bond movie soundtracks.
• Hors d’oeuvres (i.e. caviar, fruit & cheese tray, stuffed mushrooms, marinated olives, cocktail nuts)
• Contest: create and name an original martini. Prize goes to the winner (maybe a set of cool stemless martini glasses?)

Wine & Cheese Party
• Sophisticated attire.
• Purchase wine charms for all; they will serve both as a token of appreciation to your guests and a way to keep track of wine glasses.
• Everyone brings his/her own bottle.
• Everyone brings their favorite cheese to share.
• Vote/rank best wines and cheeses.
• Blind taste tests: Put wine bottle in a brown paper bag and secure with rubber band. Number each bottle. Have everyone guess and write down the type wine, the price and the rating he/she gives it.

Thrift Store Theme Party
• Scavenge thrift stores for the goofiest, craziest, ugliest, out-of-date outfit you can find.
• Have everyone bring (wrapped) the ugliest knick-knack they can find and later exchange these precious gifts!
• Make it “bring your own beer/beverage” of choice.
• Chips, dip, veggie tray, rye bread bowl, gourmet pizza.
• Punch (i.e. gin, Tom Collins mixer, fruit juices, club soda).
• Vote for best costume/couple’s costume; prize to winners.

Movie Night Theme Party
• Popcorn bar. Have lots of popcorn with a choice of condiments, such as butter, salt, parmesan cheese, and flavored salts and herb seasonings.
• Nachos and cheese.
• Candy – bowls of M&M’s, junior mints, Swedish fish.
• Fizzy drinks - soda or spritzer; alcohol optional.
• Put a mix together of favorite and recognizable movie theme songs that run the gamut and play before and after movie.
• Trivia questions (make them up ahead of time) after the movie.

Halloween Theme Party
• Costumes mandatory
• Replace regular light bulbs with colored ones, i.e. red, black.
• Cover furniture with white sheets for the abandoned haunted house feel.
• Have a b horror flick playing in the background.
• Have scary sound effects or music playing
Jack-o-lanterns, fake body parts, and spider webs strewn about.
• Punch (i.e. light/dark rum, cointreau, fruit juices, fruit).
• “think “murderous meatballs”, “death by chocolate”, and “killer cheese dip” for food”.

Game Show Party
Create your own version of “Match Game,” “The Newlywed Game,” “Jeopardy,”.
• “Wheel of Fortune,” and others.
• Finger foods and cocktails.
• Be creative and make stage props out of cardboard, etc.
• Prizes such as money (fake or real) or small gifts
• Download game show tunes for authenticity and to get your guests psyched for game show night!

Mexican Fiesta Party
• Colorful Mexican-inspired attire.
• Give each guest a sombrero and maracas.
• Decorate with festive lights, cacti and chili pepper props.
• Lots of fresh salsa, quesadillas, guacamole
• Margaritas, coronas, tequila shots in festive glassware
• Play Mariachi band music...
• Don’t forget the piñata!

Cooking with the experts

Exclusive tips from area chefs

By Alissa Lubanski

We’re lucky to have many fabulous restaurants to choose from in the Capital Region. Have you ever wished you could bring some of that culinary excellence to your own kitchen? Well now you can! Read on to learn a few cooking tips from eight local chefs. Perhaps you will be inspired to get in the kitchen and give them a try.

Joe Ferrari, Ferarri’s Ristorante Schenectady
“When starting dinner it’s always good to have your ingredients at least an arm’s length away. You don’t want to start going through your cabinets while you’re in the middle of cooking. Using tongs is important when cooking meats so you don’t pierce the meats and lose the flavor; you could also use them to stir pasta. Tongs are easy to handle. Always clean up after yourself so have a kitchen towel in hand, or as I like to call it a ‘mapine.’”

Carmine Sprio, Carmine’s – Albany
“Cooking should be fun. It’s best to do it in the company of family and friends, maybe with some wine, and definitely with lively conversation. Everyone eats, but no one should do it alone. Cook something, then share. If I can do it anyone can.”

Brian Molino, Marché - Albany
“Don’t be afraid of salt! It is one of the most basic, but important ways of enhancing the flavors in a dish. Meat or fish should be seasoned immediately before the protein goes in the pan, oven or on the grill. With soups, sauces and even risotto, season lightly at the beginning of cooking and finish seasoning to taste at the end because they are likely to reduce and concentrate in flavor. If you season it perfectly in the beginning, there is a good chance it will be too salty at the end. An important tip to seasoning is to taste often.
“Also, fresh herbs have a very important role in cooking. Marinating with fresh herbs helps layer flavors by creating amazing aromas and very distinct flavors. With soups and sauces, heartier herbs like rosemary, thyme and sage can be added in the beginning to extract maximum flavor, but should be removed before serving because they will not have a desirable texture. More delicate herbs, such as parsley, tarragon, chives and dill should be added right before serving to finish soups and sauces so they retain their fresh flavor and color.”

Justin Engineri, Franklin’s Tower and Pearl Street Public House – Albany
“When cooking your proteins such as a seared steak or pan seared halibut, be sure to cook it around 75 percent on your presentation side then finish cooking it on the bottom side. This will give your ‘star of the plate’ more of a golden brown color. Also, always keep some room temperature butter around to finish sauces.”

Glenn Kakely,Mochablend Café, Brunswick
“It’s all about the ‘spread’. Try something new and unique. Instead of plain white mayonnaise or a simple mustard, try a flavorful chipotle mayonnaise, a garlic and herb spread, a pesto sauce, or a stone ground spicy mustard.”

Mark Graham, Mezza Notte - Guilderland
“Search out the farmers markets and buy local when at all possible, and make it part of your dieting regimen. This is important for three reasons: it’s healthier, it’s fresher, and tastes better. Beyond that, you are supporting local farmer’s families, and keeping money in the Capital Region.”

Shaw Rabadi, BFS - Albany
“Don’t pay attention to a recipe when it calls for 1/8 a teaspoon of this, or 1/2 teaspoon of that. Throw out the tools and cook from your heart. We pinch salt and pinch pepper. And remember to avoid the Big S’s: sugar, salt and saturated fats, because they have a big influence on your health and well-being.”

Jaime Ortiz, 677 Prime - Albany
“Indispensable kitchen gadget: cupped heat resistant rubber spatula. It scoops, spreads, stirs and flips. Also, season your steak with organic sea salt prior to cooking.”

No-fail dinner party menus from

Executive Chef Michael Niccoli of The Century House
Are you a seasoned pro at hosting dinner parties and have your go-to menus on hand? Or, are you a newly married and dying to host a party to make use of all of your new china, but not sure where to begin? Not to worry. We asked Executive Chef Niccoli to come up with three fool-proof dinner party menus that will have your guests asking when the next party is. To download these recipes, visit www.crlmag.com. Bon appetite!

Menu 1

Salad–Seasonal Greens, Apple Cider Vinaigrette, Candied Walnuts & Goat Cheese

Entrée–Roast Turkey Breast with Chestnut Stuffing, Cranberry Relish

Dessert–Apple Crumble Tart

Roast Turkey Breast with Chestnut Stuffing and Cranberry Relish
Yield: 10 servings

Roast Turkey
Turkey 18#Bird
Oil as needed
Salt and pepper t.t.
Method
Season the turkey with salt and pepper. Rub with oil. fill cavity if desired with mirepoix, citrus and herb stems.
Place the turkey on a rack in a roasting pan. Roast in a convection oven at 350°F for approx. 1 ½ hours at 40 percent steam until the internal temperature is 160°F.
Remove the turkey from the roasting pan and allow it to rest. The chef will demonstrate carving for service.
Meanwhile prepare the dressing, Madeira sauce, cranberry relish and seasonal vegetable.
Carve the turkey into portions and serve with the Madeira sauce, vegetable, relish and chestnut stuffing.
Chestnut Stuffing
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredient Amount
Onions, minced 1/2 lb.
Celery, small dice 12/ lb.
Rendered turkey , duck , bacon fat, or butter 4 oz.
Sausage, breakfast,chopped 1 lb.
Bread, day old, medium dice 3 lb.
Chicken stock (adjust as necessary) 1-2 qt.
Eggs, beaten 3 ea.
Parsley, chopped ½ Cup
Salt and black pepper as needed
Sage, fresh, chopped ¼ Cup
Chestnuts, roasted, rough chop as per chef demo 1 lb.
Method
Sauté the onions, celery and sausage in fat until tender. Break up the sausage pieces as it cooks. Reserve.
Combine the bread cubes, chicken stock, and egg and add to the onion/celery/sausage mixture.
Add the parsley, salt, pepper, sage and chestnuts. Mix them all well.
Place the stuffing in 2 buttered half pans and cover it with aluminum foil. Bake the stuffing at 350°F for 45 minutes.

Cranberry Relish
Yield: 10 portions
Ingredient Amount
Cranberries 1 1/2 lb.
Orange zest, grated 1 ea.
Oranges, juiced 2 ea.
Granny Smiths; peeled, small dice 2 ea.
Sugar 1 1/2 Cups
Cinnamon sticks 1 ea.
Apple cider 1/2 Cup
Method
Combine all ingredients and simmer in a heavy pan until the berries pop; remove the cinnamon stick.
Hold the relish at room temp until service


Seasonal Greens with Apple Cider Vinaigrette Candied Walnuts & Goat Cheese
Yield: 10 portions
Ingredient Amount
Apple cider 1 Cups
Cider vinegar 1/2 Cup
Granny Smith apple,small dice 1 ea.
Vegetable oil 1 ½ Cups
Tarragon leaves, chopped 1 Tbsp.
Salt 1 tsp.
Black pepper, ground 1/8 tsp.
Tabasco Sauce 1 tsp.
Maple syrup 1 Tbsp.
Aged White Cheddar,Grated 1 Cup
Honey Roasted Walnuts, chopped 1 cup
Method
Reduce the apple cider in half. Combine the cider reduction, the vinegar, and the apple.
Whisk in the oil gradually.
Add the tarragon, salt, maple syrup, Tabasco and pepper.
Toss Your Favorite Greens with Dressing
Top with Walnuts and Grated Cheddar

Apple Crumble Tart
Yield: 2- 10” Tarts
Ingredient Amount

Pie Dough 1 Sheet
Granny Smith Apples 6ea.
Butter ½#
Sugar 1Cup
Brown Sugar !/2cup
Cinnamon 2tsp.
Flour 1Tblsp.
Method :
1. Roll out dough and and pre-bake @ 350. (do this first)
2. Bake until tart shell starts to take color.
3. Peel & Slice Apples coat with sugar and fill shell.
4. Mix Sugar cinnamon sugar and flour by hand and cover apples.
5. Baked in 350degree oven until top is golden brown.

Menu 2

Salad–Frisee & Bibb Lettuces, Cranberry Port Vinaigrette, Toasted Almond & Cherve

Entrée–Cornbread Stuffed Cornish Game Hen, Caramelized Shallot Mashed Potatoes Madeira Glaze

Dessert– Spiced Cranberry Bread Pudding

BIBB LETTUCE & FRISEE CRANBERRY PORT VINAIGRETTE TOASTED ALMOND & CHEVRE


Yield 6 Portions

Amounts/Ingredient

1 cup tawny Port

1/3 cup packed thinly sliced shallots

1 cup fresh cranberries

1/3 cup safflower oil

3 tablespoons raspberry vinegar or red wine vinegar

8 cups frisee and chopped Bibb

2/3 cup crumbled Chevre

1/4 cup slivered almonds


Method

Combine Port and shallots in heavy small saucepan. Boil until liquid is reduced to 2 tablespoons, about 10 minutes. Add cranberries, oil and vinegar. Boil 3 minutes. Season vinaigrette with salt and pepper. Let cool slightly. Combine greens in large bowl. Pour vinaigrette over greens and toss. Sprinkle with cheese and nuts. Toss lightly and serve warm.



CORNBREAD STUFFED CORNISH GAME HENS SHALLOT MASH POTATOES

Yield 6 Portions

Amounts/Ingredient

Stuffing

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 1/2 cups diced peeled cored Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples

2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage

1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 cups 1/2-inch cubes purchased cornbread or corn muffins (about 11 ounces)

1 large egg, beaten to blend

1/2 cup (packed) coarsely grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 2 ounces)

6 tablespoons (about) fresh apple cider or fresh apple juice.

Game hens:

4 1 1/4- to 1 1/2-pound Cornish game hens, rinsed, patted dry

1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage

2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 bacon slices, each halved crosswise

Method

For stuffing: Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and celery; sautÈ until beginning to color, about 5 minutes. Add apples; sautÈ until beginning to soften, about 3 minutes. Mix in sage, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; transfer to large bowl. Let stand until almost cool, about 10 minutes.

Mix cornbread into vegetables. Add egg and toss to blend. Mix in cheese, then enough apple cider by tablespoonfuls to form stuffing that is moist but not wet.

Game hens: Sprinkle cavity of each hen lightly with salt and pepper. Pack 1 cup stuffing into each (place any leftover stuffing into buttered ramekins and cover with foil). Skewer cavities closed with toothpicks or turkey lacers. Tuck wing tips under; tie legs together to hold shape. Mix sage, coarse salt, and pepper in small bowl; sprinkle over hens.

Preheat oven to 400∞F. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Place 2 hens in skillet. SautÈ until brown, turning often with wooden spoons (to prevent tearing skin), about 10 minutes. Transfer to rimmed baking sheet, breast side up. Repeat with remaining hens. Drape 2 bacon strip halves over breast of each hen. Using kitchen string, tie bacon strips in place. (Place any ramekins of stuffing on baking sheet with hens.)

Place hens (and extra stuffing) in oven. Roast hens until cooked through and juices run clear when thigh is pierced, about 45 minutes. (Roast stuffing 30 minutes.) Cut strings off hens. Transfer hens to plates. Spoon maque choux around hens and serve with extra stuffing.



SPICED CRANBERRY BREAD PUDDING

Yield 6 Portions

Amounts/Ingredient

1 cup sugar, divided

1/2 cup organic frozen cranberry juice cocktail concentrate, thawed

1/2 cup orange juice

2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel

3 cups cranberries (about 12 ounces), unthawed if frozen

Nonstick vegetable oil spray

12 slices white sandwich bread

1/4 cup apricot preserves

Ground cinnamon

Freshly grated nutmeg

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

2 cups heavy whipping cream.

Method

Bring 1/2 cup sugar, cranberry juice concentrate, orange juice, and grated orange peel to boil in heavy large saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves. Mix in cranberries; return to simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low; gently simmer 3 minutes (cranberries should not break). Pour cranberry mixture into strainer set over bowl and drain. Return syrup to same pan. Boil until very thick and reduced to generous 1/2 cup, about 7 minutes. Fold berries into syrup. Cool to room temperature.

Spray six 1- to 1 1/4-cup ramekins with nonstick spray. Line bottom of each with round of parchment paper. Cut round from each bread slice to fit bottom of ramekin. Spread each bread round with 1 teaspoon preserves, then sprinkle with cinnamon and grating of nutmeg.

Spoon 1 tablespoon cranberries (with as little syrup as possible) into each ramekin. Top with 1 bread round, preserves side down. Repeat 1 time with berries and bread rounds. Reserve berry syrup.

Whisk eggs, liqueur, vanilla, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in medium bowl until well blended. Add cream and stir until sugar dissolves. Pour custard, 1/4 cup at a time, over bread in each ramekin (generous 1/2 cup in each). Let stand at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour, occasionally pressing bread to submerge.

Preheat oven to 350∞F. Place puddings in 13x9x2-inch metal baking pan. Add enough lukewarm water to pan to come halfway up sides of ramekins. Bake until puffed and firm to touch, about 45 minutes. Remove from water. Let cool 10 minutes. Using small sharp knife, cut around each. Turn out onto plate; peel off paper. Spoon some reserved syrup over. Serve warm.

Menu 3

Salad—Spinach Salad White Balsamic & Bacon Vinaigrette, Candied Walnuts, Gala Apple & Lardons

Entrée—Roasted Pork Tenderloin Apple Chutney

Dessert—Maple Hazelnut Pie

Roast Pork Tenderloin apple Chutney

Yield 6 Portions

Amounts/Ingredient

1- to 1 1/4-pound trimmed pork tenderloins

1/2 cup apple cider

1/2 cup dry red wine

1 cup C. H. Apple Chutney

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves plus sprigs for garnish

2 tablespoons olive oil.

Method

Rinse pork and pat dry. Place in shallow bowl. Mix cider, wine, chutney, garlic, and thyme leaves in small bowl. Pour mixture over pork; cover and marinate at room temperature 1 hour or chill up to 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 375∞F. Heat oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Remove pork from marinade, reserving marinade. Add pork to skillet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook until light brown on all sides, about 6 minutes total.

Pour reserved marinade over pork. Transfer skillet to oven; roast pork, basting occasionally, until instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part registers 145∞F, about 20 minutes for medium (temperature will rise about 10 degrees). Transfer pork to cutting board. Tent with foil; let rest 5 minutes.

Slice pork; transfer to platter. Pour pan sauce and juices over. Garnish pork with thyme sprigs.


SPINACH SALAD WARM APPLEWOOD-SMOKED BACON VINAIGETTE

Yield 6 Portions

Amounts/Ingredient

1 lbs. Applewood=smoked bacon, cubed

1/3 cup packed minced shallots

3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

1 cup rendered bacon fat

1 tablespoon whole grain mustard

8 cups spinach

2/3 cup candied walnut

1/4 cup sliced Gala apples

Salt to taste

Method
Cook bacon on medium heat until golden brown , reserve fat. Combined mustard & vinegar pour in warm fat slowly while whisking. When the all the fat is whisked in add the shallots and season with salt to taste. Poach walnuts in equal parts sugar and water for 5-8 minute. Remove walnuts from liquid and toast in the oven at 350 degrees until golden brown. Slice the apple in to thin pieces with skin on. Combined vinaigrette, bacon, apple and spinach in a mixing bowl and toss. Garnish with candied walnuts.

MAPLE HAZELNUT PIE

Yield 1 Pie

Amounts/Ingredient

3/4 cup pure maple syrup (preferably Grade B)

1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons bourbon

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Nonstick vegetable oil spray

1 refrigerated pie crust (half of 15-ounce package)

1 large egg white, lightly beaten to loosen

1 cup hazelnuts, husked, coarsely chopped (about 5 ounces)

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Method

Bring maple syrup, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt to boil in medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling 1 minute, reducing heat as needed to prevent mixture from boiling over. Remove pan from heat. Add bourbon, then butter; whisk until butter melts. Let cool to lukewarm, whisking occasionally, about 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350∞F. Spray 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish with nonstick spray. Unroll pie crust. Line dish with crust. Crimp edges decoratively. Brush crust with enough egg white to coat. Scatter hazelnuts over. Whisk eggs and vanilla extract in medium bowl until blended. Whisk cooled maple-sugar mixture into egg mixture. Pour mixture over hazelnuts in crust. Bake pie until filling is set and slightly puffed, about 50 minutes. Cool completely on rack.

When my husband and I moved into our neighborhood last year, we didn’t know many people. But that quickly changed. To the right are people who were born and raised in the neighborhood, while to the left are the younger generation, raising children of all ages. They are a welcoming bunch. They welcome the summer with a block party and close it out in the same way; they hold joint neighborhood garage sales and make a day out of cutting down trees for Christmas. To top it all off, the women of the neighborhood spend the weekend before Christmas baking cookies and sharing recipes.

Recently, these women and I decided to get together one Friday night for what we termed “Hoppy Hour”. The premise involved going from house to house, enjoying appetizers and libations, and indulging in laughs and other things best left unsaid. We started at 6pm and at 10:30 wound up at my house. The party didn’t end until 1:30. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.

The fun with my neighbors reinforced the theme of this month’s issue of CRL: whether you’re casually entertaining (like a block party) or throwing an elegant dinner party, good food and good company always brings good times and good laughs. In this, our Food & Entertaining issue, you’ll find great recipes, including three fool-proof dinner party menus from Executive Chef Michael Niccoli of the Century House and the myriad ways of enjoying the abundant apple harvest. And, if you’re like John Gray, who once puzzled over the meaning of “wassail”.

On the night of my neighborhood “hoppy hour”, the women agreed that a social hour was something that we should do every month. And, although our busy lives will likely prevent that from happening, when it does happen, the good food and the good company will make it all worthwhile. And I’ll take that anytime.

Help for your picky eater

By Randy Cale, PH.D

• Do you end up preparing three meals every night?
• Are there endless negotiations over food?
• Do you worry about health concerns because your stubborn child only eats junk?

If so, then you share this struggle with millions of parents. And yet, the situation is almost always easily resolved with clear guidance and a firm commitment to build healthy patterns of eating. I have witnessed the most stubborn of picky eaters surrender their habits in just a matter of days.
However, because you are changing a pattern of behavior, the change is not always easy. In fact, many times you will have to overcome your own personal struggles with false ideas such as, “I can’t let them go to bed hungry.” Well, yes you can, if you realize that they are choosing to go to bed hungry after you offered them wonderful, delicious food. They have to learn from their choices.
If you decide that you will feed them junk food in response to their refusal to eat healthy food, you set up a pattern where their resistance is actually “fed” and rewarded by you giving in and letting them eat junk food. This is a recipe for disaster (no pun intended).
Below is a quick-start version of what you must to do to get a handle on your picky eater. For more details, make sure you check out my website www.TerrificParenting.com.
1. Adjust your mindset.
To expand the foods your child eats, it is essential to let go of the idea that you can (or should) force or demand your kids to eat healthy food. Please notice my choice of words carefully, as we must drop the idea of “demanding” our children to eat.
This is not to say that you relinquish the goal of healthy eating. We do not. It simply acknowledges that forcing or demanding your children to eat healthier will not work.
2. Start by cleaning out your pantry.
Get rid of all the junk food: soda, potato chips, ice cream, candy bars, etc. Simply do not have these foods in your house. Instead, substitute healthy alternatives such as an abundance of fruits and vegetables.
3. Announce: “I’m no longer the short-order cook.”
This is when you must walk your talk. Prepare healthy meals with a variety of foods and let the kids know that this is the meal for the evening. There will be no additions or changes depending on the preferences of anyone in the family.
4. If children complain or resist eating the healthy food, use this very simple formula for communicating with them:
“You have a choice. Eat what’s here and you will feel good. Or, don’t eat, complain, pick at your food and you will feel hungry. You choose.” Then, just leave them to decide.
5. If any of your children refuse to eat, do not battle with them and don’t allow them to get alternative food. Just stick to your guns.
If children complain and pick at their food, ignore them. Instead, engage with someone else at the table, simply ignoring their complaints and criticisms of the food. When your child begins to talk without complaint or begins eating, engage and talk to them freely.
7. Don’t worry if they go to bed hungry a few nights. They will readily survive an occasional night here and there without an evening meal.
You must trust that the natural learning processes of nature will begin to take hold in the days ahead. When your children learn that there will be no fights over food and that no other options are available after a meal, the hunger that they experience eventually becomes a powerful teacher. They will learn to eat what is offered MOST of the time. Don’t sweat the other times, as they will grow fewer and farther apart.
As a reminder, these guidelines will eliminate and reduce symptoms of picky eating. If your child is exhibiting more serious symptoms consistent with a possible eating disorder, it is imperative that you obtain a professional evaluation and possible intervention.
Dr. Randy Cale, a Clifton Park based parenting expert, author, speaker and licensed psychologist, offers practical guidance for a host of parenting concerns. Dr. Cale’s new website, www.TerrificParenting.com offers valuable free parenting information and an e-mail newsletter.

ART GUY * GUY ART

By Ed. Lange

Geurin’s Latest Show Opens at Kismet Gallery Halloween at Troy Night Out
He doesn’t look like an artist. Standing six feet two in his flannel shirt and jeans, with stubbled chin and tousled hair, there isn’t a shred of anything effete about him. A few hundred years ago he’d be taken for a dashing swordsman on the way to rescue an innocent damsel. In the Old West, he’d cut the figure of a laconic lawman standing firm against injustice. During World War II he’d be cast as the hard-bitten veteran sergeant with cigar stub clenched between his teeth. Today, maybe a lumberjack or a Delta Force Black Ops operative. No one who met him on the street would think him an artist.
But maybe that’s as it oughta be. Because David P. Geurin’s increasingly popular artwork doesn’t fit the mold of “traditional art” either. Inspired by comics, cartoons and graphic novels, science fiction and horror, pop culture and film, Geurin’s work merges (or maybe morphs) them all together into a distinctive, entertaining style that recalls those germinal forms while growing into something new – and fun. As Dave says, “I just want people to enjoy it. To look at it, and maybe for a minute feel like a kid again, seeing a comic or a monster for the first time.”

Monsters and zombies and ghouls, oh my!
To categorize Dave Geurin’s pieces strictly as paintings can be inaccurate. Most often, he provokes his audience, which he describes as “anyone who enjoys fun, scary things, from kids to adults,” into seeing a comic or a monster for the first time by using a mixture of media. The base of one of his original paintings of a monster, an alien, a robot, or a zombie may be the slyly-selected page of a comic book that has been applied to a solid base. Often he adds three-dimensional elements to further awaken the eye, the imagination and the creepy chills.
Geurin’s work has enjoyed popular and commercial success at a number of solo shows in the Capital Region. Pieces may be found at The Silver Birch on Delaware Avenue near the Spectrum Theater in Albany and in Troy at The Paper Sparrow on River Street and Kismet Gallery on 4th Street. The Upstate Artists Guild recently closed their collaborative show, “POW! An Exhibition of Comics and Illustrations”, where several of his pieces were on display by invitation.

Coming shows
His latest one-man show will open on Halloween at Kismet for a one-month run on as part of a Troy Night Out that may turn out to be a Vampirian Stroll to rival Troy’s famed Victorian Stroll. This is appropriate, as Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian elected to own of one of Geurin’s works. Furthermore, Geurin has yet another show opening on another Troy Night Out on November 28, “Black Friday”, at the Paper Sparrow.
Although he studied art at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, Dave credits his late father, Joseph, for comics, drawing materials and those all-important “attaboys” that are so essential between father and son. With a touch of chagrin, he credits the patience and tolerance of two high school art teachers—Walter Lipka and Joanne Gramaglia for training and encouragement.
In the here and now, however, Geurin honors his colleagues in the regional arts community for their unceasing support, encouragement and enthusiasm for him and his work. In a tender moment, he says of his inspiration, “I just have a strong desire to create, and my fiancé, Kate, gives me the strength and courage to do this by simply by being herself and believing in me.”

Tomorrowland
Kate’s belief in him is proving to be very well-founded as galleries are requesting Geurin’s work more and more frequently, and his popularity continues to grow based on purchases by patrons for themselves or their sci-fi fascinated children. In a world where “starving artist” has become a cliché, Dave supplements his mixed media paintings by doing special makeup effects for local filmmakers, designing logos and t-shirts for hardcore rock bands and even sculpting heads of zombies and other delightful ghoulies. As he looks to the future, Geurin hopes to gain a wider audience by offering reasonably priced prints and producing t-shirts with some of his more entertaining, heroic or gruesome characters and images.

Artists
Having worked with artists, and as being one most of my life, I can attest to the infinite variety of people who are compelled to live the confounding life of performing artists, visual artists, architects, writers and poets, composers and the rest. Dave Geurin may not look the part, but like all successful artists he possesses the heart and soul of an artist – a possession that is both blessing and curse. For to be given the blessing to be an artist is also to be cursed by not having a choice to be one or not. Artists do not choose to be artists, because as Cmdr. Spock would say, “It is most illogical.” The art chooses them and only in the rarest of cases can the seduction be resisted. Dave didn’t resist the seduction and the art world is all the more exciting because of it.
A freelance writer, three of Ed. Lange’s plays were finalists for national Audie Awards, in 2000, ’05, and ’07, and one of the three won. His articles have appeared multiple times in national magazines: Sail, Soundings, American Theatre, and Dramatics.

Eating for your metabolic type

By Judith Torel

And the headlines read, “10 best foods for weight loss” or “Top 5 foods everyone should eat for good health” or “If you want to be healthy follow the Mediterranean diet”.
There are two inherent flaws in the above captions. The first is that the properties of the food are what should be used to determine if it is healthy to a human being. We can analyze a food for vitamins, minerals, glycemic rate, protein grams and omega 3 fatty acids. But, when we eat a food, it interacts with our individual biochemistry and it is the interaction of the food with our metabolic processes that determines if that food is healthy for our system.
A food that makes one person maintain metabolic homeostasis can cause someone else to move away from homeostasis. For example, peanuts are a protein containing good fats and are viewed as a healthy snack, but if you have an allergy to peanuts it could literally kill you. So in order to determine if a food is healthy, you have to take into consideration how that food reacts with your individual metabolic processes.
The second flawed premise is that there is one healthy balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats for all human beings. According to some nutritional theorists, there are at least nine fundamental homeostatic systems that comprise an individual’s metabolism and you can be anywhere on a continuum of each of these systems, making metabolism highly individualistic. But, there appears to be congregates of certain “metabolic types” that require different mixes of protein, carbs and fat for ideal health.

Ancestry
Each type requires a different balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats in order to achieve ideal health. One type needs higher protein and fat and less carbohydrates while another type may need more of an equal mix of protein to carbohydrates while another may do best on a low fat, plant-based higher carbohydrate, low protein eating plan. There are a number of factors that contribute to the determination of your particular metabolic type, but one of them is your ancestry.
Throughout time and the evolution of humans, groups of individuals who lived in different parts of the world developed specific dietary needs as an adaptation to the environment and geographical location. People today who have lineage originating from northern-based climates have a predisposition to do better on higher protein and fat-based diets. For example, Alaskan Inuits consumed large quantities of wild game like caribou, moose, seal and whale blubber, at times eating a carbohydrate free diet.
On the other extreme, contemporary people whose ancestors came from more temperate regions and ate diets high in vegetation consisting of fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts and seeds will achieve higher states of health on a semi-vegetarian, plant-based, low fat eating plan similar to the Mediterranean diet.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that someone who has ancestry from northern-based climates may not achieve maximum health eating the Mediterranean diet. This type of person may be better with more of an Atkins-based eating approach.
Ancestry is not always directly traceable in today’s world where clear-cut ethnic/genetic heritage is not always known, but it is only one of many factors that contributes to metabolic type.
There are 10 fundamental homeostatic systems that contribute to the determination of your particular metabolic type according to the metabolic typing system of William Wolcott, a nutritional theorist. Ancestry influences all of these systems.
The autonomic nervous system is one of the three main systems used to determine metabolic type. It is comprised of the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. The parasympathetic is the processes that slow down and relax the nervous system and the body in general, whereas the sympathetic is the side that revs up and excites the nervous system and the body in general. A person can be sympathetic dominant, parasympathetic dominant or generally balanced between the two. Depending on which you are will factor into what mix of protein, carbs and fats you need to maintain ideal health, as well as what particular foods within these categories blend best within your body systems.
The oxidation of foods is the second most influential system in the determination of metabolic type. Oxidation has to do with the rate at which you digest, absorb and assimilate foods. An individual may be predisposed to a fast oxidative rate in which glycolosis, the use of sugars for fuel, is preferred by the body. Another individual may generally operate at a slower oxidative rate in which the body prefers the beta-oxidation path of energy conduction. There is also a mixed type in which there is more of a balance of the oxidative rate. Where an individual falls within this framework determines whether she will feel more energized by faster-burning carbohydrates or slower-burning fats and proteins.
Other systems involved in determining metabolic type include: lipo/oxidative balance, neurotransmitter balance, electrolyte balance, acid/alkaline balance, prostaglandin balance, endocrine type, blood type and general constitution.
Current thinking suggests that in order to design an ideal eating plan, an individual needs to know his metabolic type. You can find Wilcott’s system at www.healthexcel.com.
Judy Torel is a USAT coach, personal trainer, nutrition consultant and psychotherapist. She conducts online services through her website www.judytorel.com. Her office is located in Planet Fitness, Loudonville. She is also a competing triathlete who is currently training for Ironman, Florida.

Ireland
40 Shades Of Green

By Linda McClain, CTA

When it comes to destinations, it’s no surprise that Ireland is one of the most visited countries from the Capital Region. Is it because of the large Irish population that settled in the Northeast or the many Irish festivals and concerts? Regardless of your perceptions, you can expect to find mystical magic, timeless discoveries, favorite melodies, even evidence of fairies and leprechauns in beautiful Eire.

How do I get there?
Ireland has four international airports: Dublin, Shannon, Belfast and Cork. From Albany, you can fly into all but Cork, with just one connection. Non-stop air service to Dublin and Shannon operate from JFK and Boston on Aer Lingus. Just under six hours in flight, Ireland is one of the easiest destinations to reach from the Albany area. The most popular itinerary for first-timers is to arrive in Shannon and leave from Dublin, or vice versa.
Ireland is 304 miles long and 172 miles wide. There are over four million people living in the Republic of Ireland and under two million in Northern Ireland. Did you know there are over 70 million people worldwide who claim Irish ancestry?

Weather
Weather conditions are temperate and mild.
Winter: High 45-Low 39F. (Snow is rare.)
Fall and Spring – between 54 and 43F
Summer between 75-57F.
It is said that if you don’t like the weather, you can expect it to change in a few minutes. You may want to remember these annual guidelines: December is the wettest, January is the coldest, April is the driest and July is the warmest.

Tours
There are so many unique and creative ways to see Ireland that your itinerary is virtually limited only by your imagination. Themed itineraries include Irish heritage tours, pub and folk tours, castle and garden tours and faith-based tours.
Escorted coach tours - Select from a variety of pre-packaged tours based on your regional interests. Relax and enjoy the Irish countryside while your professional driver and tour director take helm. With a narrated tour, you can expect to learn about the history of the country, as well as legends and folklore. Choose a tour that features a castle stay, medieval banquet, day cruise or a variety of other inclusive options.
Go as you please - Bed & Breakfast and Farm Stay packages: This method of travel includes open vouchers with the car type of your choice. Once you have purchased your preferred length of stay, choose your lodging from over 1,700 locations throughout Ireland. It is advisable to secure your first night’s accommodation before leaving the US. You can select additional lodging in advance or just refer to your location guide as you travel.
Independent travel
Arrange your vacation by confirming hotel or castle reservations well in advance. Depending on location and length of stay, a car rental may not be a requirement for the entire vacation.
Custom group travel
• Want to trace your Irish roots? Organize an Irish genealogy tour to visit your ancestors’ birthplace and search your family tree.
• Are you a skilled equestrian? Arrange your tour by horseback.
• Is golf your niche? With over 300 golf courses to choose from, Ireland has the right green waiting for you and your golf organization.
• Walking and bike tours are numerous in Ireland. Mix it up with an interest in flora and fauna, music and folklore or archeology and culture.

Irish festivals
With such an assortment of festivals, it could take years to attend them all.
Are you single? You may want to attend the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival to find your soulmate.
Have you read the story of the “Rose of Tralee” or hummed the heartbroken words of this famous melody? If so, be sure to appreciate the Rose of Tralee annual Festival. For more information visit www.roseoftralee.ie.
Want to immerse yourself in Ireland’s theater, music, dance and literature? Attend the Kilkenny Arts Festival, an annual highlight in this spectacular medieval city.

What to see & do
• Dublin – This Capital city of the Irish republic will inspire you with its Celtic pulse and cosmopolitan environment.
• View the 8th century Book of Kells - Located at Trinity College, it’s over 1,000 years old.
• If you kiss the Blarney Stone (at Blarney Castle-1446 AD), “the gift of gab” is said to
be yours.
Belfast - Capital city of Northern Ireland.
• Walled city of Londonderry - Take a walking tour and explore captivating history from the 6th century. Observe ancient, medieval structures and the River Foyle merge into today’s 21st century lifestyle.
• Ring of Kerry - Ireland’s most popular scenic drive. The 100-mile stretch of cliffs, beaches and coastal scenery is best viewed by using a professional driver.
• Cliffs of Moher - A mammoth wall of limestone that rises almost 700-feet above the Atlantic Ocean.
• Dingle Peninsula - One of the most magical and charming vistas in all of Ireland.
• Visit the last port of call for the “Titanic” in Cobh - Take a walking tour with a local historian to see places relating to Titanic’s passengers who visited there.
• Tour the replica of an immigrant ship in the town of New Ross - Step aboard the Dunbrody, where character actors portray courageous Irish immigrants who struggled to survive the great potato famine from 1845-1851, and sail to America. Discover their sacrifice and the faith that was necessary to leave home to settle in a new country. If you have ancestors who immigrated from Europe, you won’t want to miss the Dunbrody (www.dunbrody.com).

Irish Trivia
• Ireland has 10,000 pubs
• There are no snakes in Ireland
• Over 40% of US presidents had Irish ancesto
• Gaelic is also spoken on the Isle of Man, Scotland
• The harp, not the shamrock, is the national emblem of Ireland
Ready to visit Ireland? One visit may not be enough. The Irish have a saying: “Cead miele failte,” gaelic for “100,000 welcomes”. For more information visit www.shamrock.org.
Linda McClain, CTA, is owner of Capital Region–based Linda McClain Travel Services “From The Islands To The Highlands, No Dream Is Too Far From Here!” For more information call 372.7657 or visit www.lindamcclaintravel.net. I invite you to contact me for travel assistance to your favorite travel destination.

Although there are a bunch of good novels out this October (notably The Fire, Katherine Neville’s sequel to 1988s The Eight; and Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day), my favorite new titles were non-fiction. Both music-lovers and animal-lovers are in for a treat this month.

Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron is the cat-lover’s response to Marley & Me. In January 1988, a newborn kitten was left in the public library drop box on one of the coldest nights of the year. When Vicki Myron, library director, found him in the morning, she wasn’t sure he’d survive, but after a warm bath the kitten was purring up a storm. His friendliness and accommodating nature saved him; he was soon named library cat of the Spencer, Iowa public library. Interspersed with stories of Dewey’s (named for the Dewey decimal system; his full name was Dewey Readmore Books) incredible cuteness is the story of Spencer, Iowa, a small farming town down on its luck when Dewey made his appearance. Myron doesn’t exactly credit Dewey’s presence in town for inspiring the ensuing economic upswing, but library patrons’ interest in Dewey undoubtedly made them more loyal to the library, and loyal library supporters tend to be more involved citizens, and more involved citizens tend to be hometown cheerleaders and movers and shakers, so who’s to say Myron is wrong? This memoir of small-town grit, gumption and pride starring an internationally famous cat (he appeared in a Japanese documentary!) is a winner. Warning: you’ll need a handkerchief or two for the end.

Whether or not you are a Beatles fan, the new biography by Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life is worth reading. Best known for his earlier book Shout: The Beatles in Their Generation, Norman tackles the life of John Lennon in unsparing detail; at 800 pages, this will be the definitive biography for the foreseeable future. Although it is not an authorized biography, he researched and wrote it with the full cooperation of Yoko Ono. It wasn’t until she read the completed book that she refused to endorse it, feeling that the author had been mean to John. That may be, but Philip Norman tells the story of a fascinating, flawed man in such a way that 800 pages almost doesn’t seem enough. His childhood years are thoroughly covered, and his peculiar relationship with his young and irresponsible mother is explored in depth. The origin of the Beatles, including John’s first meeting with Paul McCartney, the formation of the band, and their wild stints in Hamburg before they hit the big time are delineated in great detail. Readers who thought the Beatles were more clean-cut than their contemporaries, the Rolling Stones, are in for a rude awakening. While much of the book is filled with John’s anger, cruelty and immature behavior coexisting with his sweetness and intelligence, his better side becomes more apparent when he meets and falls in love with Yoko Ono. Even before she made an appearance the Beatles were on shaky ground; touring and business disagreements were taking their toll on the group. Yoko and John’s relationship forced him to become an adult, something his first marriage failed to achieve, despite the fact that it produced a child. During the last 10 years of his life, post-Beatles, post-first marriage, post-groupies and post-drugs, John Lennon appeared to be getting his life in order—he was a devoted father who planned his music around his son’s needs. Norman’s biography makes it clear that John’s life and career were on an upswing when it was tragically cut short. The most bittersweet chapter is the postscript, in which Sean Lennon remembers his famous father. This book is an achievement that even a non-fan will find impossible to put down.

Susan Taylor has been in the book business, in one aspect or another, since 1982. She currently works at the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza. Stop by the store if you are looking for a good book—she’s read a lot more than she can talk about here!

Tips on how to interview so you get the jo

By Dan Moran

The goal of everyone job searching is to get a chance to sit down face-to-face with a decision–maker of a company. All the time you expend on planning who and how to contact, what direction you should go in, all drive toward that great event – the interview. Below are tips that will help you learn what to do and what not to do to prepare for a job interview.

Prepare, prepare, prepare
Before you begin interviewing, you should always focus on preparation. Preparing for an interview requires that you create an inventory of your skills, strengths, qualifications and, of course, weaknesses, so you can be ready to communicate them with confidence. It is also necessary to understand the questions that make you feel uncomfortable and work on your answers.
I use a tool and process in my business when I help coach people in interviewing called the Strategic Interview Planner (SIP)©. This process identifies your personality factors that may impact how effectively you interview, documents your skills, strengths, qualifications and weaknesses, identifies tough and critical questions and includes role-playing. Many of my clients have told me they lost their fear of interviewing and were ready to ace the interview.
So you have an interview scheduled, please don’t blow it. And yes, it does happen.
Through my experience, and with input from others who interview and hire, there are certain things you can do to blow the interview and ruin your chances for that great job.

DON’T show up late – ever!
There is never an excuse for this. Showing up late is perceived as irresponsible and will certainly be a deal killer. Plan your travel itinerary – leave in plenty of time (plus some) and arrive 10 minutes before your scheduled interview time. Get crystal clear directions on where to go once you arrive so you don’t wander around lost.
What if something happens on the way? It can, so be sure to have with you the name and phone number of the person you are to meet and call right away if there is an unforeseen accident or other occurrence.

DO your homework
I cannot tell you the number of times I have interviewed people who didn’t know anything about the company or any of the history. There is no excuse for this and it is viewed as lack of interest and preparedness. You don’t have to recite the annual report, but you should know:
• The product or service provided
• When the company started
• Most recent news on the company
• Information on the industry the company is associated with
• How you think you would align to the company in terms of interests
With web research capabilities, your preparation will be quick and very effective. You should review the information and have a 60-second review of what you have learned practiced and ready to present.

DON’T answer questions
like a politician
In many interviews, you will hear politicians dance around a question and give indirect or non-committal answers. Never do this in an interview – be direct in your answers. If you are asked the same question twice, pause – think – then answer, as it’s likely that you didn’t give a clear answer the first time.

DON’T ramble on
If you see the interviewer fidgeting in their chair or looking at their watch or computer screen, you are losing connection with then. Tighten up your answers and be careful not to ramble on.

DON’T be flip
Have a direct, business-like answer to the question, “Why are you interested in this position?” Saying “It sounds like fun,” will be perceived as a flip answer. Know why you want to do the job you are being interviewed for and state your intention clearly. I recall one time when I posed this question to an interviewee, and he responded, “Why do you think I would want this job?” Not a way to answer for sure; he didn’t get the job or a second interview.

DON’T appear confused
Showing up for an interview and not remembering the name of the person you are to interview with is a fatal mistake. Worse yet, showing up at the wrong time or even the wrong day, are deal killers. This is perceived as lack of attention and focus. When scheduling an interview, take careful note of the name of the person you are interviewing with, where they are located (important if the company has more that one location), the date and time the interview will occur and any other arrangements that may be important.

DON’T assume the dress code
Unless you are specifically told how to dress for the interview, assume that you are to show up in your best interview wardrobe. You really cannot overdress, but you can certainly underdress.

Acing an interview is all about preparation and having confidence in yourself. Not every interview will be great; some may be for jobs that you don’t want and some with companies you don’t feel good about. Approach every interview as “the one” – prepare, be confident and win!
Dan Moran is president & founder of Next-Act, a career management & transition firm located in Colonie. He specializes in helping people make career choices and seek new jobs. He is also a Certified Facilitator for Get Hired Now! and Get Clients Now! Programs, which help those in career transition and companies get results. You can reach him at 641.8968 or dmoran@next-act.com or visit www.next-act.com.

Sun Sign Forecast

For October 2008
By Arlene DeAngelus
Best Days for October : 3rd, 4th, 26th and 31st

To lose those extra pounds, begin a diet on the 14th

Aries: (March 21 to April 20) Partnerships, both personal and professional, bring you happiness this month. You can resolve any misunderstandings and reach an agreement in most areas in these relationships. Remember to compromise, if necessary. Mid-month, you look for ways to change your self-expression and appearance..
Taurus: (April 21 to May 20) Work and relationships with co-workers run more smoothly this month. You work efficiently to accomplish goals and complete projects. Physical efficiency is also ruled and you look for ways to improve your health and diet. Mid-month, you explore new avenues of spirituality and enlightenment.
Gemini : (May 21 to June 20) Loved ones and children are favored this month. You fill your emotional needs and strengthen these special relationships through creative projects and happy times. If you are single, this can be the time for a new love relationship. Mid-month, you rethink your long-term goals and directions.
Cancer: (June 21 to July 22) Family and domestic matters can be discussed and resolved to everyone’s satisfaction this month. You take part in family gatherings and begin a search for your roots. Your emotional and spiritual needs are also considered. Mid-month, you rethink your career directions or the equivalent.
Leo: (July 23 to August 22) Short trips and communications bring you pleasure this month. Reading, writing and communicating with others takes on a new importance. Attend a workshop or begin a course of study and catch up on letter writing. Mid-month, you seek wisdom and intellectual pursuits.
Virgo: (August 23 to September 22) Finances and material possessions are high-lighted this month. This can be a time of recognition for a job well-done. You seek ways to increase you income and financial stability. This placement also rules your values. Mid-month, you analyze jointly held assets and settle old debts.
Libra: (September 23 to October 22) Self-expression and a new confidence in yourself becomes important this month. You can make a good impression on others at this time. There is a desire to change your appearance or mode of dress. Mid-month, you gain a better understanding of yourself through your relationships.
Scorpio: (October 23 to November 21) Spirituality and the inner child are your focus for this month. You know yourself on an outer level, but now you want to know yourself on an inner, spiritual level. Meditation might be just what you are seeking. Mid-month, you search out new health and exercise regimens.
Sagittarius: (November 22 to December 21) Long-terms goals and social groups are analyzed this month. You rethink your goals and directions and make any necessary changes. You look for and want to become involved in humanitarian causes. You seek others who have the same interest. Mid-month, romantic pursuits are favored
Capricorn: (December 22 to January 19) Career goals, or the equivalent in your life, and recognition can be achieved this month. Communicate ideas to authority figures or begin a new project. You strive for career success. Mid-month, any personal matters are easier to resolve. Enjoy quality time with your family members.
Aquarius: (January 20 to February 18) Cultural and spiritual studies attract your interest this month. You look at many subjects, even the abstract, to gain wisdom. Foreign travel also appeals to you and it is a good time to schedule that special vacation. Mid-month, sign up for a college course or attend a new-age workshop.
Pisces: (February 19 to March 20) Personal resources and jointly held property gain your attention this month. This also includes marital assets. Agreements can be reached with others and contracts signed. Take care of any tax matters and settle outstanding debts. Mid-month, you begin a new budget or savings plan..
Arlene is an author, astrologer and para-consultant and has studied and worked with astrology for more than 35 years. She has been a professional astrologer since 1980 and has a Certificate of Merit from Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson (CA) and a Certificate of Proficiency from the Mayo School of Astrology (London) In addition, she holds certifications from the National Spiritualist Association of Churches as both a Medium and Healer (NY 1982-2008).

Boo Part Two

By John Gray

You weren’t supposed to be here this late. If you had known you wouldn’t leave work until after 7pm, you would have parked the car in a safer place. It’s dark and as you walk the block-and-a-half to your car, the shadows cast by the distant street light play tricks on your mind. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” you keep telling yourself, but why then, are your steps quickening with the beat of your heart? That voice inside your head you seldom listen to keeps saying over and over again, “Smart boys and girls don’t walk alone in the dark.” As you reach the car and hit the button to unlock the door there’s a sudden feeling someone is right behind you now. They can’t be there because you would have heard the steps, but the voice is now screaming, “DON’T TURN AROUND.” You don’t, and quickly fling open the car door, hop in the seat, hit the lock and start the ignition. The radio blasts Bon Jovi and every muscle convulses. “Jesus,” you say to yourself, actually wishing he was with you right now. Feeling safe, you look out the window and for an instant see someone near the bushes not 20 feet from your car. You strain to make them out, buvt they are gone. “A trick of light,” you tell yourself. No one is there. Still, you stomp on the gas and don’t bother with the seat belt. As you drive home you won’t dare look in the rearview mirror because that’s where they hide in all the scary movies. “If I don’t look, they can’t be there. The boogeyman has to be seen to be real,” you tell yourself. You try to sing along with Bon Jovi’s “Who says you can’t go home”, but the voice in your head talks over the music, mocking you: “Look in the back seat, go on, just a peak. You know you want to. Maybe it’s you who won’t go home. Not tonight.”

Welcome to our October issue and my favorite time of the year – fall. If you haven’t guessed by now I love spooky stories and things that go bump in the night. I’ve read dozens of horror novels over the years and nothing gave me the chills more than Pet Cemetery by Stephen King. It’s the only book that bothered me so much I stopped reading it halfway through, only to pick it up and finish six months later. I was amused to learn King did the same thing while writing it; stopped then started again. His wife, Tabitha, begged him not to publish it because the thought of burying a child and having them come back evil was just plain wrong. King was never one to worry about people’s sensibilities.

The funny thing about King, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, or any of the talented writers who give us the chills, is that in the real world their monsters don’t scare us. I mean are you really worried that a killer clown may be hiding in the sewer or that a vampire may live next door? Of course not. The stuff that scares us is the real monsters who stalk and prey and make us pray we don’t have to walk alone at night.

Of everything I’ve read, one of the most haunting verses comes from an author few have heard of: William Hughes Mearns. In 1899 he wrote a poem for a play called “Antigonish”. Its simplicity is only matched by its sheer creepiness: “As I was going up the stair, I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish I wish he’d stay away.” If you’re scratching your head wondering where you’ve heard that rhyme, they used it in the surprisingly frightening film “Identity” starring John Cusack.

I like the poem because it raises the question of ghosts. Do they exist? No one talks about it, but I’ll bet you if you asked 10 of your friends if they believe in ghosts, spirits or visitations, at least seven of them would tell you they do. Most people I know have a ghost story of their own where they were certain someone who wasn’t there was indeed paying them a visit. I wrote in this column last year about a ‘visit’ from my father in a dream a few weeks after he died.

I asked renowned psychic and medium John Edward about that dream and he told me that is how our loved ones visit us all the time. The skeptics laugh, but I know what I know and the dream was like no other before or since.
British medium and clairvoyant Lisa Williams raised the dead at Proctor’s Theater last month and I had a chance to ask her about ghosts and goblins. She believes we get messages all the time from the other side; we just have to pay attention. “If you’re thinking about someone you love and the next song on the radio was one of their favorites, it’s not a coincidence,” Lisa says. She adds that visits from spirits are never sinister as they are portrayed in scary movies. “Usually, it’s just their way of checking in. Letting us know they are still with us.” If you’re afraid to get undressed for bed now, Lisa insists they are not watching you 24-7.

I’m not so sure. The other night I had a hankering for something sweet, but had nothing in the house except for a can of Betty Crocker frosting for a cake I was planning to bake. So there I was, sitting on the couch in my underwear eating the frosting with my finger. The TV remote, which was minding its own business, somehow managed to fall off the arm of the chair with no help from me. “Mom,” I thought. It’s the kind of thing she’d do if she ever caught me eating frosting from the can that way.

As you pick apples, carve pumpkins and the smell of burnt leaves fills the air, I wish you a happy October ripe with sweet cider and friendly ghosts. And if you find yourself alone on a dark street and you do turn around to face the boogeyman, recite Bill Denborough’s line in King’s ghoulishly good novel, It. “He thrusts his fist against the post and still insists he sees the ghost.” Then run!

John Gray is a Fox23 News anchor and contributing writer at the Troy Record. He can be reached at johngray@fox23news.com

Relational aggression

Can a girl be a bully?

By Alison Molea-LaVigne

There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead
When she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid...

Bullying, or aggression, comes in many shapes and sizes and the non-physical type can hurt a person even more than being punched or slapped. Girls use social relationships as a weapon for harming one another, and most often the motivation comes from feeling dismissed or ignored. This type of bullying is called relational aggression.

Signs of bullying, by age
Although there is a multitude of ways this weapon is used, some of the more common tactics with elementary school-aged girls include:
• Excluding or ignoring someone when angry (giving the "silent treatment")
• Telling peers not to play with someone
• Not inviting certain peers to a birthday party and then talking about it in front of them
• Name calling/critiques of body, hair and clothes
Cliques come into play starting at the middle school level. Rosalind Wiseman author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence defines a clique as "a platoon of soldiers who have banded together to navigate the perils and insecurities of adolescence." Though she thinks that a positive clique can be a wonderful thing for girls, she has also observed "sweet, intelligent girls plotting another's humiliating downfall." Good or bad, cliques are a huge fact of life for girls, sometimes starting around age 8-9.
Common bullying tactics at this stage include:
• Spreading rumors about a peer
• Purposefully not leaving a seat at a table in the cafeteria or classroom
• Talking about one girl to another, often while in the girl's presence
• Cyberbullying (using technology to torment, threaten, harass, humiliate, embarrass or otherwise target a girl)
Teenage bullies may start to act out physically, such as shoving a girl into a locker as they walk by or taking her backpack or other personal items and hiding them in the school. The older girls become the more competitive and judgmental they get, and the more vicious rumors can become. These rumors often revolve around a girl's sexuality (saying she is promiscuous when she isn’t or that she is pregnant or has an STD). Most likely, the cause of this bad behavior is a jealousy of a girl's relationship with a boy or another friend.

First listen, then help
To help protect them from painful relationships, parents can start to understand the complications of girl relationships and the sophisticated social levels that exist within them. Here’s a cheat sheet that Wiseman created for parents to help identify and better understand the types of girls their daughter may be dealing with. She terms them: Queen Bee (always in charge), Sidekick (does everything the queen bee does), Banker (gets girls to confide then uses information against them), Floater (friends with all groups), Torn Bystander (always caught in the middle of two or more girls), Pleaser/Wannabee/Messenger (can be every girl in the group) and Target (the - sometimes unsuspecting - victim). The roles range from the highest positions of power to the lowest.
For many parents, it can be difficult to get your daughter to open up to you about cliques and her experiences. Wiseman says to "approach your daughter as an observer of other girls." As she returns to school this fall, talk to her about how she feels about her friends and how they treat other people. If she is open and vocal, you may already know a bit about each and every person at school. If she is not, ask her questions about where she sits in the cafeteria and with whom she hangs out with at recess and what they do. Maybe your daughter likes to be in charge or maybe she is being bullied. She may not tell you and you may not find out for some time.
When she does start to talk to you about what she sees, ask her where she thinks she fits in. Whatever position she has in a clique, validate her experience. Tell her that you know these situations can be difficult and that it is hard to know what to do. Even if she is the “Target”, don't tell her what to do or threaten to call the school. Instead, work with her to come up with a plan that describes what she wants to change and how she can make that happen.
Even though she may insist on handling it on her own, your daughter may be unable to. According to The Ophelia Project, relational aggression can affect a girl's ability to learn, grow and succeed. Research proves that relational aggression is related to increased depression, lower academic performance, increased suicidal ideation, increased anxiety, anger, sadness and other negative consequences. Consult a mental health professional or school administrator if this is the case to discuss the options your family has.
Alison Molea-LaVigne is a clinical social worker in private practice. She works with individuals, families, couples, teens and children on a wide range of issues. She is also an Independent Consultant for Synergy Counseling Associates in Albany and can be contacted at 222.7613 or amolealavigne@gmail.com.

Last year’s debut issue of “Best Doctor’s” was such an overwhelming success that we have decided to bring it back, and don’t be surprised if you see it every year from here on out.
My own experience in choosing a pediatrician, internist and OB-GYN made me realize that CRL Magazine needed to publish an issue on the area’s “Best Doctors” to help readers select the right doctor for them. So we went with the oldest independent doctor database in America to help—Best Doctors, Inc. in Boston.

Best Doctors, Inc. was founded in 1989 by two renowned physicians affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Their goal was to provide greater access to dependable, high quality medical information and care for individuals with serious illnesses and injuries. That concept continues to propel Best Doctors and has led to their pioneering work being featured on “60 Minutes”, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reader’s Digest and CNN. Today, Best Doctors is the world’s leading resource for patients, families and physicians seeking expert medical resources and guidance to treat illnesses and injuries of all kinds.

Of course, there are many great doctors in the Capital Region, but like other surveys or peer-reviews—or even the Oscars!—sometimes we are more surprised by the omissions than the nominees. However, after reading about the doctors profiled here, you should be thrilled that they are practicing medicine here in the Capital Region. Finding your doctor or your child’s specialist is a very important decision and we at CRL Magazine feel it is crucial to have as much information as possible to make that decision.

I hope you also notice something else exciting about the issue: CRL Magazine has a new rack-friendly size on improved recycled-paper. As Jann Wenner, the founder and publisher of Rolling Stone recently told a newspaper: “All you’re getting from that large size is nostalgia.” For those who have been reading CRL Magazine from its inception in 2003, the magazine’s size has come full circle. I am not a philosopher, but one of my favorite Yogi Berra quotes is: “It’s deja vu all over again.”

Cheers!

Douglas Hahn
Publisher & CEO

Capital Region’s Best Doctors

Dr. Jill Braverman-Panza, MD
Internal Medicine
Braverman-Panza Medical Group, Washington Avenue, Albany
Undergraduate School: Skidmore College, biology major, music minor
Medical School: Albany Medical Center
Residency: Albany Medical Center, 3 years of internal medicine
Fellowship: Albany Medical Center, 1 year as chief resident

Growing up in New Jersey, Doctor Jill Braverman-Panza always knew she wanted to work in medicine or become a pharmacist, like her father.
After graduating from Skidmore College with a degree in biology, she waited tables for a few years to save money for the Brooklyn Pharmacy School. That’s when she met her husband Tony. They married and moved back to the Capital Region, where Braverman-Panza started her doctorate in clinical pharmacology at Albany Medical Center.
One year into her research, they closed her program down. Undaunted, she applied to the medical school.
“In medical school, they used to tell me to stop thinking like a pharmacist and start thinking like a doctor,” laughed Braverman-Panza, who feels that being a primary care physician makes her a gatekeeper. “When you have patients on multiple medications from multiple doctors it’s nice to be able to tell them that what they’re experiencing is just a side-effect from one of their medications or a drug interaction, and not something serious.”
She spent a year as chief resident at Albany Med following her residency and worked part-time in the emergency room at Ellis Hospital. It was there that she became interested in preventive medicine and the holistic approach to practicing her craft.
“I got tired of cleaning up congestive heart failure patients who had pizza for Christmas when they knew they shouldn’t,” she said. “I love doing preventive care and giving people back charge of their lives.”
In 1991, Braverman-Panza opened her own practice with a partner on Western Avenue in Guilderland. A year later, it became hers. Together with two part-time doctors, two full-time physician assistants and two part-time nurse practitioners, she treats patients from adolescent age (13) through adult. Had there been a specialty in adolescent medicine when Braverman-Panza was in medical school, she knows that would have been her calling.
“You really can make a change with young people before they get all of these debilitating diseases,” she said.
One of the last vestiges of an all-female practice, Braverman-Panza thinks that women’s natural tendency to nurture has helped her practice fill up quickly from the outset.
Doctor Walsh has five children and Doctor Dalzell has three children under the age of five. Braverman-Panza, 55, has a 20-year-old son who was three when she started the practice.
“We’re very female-friendly because we’re all mothers,” she said. “We’re probably the only practice that closes on Halloween so the staff can attend their children’s Halloween parades.”

The cost of staying small
Nearly two decades later, little has changed in the way Braverman-Panza runs her practice. Prevention and taking a holistic-approach, evaluating the “whole person” including the psychological and physical circumstances, is still central to her philosophy of medicine.
The biggest change has been with her patients. More computer savvy, knowledgeable and interested in their own health, patients have become “partners” in their care forcing practitioners to stay on top of newer herbal remedies and complementary medications.
But, the dwindling economy and annual threat of Medicare cuts also leaves patients scared and left to make difficult choices regarding health care and competing priorities. This winter was the first time since opening her practice that Braverman-Panza saw a slow down in the first quarter.
CDPHP is providing electronic medical records to some smaller practices through a subsidized project. But, the growing reimbursement issue and discounted fees of service is putting a stranglehold on practices large and small forcing internists to look at other subsidies.
“The reality of practicing internal medicine today is that I make more money freezing a wart then I do diagnosing cancer,” Braverman-Panza explained. “So, procedures are regarded ‘higher’ on the reimbursement scale than cognitive diagnosis.”
The practice offers laser cosmetic procedures in the office once a month and one of her nurse practitioners also runs a complementary medicine practice called Integrative Care.
Braverman-Panza pursues her passion for prevention working with bariatric, obesity patients through the Bariatric Center at Albany Med and on an out-patient basis through her practice.
Having an in-house laboratory allows them to perform tests and follow-up with patients while they’re waiting, which further enhances the practice economically and augments the range of services they can provide.
The other challenge small practices face is lack of personnel to fill in when someone is sick. When her son was small, she had help from her in-laws and parents. Encouraging her staff to have a back-up plan was essential.

Work-life balance
For Braverman-Panza, maintaining the balance is the hardest part about being a woman in medicine.
Her crowning moment remains the fact that she’s still in business. Voted a “Woman of Excellence” by the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce a few years back, she’s proud of the recognition because it recognizes her as a successful business owner in addition to practicing medicine.
Still, having grown up in a family business, she manages to find time to help her husband Tony with the family restaurant, Panza’s, on Saratoga Lake.
“I met my husband when I was waitressing. You do what you have to do. Besides, we have a nice working relationship: he fattens them up and I reduce them.”
–Amy Tucker

Dr. Gerald Hausler, MD
Family Medicine
Center for Family Practice, Latham
Undergraduate degree: RPI, biology
Medical School: Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Residency: Wayne State University in Detroit

Dr. Gerald Hausler is the kind of person who whistles on his way to work. “As long as you’re whistling it will never feel like you’re going to work,” the cheerful physician said.
Besides, with your beloved pooch next to you on the ride to work, how can you not help but whistle?
That’s right; Hausler brings his Scottie/Basset Hound mix, Shortsop (“Shorty”), to work each day. It’s a rare sight to behold in a doctor’s office, but one that puts a smile on everyone’s face.
“He’s always around the office somewhere. He’ll scratch on patients’ doors and they let him in so he can say hello,” he said.
Hausler, an Albany native, who has been practicing medicine for 27 years (at the Center for Family Practice in Latham for the past nine), is happy to be in a field that has interested him since adolescence. He attributes his two family doctors for inspiring him. “I just thought ‘boy this is what I want to do.’ I was very goal-directed. I knew I was going to be a physician.”
His experiences as a medical student at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine only further strengthened his passion for his chosen field. “When I went to medical school, I started rotating through family doctor offices and I learned physicians are an integral part of the family. Many were involved with two, three, four generations.”
After completing his residency at Wayne State University in Detroit, Hausler returned to the area in 1981 and began teaching at Albany Medical School. The following year he began practicing with Latham Medical Group. He left there after 18 years for his current practice, craving a smaller venue where he could give his patients more personal attention.
It’s those patients that are his favorite part of the profession. He works hard to cultivate a trusting relationship, which in turn results in a lasting one. “My favorite thing to hear is ‘I haven’t been able to tell anyone this but…’” said Hausler.
But it’s not just the doctor-patient relationship; it’s a bond with the entire family that is essential, he said. “I want to be a part of their family; share everything that’s important to them and try and achieve their trust.” Hausler enjoys catching up with patients and families and frequently receives letters and even baskets of apples or tomatoes from people he’s treated.
A married father of three sons, Hausler’s youngest is following in his footsteps. He currently helps out at the office and is set to attend the University of West Virginia Medical School this fall.
Dubbing his field a “potpourri of medicine”, he appreciates the eclectic nature of his daily work. “You never know what’s behind that door. It’s like a game show… what’s behind door number one, door number two? It’s always different.”
But every day isn’t always rosy. The obvious downside for a physician is telling someone they have a terminal illness or that a family member has passed away. “You never know how to approach it, even after all these years. The more you know someone, the worse it is.”
One of the more difficult cases was when he had to diagnose a young, pregnant woman with breast cancer. “She elected to keep the baby knowing she was going to die and not see it grow up. She delivered it, but eventually succumbed to the cancer. It was very emotionally draining,” he said.
However, he perseveres, knowing this is a reality in his profession. His proudest moments as a physician are when, “I do everything right and a patient beats out cancer.”
Hausler credits catscans, MRIs and ultrasounds with progressing the field of medicine. “We can do more and more immediately so patients don’t have to wait and we can make more accurate diagnoses on a faster basis.”
However, said the doctor, the future of primary care doesn’t look as promising. He believes that his field is in a very precarious position now, and that the high cost of medical school is partially to blame. “Medical students are coming out with more and more debt so they are taking jobs in a high-paying specialty. And they don’t want to work that hard or be on-call all the time and put in the hours. I personally feel there’s going be a real problem finding them [primary care physicians].”
Hausler encourages people pursuing any career, not just one in medicine, to pursue something that they are passionate about and will never tire of. “You really should choose something that you love; you want it to be enjoyable. I love what I do.”
–Jill Vallecorsa

Dr. Paul P. Hospodar, MD
Orthopedic Surgery
Bone and Joint Center, Albany, and professor at Albany Medical College
Undergraduate School: University of Scranton, PA
Medical School: Penn State College of Medicine
Residency: Penn State College of Medicine
Fellowship: Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Ind., in traumatology

Doctor Paul P. Hospodar became an orthopedic surgeon because he likes to fix things.
“Orthopedics is about improving the quality of people’s lives,” he said. “We can’t always extend people’s lives, but we improve the quality through working on arthritic joints and debilitating fractures and trying to repair those injuries.”
A specialist in traumatology, Hospodar has been working in the field for 14 years. He works at the Bone and Joint Center on Washington Avenue, which is affiliated with Capital Region Orthopedic Group. He’s a part-time professor at Albany Medical College where he lectures and teaches the residents and he’s also one of the team doctors for the River Rats hockey team.

Increasing injuries
Unheard of in the 90s, there’s been an explosion of ACL injuries in young teenage girls due to soccer. During his years in residency, Hospodar remembered treating only one female with an ACL injury for nearly every 30 men.
“Tearing your ACL has become an equal-opportunity injury,” said Hospodar. “It’s tough when these gals who are 15-16 blow out their knee and have to take a year off, have surgery and perhaps never play at the same level that they were.”
Clearly more women are playing sports since Title IX was enacted and soccer is popular worldwide. Some studies implicate that the structure of the knee or the cycling of estrogen make women more susceptible. There’s also scientific research citing a difference in the hamstring reaction time between men and women. Hospodar thinks it’s a lot simpler than that.
“They’re playing harder and more aggressively. I think it has a lot to do with the design of the cleats as well. They don’t allow for any slip of the foot so that all of the energy is departed to the knee.”
Hospodar himself can’t play basketball anymore. Instead, he plays hockey in a non-checking men’s league. “Unlike soccer, football and basketball, you can get away with having an ACL injury in hockey. But you’re still coming down on the knee and putting a lot of torque on that joint.”
Many of the increased ACL problems are also societal according to Hospodar, who declares flip flops the root of all evil. Western civilization has an abundance of spurs and bunions, particularly from women wearing high heels. But, there’s a whole school of thought that shoes are a problem, not a solution, because other cultures wear similar shoes or none at all and lack foot problems.
The obesity epidemic and sedentary lifestyles are also causing injuries and taking a toll on people’s joints. Hospodar advises people to stay active through walking and stretching to avoid injuries and the onset of arthritis. Still, he can’t help but feel frustrated when a 300-pound patient doesn’t understand why they’re experiencing knee pain.

Need for speed
Society is moving at a faster pace with a lot of motorized devices. Hospodar has seen an explosive increase in the number of motorcycle accidents—particularly on new, high-performance bikes with young kids driving 80-90 mph and taking a turn too quickly.
“People are continually coming up with new and more exciting ways to hurt themselves. It’s the whole generation we belong to, none of us wants to admit we’re getting older and our bodies are taking the beating.”
Baby boomers in their 50s and 60s are retiring and buying their first motorcycles, even though their reaction times and ability to learn new skills are reduced. The practice has treated patients with multiple pelvic fractures and has seen unbelievable cases of road rash.
Enter one of his favorite patients, a flight nurse who recently returned from a tour of Afghanistan with her husband, who was a medic. One Saturday morning, they took a ride in the country on their motorcycle and through no fault of their own, a car pulled out and crushed her left leg beyond repair from above the knee to her foot.
“She was only in her 40s, and we had to remove her leg from below the knee,” said Hospodar noting that she couldn’t return to being a flight nurse and had to settle for being a training nurse on the ground. “The irony is that she was in highly dangerous operations under fire running soldiers back and forth from the front line and she’s home one week and loses her leg.”
Perhaps his biggest nemesis involves four wheelers and young children. He recently treated a nine-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother for multiple fractures of the wrist and forearm, contusions all over their body and small head injuries making him question the logic of putting bigger, stronger machines in the hands of youngsters who feel they’re invincible.
“I hate to be a killjoy, but you wouldn’t let them drive a car at that age and tooling down a path at high speeds isn’t much safer,” he said. “When you start seeing trends and debilitating injuries, it makes you wonder.”

Debunking the myths
Hospodar thinks the prevalence and popularity of today’s medical shows skews people’s perception of what the medical practice can really accomplish once a leg is severed.
“They show a major trauma with a leg transplant or re-implantation and at the end of the show the patient walks out,” said Hospodar incredulously. “We can hook a leg back up. The reality, however, is that they might regain some function after months or years. But, their leg will probably never return to normal.”
On the flip side, technology has vastly improved the orthopedic practice, too. Visualization and imaging is better with advanced MRIs and Spiral CT scans making evaluations and diagnoses quicker and more accurate. In addition, the baring surfaces, including plastics and ceramics, have better wear characteristics today making total hip or knee replacements more durable.
The field hasn’t achieved the point of minimally invasive surgery just yet, but robots aren’t out of the question in the future.
“Trauma equipment has become refined where we’re putting more and more hardware through smaller incisions,” said Hospodar. “Whereas before we would have to fillet the entire leg, we can now do it with smaller incisions.”
–Amy Tucker

William Bruce Clark, MD
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Clark, Clements, Klein and Syeda Obstetrics and Gynecology, Latham
Medical School: University of Oregon
Residency: Albany Medical Center

The 20th century was full of milestones in women’s history, from extending the right to vote in 1920 to the controversial Roe v. Wade (1973) Supreme Court decision declaring laws against abortion unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Still, no one could have predicted that the expanded freedom and scope of reproductive rights would result in the July 2008 birth of a daughter to Thomas Beattie, a transgendered man who retained his female reproductive organs.
“The scope of the practice of obstetrics and gynecology has vastly expanded over the past two decades,” acknowledged Dr. William Bruce Clark, founding partner of Clark, Clements, Klein and Syeda Obstetrics and Gynecology in Latham. “With the advent of infertility procedures and even standard, routine care, it has become more specialized and sub-specialized in the areas of oncology and reproductive endocrinology.”
For Clark, who entered the field simply because he “liked it”, the changes have meant that he performs more routine gynecological procedures than in the past.
“I used to handle more high-risk pregnancies such as patients with diabetes or pregnancies involving multiple births,” Clark explained. “I still do, but there’s a lot more prenatal and well-baby care going on these days. That’s important because if you do a good job of taking care of the fetus, you’re preventing a lifetime of possible problems or harm.”
Originally from Portland, Ore., Clark attended medical school at the University of Oregon. Relocating to the Albany area in 1971, he did his residency at Albany Medical Center. Instead of doing a fellowship, he entered the Army for two years following residency.
“Then, I returned to the Albany area and have never left.”
Upon returning, he served on the faculty at Albany Medical Center for three years. Following that he joined the Latham practice of colleague Dr. Timothy Vinciguerra. They worked together for several years and in the late 70s, Clark started his own practice in Latham, which today includes Doctors Philip Clements, Kristine Klein and Humera Syeda.
The industry has experienced an incremental increase in both knowledge and the technological ability to treat various conditions. Once a taboo subject, the media has put women’s health in the forefront with commercials for breast self-exams, birth control, menopause relief and vaccines to protect against cervical cancer and the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).
“HPV was discovered a long time ago, and we always knew it was associated with cervical cancer, but the technology to test for it, and the vaccine to prevent it, came along much later as advancements in research and medical knowledge occurred,” said Clark.
Obstetrics and gynecology have also benefited from refined technologies that allow for laparoscopic surgeries with smaller incisions and quicker recovery times. In addition to minimally invasive surgeries for tubal ligation, a procedure for permanent female sterilization known as getting your “tubes tied”, there are also endometrial ablation procedures to decrease uterine menstrual bleeding and cramping.
Clark also credits the advanced imaging processes of the ultrasound for vastly improving the field’s diagnostic and treatment capabilities.
But the biggest challenge for Clark doesn’t have to do with health care; it has to do with running a practice when reimbursement rates from insurance companies and HMOs haven’t kept up with the rising cost of medicine and inflation.
“The cost of running a practice–in particular the liability expenses involved–has increased at a faster rate than inflation,” Clark stated. “The reimbursement rates for routine visits and pap smears are lagging far behind and putting pressure on the practitioners who are trying to deliver optimum care for their patients.”
In addition to low reimbursement rates, Clark mentioned the “alarming” nationwide issue of the growing numbers of individuals without health insurance.
He also noted that the continuing problem of educating teens–be it to stop smoking, use contraception, practice safe sex or to abstain from it altogether–has always been a challenge.
Preferring the office to the lab, Clark hasn’t found time in recent years to pursue much in the way of cutting-edge research or publishing. The father of three grown daughters, and a grandfather of three, he finds satisfaction is all in a day’s work.
“Just knowing that I have benefited my patients and my family is good enough for me.”
–Amy Tucker

Dr. Jennifer Pearce, MD
Pediatric Oncologist Hematologist
Albany Medical Center
Undergraduate degree: John Hopkins University, biology
Medical School: University of Michigan
Residency: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

“We laugh a lot,” aren’t words you expect to hear in a hospital, especially when the diagnoses delivered here are anything but humorous. But Pediatric Oncologist Hematologist Dr. Jennifer Pearce, and the entire staff in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders unit of Albany Medical Center (AMC), have managed to make hospital visits fun, if not calming at the same time.
It’s a surreal experience to step off a hospital elevator and face vibrant colors, fish tanks, computers on child-size desks and Winnie the Pooh paintings a la Van Gogh. For almost a second, you forget you’re visiting a place where kids come for treatment. In the next second, there’s a bald, giggling kid stepping onto the floor and you’re snapped back to reality. For Pearce, working with these patients is one of the most fulfilling parts of the job. “I love working with kids and their families. I love having more and more to learn every day about biology and science.”
Pearce loves the diversity that comes with being a pediatric oncologist hematologist. “I love working with a toddler then going next door to a teenager and then on to an eight-year-old. I find the differences fascinating.”
As a child, Pearce not only knew she wanted to be a doctor, but knew she wanted to work with children. “In second grade when writing a basic essay about what I wanted to be when I grew up I asked the teacher how to spell pediatrician.”
Originally from Michigan, where she attended medical school at the University of Michigan, Pearce then headed to Philadelphia for her residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and came to Albany in 1985 for her current job.
“I thought I would stay a few years and then move on which is the norm in academic medicine,” said Pearce.
Boy, did Albany prove her wrong. She fell in love with a native of the area, married and had two kids. “I love the region and think it is very underrated. It has been a great place to have a family. I love the fact that it is a highly intelligent community with plenty to do.”
When a child sees Pearce, it’s because his or her primary physician finds something abnormal, at which point they are sent to her for diagnosis and treatment. At times, families arrive with knowledge that some form of cancer is the diagnosis, other times they don’t know it’s a consideration. “Most parents are on the Internet doing their own research at least some of the time; they want to be more involved in understanding the disease and the treatment than they did in the past.”
While her unit treats patients with non-malignant blood disorders, such as anemia and sickle cell disease, the most common type of cancer she treats in kids under the age of 15 is leukemia, about 75 percent of which is Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), a blood cancer in which the cancerous change takes place in the type of marrow cell that forms lymphocytes. The good news is that between 75-80 percent of all children diagnosed with cancer will be long-term survivors. “Add that fact and the long hours and sad times are all worth it.”
When working with patients suffering from a malignant disease, Pearce says its energy, and not only her own, that keeps her going. It’s the laughter and endless hope that her patients and their families have that is like a daily shot of adrenaline for her. But the job can also be draining. “Telling families bad news and going through relapses and deaths with families that you care deeply about is emotionally exhausting,” said Pearce. “But then a giggling, bald three-year-old brings you a rock they painted just for you and energy is renewed.”
As a mother of a 20-year old daughter and 18-year old son, Pearce says she never understood how hard parenting a healthy child was until she had her own. “I never really understood how deep the love a mother has for their child. I can’t imagine where the parents get their strength from to deal with their children’s illnesses and yet they do, day after day.”
–Rebecca Eppelmann

Dr. Richard Dal Col, MD
Thoracic Surgery:
Location: Albany Cardiothoracic Surgeons, Albany
Undergraduate School: LeMoyne College, Syracuse
Medical School: Albany Medical Center
Residency: Albany Medical Center, general surgery
Fellowship: University of Pittsburgh

“I think what’s unique to most cardiac surgeons is that we really love the challenge,” said Dr. Richard Dal Col, one of nine doctors at Albany Cardiothoracic Surgeons, the largest and oldest cardiothoracic surgical group in upstate New York.
Originally from Long Island, Dal Col caught the bug for cardiothoracic surgery during a rotation in medical school at Albany Medical Center in the late 70s.
“People really notice the difference after heart surgery. For some people, you save their lives, for others it’s about quality of life and extending their life expectancy.”
Cardiothoracic surgeons perform procedures on and treat diseases of the heart and lungs. Established in 1955 as an affiliated program with Albany Medical Center, Albany Cardiothoracic Surgeons (www.acts.org) went private in 1987 and now operate out of St. Peter’s Hospital, Ellis Hospital and Champlain Valley Physician’s Hospital in Plattsburgh. Dal Col joined the group in 1990.

Robotic assist
In the last 10 years, there’s been an explosion of minimally invasive surgery through the use of Heartport technology robots like the single-arm, voice-activated AESOP (Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning) and the da Vinci.
“The magnification and lighting with the da Vinci is fantastic and you’re sitting down at a console, so you’re relaxed,” said Dal Col. “The operations I perform today are incredibly different than the way I originally learned back in the 80s and 90s.”
St. Peter’s Hospital is a minimally invasive valve center. About 80 percent of their cases are coronaries; approximately 40 percent are coronary surgeries with the balance being valve surgeries. Surgeons at the hospital perform about 800 heart surgeries annually and nearly 1,400 hearts throughout the entire group.
A typical surgery lasts from 2.5 to 3.5 hours, with more complicated procedures lasting as long as eight hours or more.
The average in-hospital stay for a minimally invasive heart surgery is only about two days less than a typical procedure. Patients return to full function from a minimally invasive sternotomy procedure after two-to-four weeks versus three months for a standard sternotomy procedure.
“It depends upon the age of the patient and how early the procedure is performed,” Dal Col explained. “We still see people with late presentation for surgery because they don’t realize there’s a less invasive approach. The earlier we see them, the higher likelihood of doing a minimally invasive approach, in particular with mitral-valve repairs.”
According to Dal Col, the only problem with the new da Vinci robot at St. Peter’s is getting access to it, because everybody wants to use it. The technology is rapidly improving and he feels the future for robotics will be with coronary surgeries.
“True, state-of-the-art is more of a robotic-assist than it really is truly completely robotic,” Dal Col noted. “The second and third-generations of the robots are going to make the coronaries a very doable procedure.”
Coronary surgeries are still fairly invasive even off-pump. But, with some of the anastomotic devices and newer devices for stabilizing the heart off-pump, he’s confident we’ll begin to see a more closed and less-invasive coronary procedure in the not-too-distant future.

Time vs. talent
Even though medical students undergo a rotation in the specialty, the decreased reimbursements for cardiac surgery leave no incentive for people to spend 10 years of post-graduate training becoming a surgeon. Attracting people to the field has become a three-fold problem: the training time is long, the loans are high and the reimbursement is low.
Dal Col said the problem dates back to when the whole reimbursement issue was initially changed for Medicare. Cardiac surgeons weren’t really well represented on the committee and lacked a political action committee (PAC) and strong lobbying effort. Since that time, they’ve developed both and people are starting to take notice.
“There’s really no one answer to heart disease: it’s multi-factorial,” said Dal Col. “People in Washington are finally starting to understand what’s involved and what’s at stake.”
Even with the challenges of the field, daily successes bring multiple rewards. Dal Col’s biggest personal success came in 1997 with a re-operative patient who had been turned down by several other institutions.
“They didn’t think he was a transplant candidate,” Dal Col explained. “So, his only option was this difficult, high-risk operation. My senior partner, who was approaching retirement at the time, felt the surgery really should be done and that I should perform it.”
The patient had a bad heart, and had outlived his initial operation at age 57. This was a re-operative mitral-coronary with mitral repair and a low injection fraction. A difficult case in general, the patient had limited conduit for the bypass. Dal Col’s team ended up using an open-valve process to preserve what was working.
“I hear from him every year on the anniversary of his operation,” said Dal Col. “It’s 11 years out and he’s still doing well.”
–Amy Tucker

Joel Kremer, MD
Rheumatology
Center for Rheumatology, Albany
Undergraduate degree: Dickinson College, PA, Biology
Medical School: Temple University
Residency: Albany Medical Center
Fellowship: Albany Medical Center

Dr. Joel Kremer’s fascination with rheumatology has spanned more than 30 years. Yet he’s baffled by the number of misconceptions people have about the field.
“People think that arthritis is when your joints hurt. They don’t understand the interplay of molecules in the immune system that results in these diseases. And, they don’t realize that physicians can intervene at any one of a number of steps, once we understand what’s going on behind the scenes, to make people feel better.”
Another fallacy about the industry is that rheumatologists work primarily with the elderly.
“The ‘old people’s’ disease is degenerative osteoarthritis and yes, we do see that,” said Kremer. “Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis typically start in your 30s and 40s and I have lots of patients in their late teens and 20s.”
Rheumatology is a subspecialty of internal medicine that concerns problems involving joints, soft tissues and allied conditions of corrective tissues. About 95 percent outpatient-based, rheumatology involves multi-system and auto-immune diseases like lupus and vasculitis, which is an inflammation of the blood vessels, where the body’s immune system turns on itself.
The complex diseases require multiple tests and often numerous specialists are involved in the patient’s care.
“Some of these patients are extremely ill and become hospitalized,” Kremer explained. “But, very often it’s not the primary rheumatologic disease that lands a patient in the hospital. We’re typically treating people who are coming in during a flare-up or suffering from comorbidities.”
Comorbidities are diseases that travel along or exist simultaneously with the primary disease. Recognizing these comorbidities, and avoiding or treating them early, is a large part of what rheumatologists do today. The proliferation of biologic drugs introduced during the last decade has also significantly improved the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
“These drugs are very expensive because they’re directed at specific steps in the immune process. But, the vast majority of these people who we saw suffering for so long are doing so much better today because of them.”
It’s always been about the patient for Kremer. He became fascinated with patients suffering from rheumatologic diseases during his residency at Albany Medical Center. While most surgeons do their most intensive work while the patient is unconscious, Kremer wanted a profession where he could develop long-term relationships with his patients.
“Plus, the scientific underpinnings of rheumatology are fascinating and really appealed to me.”
Research and education also appeal to Kremer who is the Pfaff Family Professor of Medicine at Albany Medical Center where he also completed his fellowship. He spent 20 years at the Center and was head of the division when he left in 2000 to form a private practice in rheumatology.
Kremer still teaches medical students and fellows every week and has found satisfaction through his research including testing the new biologic drugs on the market and a study using fish oil as a dietary treatment for arthritis. His claim to fame, however, was founding a national registry for rheumatology nearly nine years ago that has grown to be the largest in the country.
The Consortium of Rheumatology Researchers of North America (CORRONA) registry was brought together as an idea and is maintained through the help of physicians around the country.
Through the CORRONA registry, Kremer has been involved with the epidemiology of diseases and genetics and how they intertwine - part of the continual work he performs on behalf of his patients.
“Physicians are human beings and being a good doctor is hard, demanding work,” said Kremer. “Being the most diligent patient advocate without cutting corners takes an unwavering focus and time commitment.”
Kremer is pleased by the large number of medical students who are pursuing careers in rheumatology versus a decade ago when growth in the field was at a stand-still. According to a study a few years ago by the American College of Rheumatology, the average age of a rheumatologist was in the mid-50s. They’re predicting a future wave of retirees in the field, so numerous opportunities will exist for new grads.
He’s also proud of the progress he’s seen in the field since he completed his fellowship in 1979 and foresees really good things happening over the next 15-20 years.
“We’re not at the point where we can prevent arthritis from occurring, but there are a lot of people who are virtually in remission.
“It’s been a tremendously satisfying and challenging journey,” Kremer mused. “And, it’s not over.”
–Amy Tucker

Scott Osur, MD
Allergy and Immunology
Certified Allergy Consultants, Albany
Undergraduate degree: Amherst College, MA, European History
Medical School: University of Virginia
Residency: Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester
Fellowship: University of Buffalo

A recent survey showed that nasal allergies are the fifth or sixth most costly disease to society in terms of medicine, medical care, lost productivity and everything combined.
“People don’t realize that nasal allergy sufferers score lower in terms of quality-of-life than asthmatics, which would intuitively be regarded as a more life-debilitating condition,” stated Dr. Scott Osur, allergist with Certified Allergy Consultants (CAC).
Nasal allergies have a documented significant impact on work and productivity including “presenteeism”, where an employee is present at work, but not fully functional. Nasal allergy sufferers don’t sleep well, are fatigued, perform lower on tests and suffer from chronic nasal congestion, but according to Osur, many primary care physicians aren’t aware of these quality-of-life issues because allergies aren’t a dangerous or life-threatening condition.
Originally from Stores, Conn., Osur relocated to the Capital Region in 1987 following a two-year allergy fellowship at the University of Buffalo. Employed with CAC since the outset, Osur chose his profession because he thought it was an area where he could make a difference.
“I knew the prevalence of allergies and asthma was not only frequent, but that with the proper diagnosis and treatment, you could make a substantial difference in someone’s quality of life for years and decades to come.”
As a specialized subset of internal medicine or pediatrics, allergists must undergo two-three years of extensive training following their internal medicine training. Patients with chronic sinus disease and/or structural issues would be referred to an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist.
“We trade patients back and forth depending on whether it’s more of a medical or a surgical problem,” said Osur. “ENTs require two-three weeks of additional training, whereas allergists train as much as cardiothoracic surgeons.”
Common outdoor allergens include ragweed, pollen and grass. Notably, the number of children with peanut allergies and asthma has doubled over the last 20 years leading researchers to consider “hygiene” as the culprit.
“Allergies are common in the West, but virtually non-existent in third-world countries with reprehensible public health conditions,” Osur explained. “Researchers believe our infant care environments are so clean that children aren’t exposed to bacteria and are unable to develop antibodies to protect them from these allergens.”
Osur employs a three-tier process to diagnosing and treating nasal allergies: determine the cause, avoid the cause and when all else fails, give allergy injections.
The cause, or triggering allergens, hasn’t changed much over the years. Avoiding the cause through changing or removing the patient from the environment or controlling his reaction with medications is the next basic step.
Though antihistamines haven’t changed all that much, new ones are continually entering the market along with prescription nasal steroid sprays. Medicines to treat asthma symptoms have changed in the last 20 years. Theophylline, a common treatment back then, is fifth in line as a choice today.
The final treatment option for patients with nasal allergies and/or asthma involves getting allergy desensitization injections.
“This treatment option has become vastly better over the last few years because the re-agents used to test someone are more sophisticated and scientifically based,” noted Osur. “Also, because many of the insurance companies now cover injections without charging a co-pay, the cost has actually gone down for people getting injections while medicine costs continue to rise.”
Early on in his career at CAC, Osur participated in a number of pharmaceutical trials. These days, he spends his time researching and publishing in areas that interest him, namely asthma and pregnancy, and the role of viral infections in asthma. Osur found that one of the most common issues asthmatics run into is when they catch a common cold, because it settles in their chest and causes serious complications.
Regardless of the treatment method used, making sure patients will comply with what they develop as a plan is critical. Osur and his colleagues at CAC feel physicians don’t emphasize this engagement enough so they spend a lot of time asking critical questions like: Does this make sense to you? Are you okay with this? Can you get allergy shots regularly?
“The plan can be great, but, if the patients don’t comply, it’s worthless.”
–Amy Tucker

Dr. Joseph Sacco, MD
Cardiovascular Disease
Samuel Stratton Veteran’s Administration (VA) Medical Center, Albany
Undergraduate degree: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bachelor of Science & Chemistry, Bachelor of Science, Life Science
Medical School: University of Connecticut School of Medecine
Residency/Fellowship: St. Mary’s Hospital, Waterbury, Conn. affiliated with the Yale University School of Medicine as a teaching hospital for nearly 40 years.

Nearly half the people in the United States die of cardiovascular disease or stroke each year while 10-15 percent is currently suffering from some form of heart disease.
“I’m in this environment because I like to teach,” said Dr. Joseph Sacco, chief of cardiology at Samuel Stratton Veteran’s Administration (VA) Medical Center in Albany. “It’s a good way to keep a broad spectrum of patients.”
During his undergraduate years, Sacco took many science courses and a “little bit of engineering.” The latter eventually led him to pursue a career in cardiovascular disease, or diseases of the circulatory system including the heart, blood vessels, arteries and veins.
“Cardiology is a little bit of ‘hand waving,’ but it’s mostly mechanics, technology and engineering,” said Sacco. “I didn’t like lab work and wanted something more interactive.”
How he deals with patients is everything to Sacco. He stressed that [preventive] education, through routine check-ups, must be part of every interaction and feels it’s the doctor’s job to engage people and to learn to work together to keep his patients out of the hospital.
Balancing what patients believe becomes paramount, requiring physicians and surgeons to stay informed of all types of medicine, including holistic treatments. But, he noted that prescribing the best medicine in the world becomes useless if the patient doesn’t take it.
“When I sit with a patient, I have to learn what’s going on with them from them, and then teach them how to care for themselves.”
Originally from Connecticut, Sacco has spent the last 25 years in the Capital Region. He started at Albany’s VA Medical Center in 1985 and spends over 85 percent of his time there and the remainder teaching cardiology to students and fellows at Albany Medical Center.
He enjoys the clinical research portion of his work and has been involved with testing both new drugs and new treatments involving Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) and a trial fibrillation.
“You feel like you’re on the cutting edge when you discover something new that works,” he said. “My work is all about managing patients’ health better and keeping them from having strokes.”
Formerly considered a junior partner in the health system, VA Medical Centers nationwide have been touted as the model and benchmark for how care can be improved by the Institute of Medicine.
“In the last 15 years, the VA Hospitals have pulled themselves up by their boot straps and worked to revise the science of improving care delivery,” said Sacco. “We’ve learned a lot from the business industry with regard to the design and number of clinics needed in a given area, to how often patients should return for visits.”
Like most fields, the growth of technology has had a huge impact on the profession. Sacco is extremely proud of the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) that the national VA initiated.
The system tracks a patient’s medicines, procedures and care and prompts you to perform certain tests at the appropriate times to aid in preventive medicine efforts and keep costs down for the patients and hospitals. The CPRS also helps alleviate safety issues concerning drug interaction because all medicines and procedures are recorded with bar codes and scanned into the storage system.
“If a patient has a reaction to a medication or misses a procedure, it could result in an extended hospital stay,” Sacco explained. “We started the [CPRS] system ahead of the curve and are leading the charge!”
That accomplishment is highly significant to Sacco because he feels medicine has become extremely difficult to practice. Increased scrutiny from New York State, seemingly infinite layers of monitoring and all the people physicians have to satisfy along the way have proved challenging, even as technology makes the profession more precise.
“I couldn’t work without all the mid-level providers and nurses assistants in my treatment teams,” Sacco conceded. “I have a great team and it makes it so much easier to get in touch with patients and follow up on procedures and treatment plans.”
Sacco’s electronics background has come in handy when installing pacemakers and cardiac catheterizations and utilizing new sophisticated techniques like the echocardiogram machines that create 3D reconstructions of the heart. But, he cited the Internet as both a blessing and a curse.
“No test takes the place of listening to the patient, but more patients attempt to self-diagnose or research alternative treatments on the web.
“Tim Russert died because he was trying to take care of himself,” said Sacco remorsefully. “If you drop dead, you don’t get to take advantage of the fancy [angioplasty] balloons and treatments that can save your life.”
–Amy Tucker

Avoiding the 'rakes and pains' of autumn yard work

As the leaves turn different colors and the weather becomes cooler, many Americans begin to engage in outdoor cleanup. Consider the number of Americans injured in yard work accidents every autumn and you may begin to suspect that "fall" is actually short for "pitfall." Fall, it seems, is becoming the season for back injuries, tumbles from ladders and lawn mower accidents.
"Approximately 42 million people seek emergency room treatment for injuries each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," says Brett Taylor, MD, spokesperson for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). "Many of these injuries can happen while performing seemingly routine tasks, like autumn yard work."
The AAOS offers a few simple tips to avoid common autumn injuries while in the yard:

Rakes and pains
Brightly colored fallen leaves are one of the charms of autumn, but raking them also sends thousands of people to emergency rooms each year. Raking is vigorous exercise, and you should pay close attention to your arms and back to avoid injury.
To prevent injury from raking, be sure to:
• Warm up for at least 10 minutes with some stretching and light exercise.
• Use a rake that is comfortable for your height and strength. Wear gloves or use rakes with padded handles to prevent blisters.
• Keep your vision free of impediment, like hats or scarves and beware of large rocks, low branches, tree stumps or uneven surfaces.
• Vary your movement, alternating your leg and arm positions often. When picking up leaves, bend at the knees, not the waist.
• Wet leaves can be slippery; wear shoes or boots with slip-resistant soles.
• Do not overfill leaf bags, especially if the leaves are wet. To avoid back injury, you should be able to carry bags comfortably.
• Never throw leaves over your shoulder or to the side. The twisting motion required to do so places undue stress on your back.

Clean up that lawn
It will soon be time to store the mower until spring, but chances are you will mow the grass a few more times before the snow falls. Or, you may use it to collect leaves or and lawn clippings. You may love your lawnmower, but keep in mind it is a powerful tool - one that can cause significant injury. In 2007, more than 225,000 people were injured by power, manual and riding lawn mowers, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
To avoid lawnmower-related injuries be sure to:
• Make sure the engine is off and cool before you begin any maintenance work or refuel your lawnmower.
• Never use your hands or feet to clear debris from under a lawnmower. Use a stick or broom handle instead. Likewise, never touch the blades with your hands or feet, even if the engine is off. The blade can still move and cause serious injury.
• Never remove safety devices, shields or guards on switches.
• Do not leave a lawnmower running unattended.
• Wear protective gear like goggles and gloves, boots and long pants when mowing. Never mow barefoot or in sandals.
• Do not consume alcoholic beverages and mow.

Ladder safety
Autumn is a great time to clear out gutters, check roof integrity and wash windows. More than 532,000 people were injured in falls from ladders in 2007, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
To stay safe on a ladder:
• Inspect the ladder for loose screws, hinges or rungs. Clean off accumulated mud, dirt or liquids.
• Make sure all four legs rest on a firm, level surface. Avoid uneven ground or soft, muddy spots.
• Before you climb, be sure all ladder locks and safety braces are engaged.
• Never sit or stand on the top of the ladder or on its pail shelf. These areas were not designed to carry your weight.
• Choose the right ladder for the job. A step stool or utility ladder is good for working at low or medium heights, for jobs such as washing windows. Extension ladders are appropriate for outdoors to reach high places, for when you need to clean gutters or inspect the roof.
• Be aware of your balance. Be careful when moving items off a shelf while you're standing on a ladder. If you have to stretch or lean to reach your work area, it would be safer to climb down and reposition the ladder closer to your work.
For more lawnmower or ladder safety tips, visit the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeon's website at www.orthoinfo.org.
Courtesy of ARA Content

Not child’s play:

Living with juvenile arthritis

By Mary Beth Galarneau

Racing around her Cohoes home with her little brother in tow, Kolby Doemel is an active, energetic, six-year-old girl with big blue eyes enhanced by the kind of long, dark eyelashes that most women would die for. Just like her mom, she has already developed a love of shopping, has a crush on Zach Efron and is obsessed with teen singer Hillary Duff. She’s also an avid reader and loves word puzzles. On this day, she was determined to get her lose tooth to fall out by eating an apple and wiggling the stubborn tooth after each bite.
What you would never guess from looking at this spunky kid is that Kolby suffers from juvenile psoriatic arthritis. On top of that, she recently was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and was born with severe reflux disease. Her wish, especially during painful arthritis flare-ups, is “to just be a normal kid.”
Her mother, Rainbow, frequently reminds her that everyone has to bear their own burden, or, as his mom puts it, their “something”. As an example, she told Kolby that her 16-year-old brother can’t drive past nine o’clock, that her four-year-old brother used to lick everything (that garnered a laugh from all three of us), that her 12-year-old sister only sees the good in people (which can be a negative thing, said her mom) and that her father’s athletic ability diminishes as he ages (again, another chuckle).Commiserating may be helpful, but it doesn’t stop Kolby wishing away this debilitating disease.

Kolby was just 18-months old when two of her fingers became swollen and she was hesitant to let her parents wash her hands.
Her pediatrician thought she had been injured, and told Kolby’s parents that the pain would subside. But it didn’t. Instead, her fingers got bigger, felt hot to the touch, and couldn’t clutch the simplest of things. A local hand specialist tested her for many things, including Lyme disease, until he finally diagnosed arthritis.
Kolby’s form of arthritis—juvenile psoriatic—usually affects smaller joints. Currently, seven of her joints are affected: four fingers, two toes and an ankle. Lately, though, she’s been experiencing knee pain, which is even worse in the morning.
When the diagnosis came, Rainbow was pregnant with her fourth child.
“I felt sad. I was in shock and uncertain of what it meant.”
But those feelings quickly gave way to determination. In order to become a voice for her daughter, Rainbow decided to become an advocate for her, learning everything she could about the disease.
“Knowledge was power, and I could only help her through knowledge and understanding of the disease,” she said.
Though most forms of arthritis aren’t genetic, the type Kolby has is; it’s on both sides of her family, affecting four other family members.

Nationally, over 300,000 children suffer from Juvenile Arthritis (JA). New York State has the third largest population affected by the disease, with over 18,000 children suffering from it. In the Capital Region alone, over 3,000 children are affected.
Despite these staggering numbers, there are only 200 pediatric rheumatologists in the country. New York State has eight doctors, most of which are in New York City while one is in Rochester.
In the Capital Region, there are none.
“For anyone in the Capital Region who has it, you need to travel an average of three hours to receive care,” said Rainbow.
When Kolby was first diagnosed, she was seen by a pediatric rheumatologist from Connecticut who came once a month to Albany Medical Center. After three months, though, she stopped coming due to the travel involved, and Rainbow and John were forced to consider a different plan of action.
That plan included getting a second opinion. In her research, the name of a Boston doctor kept popping up. In spring of 2004, the couple took Kolby to Boston Children’s Hospital to see Dr. Robert Sundel. It was an instant match and he continues to follow her care today, seeing her every two months.
“We love him,” said Rainbow, with Kolby echoing the sentiment. Although Kolby initially was shy around Dr. Sundel—“she used to hide in the curtains of his office,” her mom said—she has definitely come around.
The thing that she likes most about Dr. Sundel is that he treats Kolby as the patient rather than a muted sufferer. “He directs all of his questions to her and allows her to express how this disease affects her.”

Kolby’s initial treatment from her first doctor was Vioxx, which simply masked the symptoms while doing little to treat the disease. (Incidentally, the drug was pulled off the market in 2004 due to safety concerns.) Her new treatment from Dr. Sundel consisted of weekly dosages of Enbrel, an injectable drug, and Methotrexate, a pill form of chemotherapy given in lower doses for those with arthritis. Kolby experienced similar side affects as cancer patients, including hair loss and mouth sores.
“We need to attack the disease and preserve her joints until the day we find a cure,” Rainbow quoted Dr. Sundel as saying.
Other non-traditional forms of treatment include pool therapy, which is highly recommended for people with arthritis, and what Rainbow calls “dog therapy”. When the family built their home in 2004 they added a pool with a heater. And just six months ago, they got a chocolate lab named Reese, which keeps Kolby active.
Two years ago, she went off all her medication and was declared to be in remission. The family even had a party to celebrate. But it was short lived. After four months, her lab results were deemed “horrendous” and her joints were inflamed. This surprised Rainbow because Kolby never once complained.
Recently, Rainbow has tried taking a more holistic and wellness approach to her daughter’s health by trying to incorporate anti-inflammatory foods into her diet, which admittedly can be hard with a family of six, and is also considering acupuncture. This past April, she decided to take Kolby off of all of her medication to give her body a break.
“If you’re going to try to stop medication, summer is the time to do it,” said Rainbow, adding that she’ll decide whether to keep Kolby off the medication after they meet with her doctor this month.
An everyday part of her treatment is to learn to deal with the pain and stay active, per doctor’s orders. This includes less napping during the day, something Kolby does because she suffers from insomnia, and getting at least 30 minutes of vigorous exercise a day. But it’s not as easy as it might sound for someone suffering from juvenile psoritiac arthritis. On a family vacation to Wildwood, NJ, this summer, Kolby was so tired and in so much pain that she couldn’t walk the boardwalk.
Still, unless you were aware of Kolby’s circumstances, you would never guess what she is going through because she is just as active as any child her age and doesn’t show her pain. She rides her scooter and loves walking her puppy. She plays soccer and softball, where she excels at hitting the ball and racing around the bases. She never complains to anyone, but once she gets in the car to go home, she sometimes breaks down in tears.
In school, her gym teacher is aware of her disease, though, true to form, she doesn’t show it. “Kids don’t want to be different,” said her mom. Just like on the field, she actively participates with her class. On the rare occasion that she has to sit out, her gym teacher knows she must be having a really bad day.
And of course, her little brother, Jake, never lets her rest. “He keeps her active and never lets her lie down,” Rainbow said.
Kolby’s disease doesn’t just affect her; it affects the entire family, but they rally together. One of the older kids might comfort her when it’s time for her weekly shot and everyone will take walks or go on bike rides together.
“Her determination keeps her going,” Rainbow said.

Gardening Q&A

By Larry Sombke

Q: I want to create a visual barrier along the edge of my property. I don’t want to put up a fence. Are there any shrubs that make a good fence?
Answer: There is an old adage that good fences make good neighbors. But a good fence does not have to be a chain link steel cage around your yard.
The best alternative is to plant a living, natural hedge with a variety of large and small shrubs and trees both deciduous and evergreen. This lovely natural hedge will look a lot more like a hedgerow you might find along the edge of a meadow in the country. It will be low maintenance, bloom on and off from spring to late summer and provide colorful foliage in the fall.
Here’s a list of shrubs and small trees, many of which are a regular part of woodland hedgerows, that make a great hedge:
Shadblow (Amelanchier). Shadblow is a small upright tree, 15 feet tall, that produces white flowers in early spring, berries for the birds and yellow leaves in the fall.
Witch Hazel (Hamamelis). Witch Hazel is a multi-branched, small tree that grows only six feet tall. The American witch hazel produces small yellow flowers in fall; the Chinese produces yellow flowers in late winter.
Redbud (Cercis canadensis). Redbud is the largest small tree in this group, growing 15 to 20 feet tall. It produces purple flowers in spring and yellow leaves in fall.
Viburnum. There are at least a dozen different viburnums that make great hedge trees up to 10 feet tall. They produce white flowers in spring and berries for the birds in late summer.
Rhododendron. Rhododendron is the nicest evergreen shrub for your hedge. Some rhodies grow as much as 20 feet tall, but most are in the four to six foot range with purple, white, red, or yellow flowers in spring and early summer.
Mt. Laurel (Kalmia). Mt. Laurel also provides evergreen leaves along with clusters of white, red or pink flowers in early summer. Grows only about four to eight feet tall.
Lilac (Syringa). Lilacs tend to get up to 15 feet tall, but their flowers are worth their extra size. Korean lilacs such as ‘Miss Kim’ are prettier at only six feet tall.
Beauty Bush (Kolkwitzia). Beauty Bush grows up to 10 feet tall and produces some of the prettiest pink flowers in early summer.
Mock Orange (Philadelphus). Mock Orange produces fragrant white simple flowers that do resemble oranges in their look and smell. A very fast and reliable grower.
Weigela. Weigela is another vase-like shrub that grows only up to eight-feet tall and produces tubular shaped red or pink flowers in early summer that are a magnet for hummingbirds.

Planting combinations
The design of your hedge could be as simple as lining the shrubs up in a row and plopping them down in the ground. I am sure it would look just fine and it would express your personality. After all, it’s not like someone designs the planting scheme for hedges out in nature.
A good design would be to place the shadblow on the far end, the redbud in the center and the witch hazel on the near end. They should be placed far enough apart so that at their mature size, the leaves don’t quite touch.
Now your hedge has white flowers, red buds and yellow flowers at different spaces and at different times of the year. Next, place the Rhododendron and Mt. Laurel in a cluster near the redbud which will grow larger and form a little canopy.
Place the Lilac, Beauty Bush and the Mock Orange clustered under the Shadblow, which will also grow larger and create a canopy for these two shrubs.
Finally, place the Viburnum and Weigela in front of, and on either side of, the Witch Hazel. None of these hedge pieces grow too large and they will form a nice chorus of color at different times of the year.

Growing the hedge
The first secret to successfully growing a living hedge is to give the hedge some room to grow. This is not a hedge you will prune to fit to your area. I think you will be happier with a hedge where the plants can grow to their full height. Your living fence will need to be at least 10 feet wide and as long as it needs to be.
Space your shrubs far enough apart so that when they reach their full size, they begin to grow into each other. A lot of people make the mistake of planting their shrubs too close together and then have to remove one or replant them when they are way too large.
For instance, If you are planting Beauty Bush and Mock Orange next to each other, set the plants 10 feet apart. I know, it seems your small shrubs look a little lonely set that far apart, but in two to three years they will be nearly full grown and you will be glad you made the extra room.
A living hedge needs a fairly sunny location, even for rhododendron and Mt Laurel, which are known to like shade. All the rest of these plants need sun to grow and thrive, and even shade-loving shrubs like a little sun so that they can bloom at their best.
Prepare the soil for your hedge the same as you would for a vegetable garden or perennial bed. Mark out the area; remove as much grass as you can along with weeds, sticks and stones. Spread a two to four inch thick layer of compost over the area and till it all to a depth of eight inches.
Plant the small tree or shrub in a hole that is just slightly wider than the root ball or slightly wider than the area needed to spread out the roots if it is a bare root plant. Set the plant in the hole at the same depth as it was in the container or just so the crown of the plant is at soil level.
Spread a two to four-inch thick layer of shredded organic mulch over the entire area to keep the weeds down, hold in moisture and to keep the soil cool. Organic mulch also makes your hedge look good and natural.

When to plant
Either spring or fall is a good time to plant. Summer is possible but the heat and dryness can cause the plants to suffer quite a lot while they are struggling to get their roots established.
Spring is a great time to plant for several reasons. First, the selection of getting all the best quality plants in the best cultivars you are interested in. The shrubs are usually still dormant or only beginning to bud out in spring, which means the plants won‘t be shocked as much when you plant them.
Fall is also an excellent time to plant a hedge for a number of reasons. The heat of the summer is over and the shrubs will have generally cooler weather when they first get started settling in. There won’t be as much heat stress on them at a fall planting time. Fall is also a good time to plant because many nurseries will hold sales, reducing the price on shrubs and trees to cut down on their inventory over the winter.
Larry Sombke is a guest on WAMC and the editor/host of his blog website www.beautifuleasygardens.blogspot.com. He is a landscape consultant and the author of “Beautiful Easy Flower Gardens.” Send your garden questions to him at lsombke@beautifuleasygardens.com.

Although I haven’t been involved in “back-to-school” season for over 25 years,
September always feels like the beginning of a new year. Time to settle in and get some reading done!

American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld, is the author’s third novel. It is a departure from her first two, both of which chronicled the trials and tribulations of rather morose young women whose lives were difficult, mostly because they couldn’t get out of their own way. In contrast, Alice Lindgren is a quiet, midwestern girl raised to be self-supporting, socially-conscious and to vote the Democratic ticket. At the age of 31, she meets Charlie Blackwell, scion of a prominent Wisconsin political family who is joining in the family business. Alice has resigned herself to being a spinster; she has a good job as a school librarian and is even considering buying a house. When Charlie’s exuberant presence enters her life, she is introduced to a less cautious approach to life; after a six–week courtship, they are engaged, and she needs to learn how to be a political wife—of a Republican. Alice’s strength of character makes this an absorbing story, but what will make this a bestseller is that the novel appears to be based, at least superficially, on the life of Laura Bush. (It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that.) No matter your political persuasion, this novel is worth a read for its take on how to balance individuality and duty.

Another novel for the upcoming political season is American Savior: A Novel of Divine Politics by Roland Merullo. Merullo has had success with a couple of novels that feature spirituality—Golfing with God and Breakfast with Buddha being the most recent. American Savior overtly joins spirituality to politics with its over-the-top plot point: What would happen if Jesus returned and announced himself as a candidate for the presidency of the United States? Narrated by cynical TV reporter Russ Thomas, this is a thought-provoking look at our current political climate, in which claims of faith and religion on the part of politicians usually trump humanitarian action. When Russ reports on two “miracles”, he is skeptical of their validity until he is invited to lunch with someone named Jesus who claimed to perform the miracles. He also announces that he is going to run for President of the United States and he’d like Russ to help with his campaign. Russ’s skepticism recedes when his girlfriend has a dream that Jesus chose her to help him and by the end of their conversation, they are engaged and have agreed to quit their jobs and work for Jesus. Merullo’s writing flows and his style is engaging. Some of his character names are overly cute (Lenny Queen = Larry King, Hurry Linneament = Rush Limbaugh, Anne Canter = Anne Coulter), but the story keeps you riveted despite these distractions. Jesus’s rise in the polls, Russ’s internal war between cynicism and belief, and the American public’s reaction to the third-party candidate make this novel perfect for book groups that are spiritually—or politically—inclined. It may not answer the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” but it poses some interesting questions about our political process and what we talk about when we talk about faith. Politicians of all persuasions (are you listening, Obama and McCain?) would benefit from reading this book.
Susan Taylor has been in the book business, in one aspect or another, since 1982. She currently works at the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza. Stop by the store if you are looking for a good book—she’s read a lot more than she can talk about here!

Interrogating crabgass

By Ed. Lange

Important author’s note: Normally, “Guy Stuff” leaves current events and controversial issues to other media. However, the full transcript of the six-hour interrogation of Mr. Virgil Crabgrass by local police detectives was delivered anonymously in a plain green wrapper to your ever-vigilant correspondent. In newspaper lingo, “this is explosive stuff.” Here then, are excerpts taken verbatim from that interrogation transcript.

(Date spoken) This is detective lieutenant Shirley Homes recording. In attendance with me are detective Laun Order, the suspect Mr. Virgil Crabgrass AKA “Verge,” and his legal counsel (name not intelligible on tape due to interruption).

VERGE: I demand to know what ludicrous charge you’re accusing me of!
HOMES: Pestilence. Pestilence in the first degree.
COUNSEL: But first degree requires premeditation.
LAUN: You got that right, bucko! And malice aforethought, too! Yer gonna fry, you creeping –
VERGE: You haven’t the slightest shred of physical evidence.
HOMES: No evidence?! You are a perennial pain in –
VERGE: I beg your pardon, but I have any number of expert horticultural witnesses who will testify that I am an annual.
LAUN: Yeah, right! Whadja hafta pay ‘em for that line of cotton pickin’ malarkey?
VERGE: Please refrain from referring to “picking cotton” in my presence. It offends me.
LAUN: I’ll just bet it does, you lousy invasive weed, you. A useful, productive, civilized plant like cotton must really get under the roots of a no-goodnik like you.
VERGE: Sticks and stones, detective. Sticks and stones.
LAUN: Why I oughta…
COUNSEL: Detective, can you please calm down your colleague?
[here, there is a cut in the transcript ]
HOMES: Mr. Crabgrass, do you truly claim to be an annual?
VERGE: Indeed, yes.
HOMES: Then how do you keep cropping up in the same place year after year after year?
VERGE: Simple, really. Very tenacious seeds.
HOMES: But equally tenacious home owners – driven mad by your trespassing – have ripped you out of the ground, roots and all, to no avail.
VERGE: Oh, I must dispute your conclusion.
HOMES: You do?
VERGE: It avails me very well! Tear me out by the roots and you and your kind have accomplished nothing but the creation of a fertile, open space where my new seeds can live long and prosper! (demonic laugh)
HOMES: What about mulch?
VERGE: I love mulch. Don’t even need soil, I can sprout and spread ever so merrily in mulch. Do it regularly, in fact.
HOMES: What about pre-emergent crabgrass preventer?
VERGE: Laughable. I laugh demonically in your face. (he does)
Homes: But why?
VERGE: Oh, if humans weren’t such dunderheads, the awful stuff might work. But find me one human in 10 who actually reads the directions for use. Hah! They may strew crabgrass fertilizer for all the efficacy they achieve. And then, if you can find 10 humans who do read the directions, I challenge you to find one of those ten who will actually follow the directions! (He doubles over in a fit of laughter). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some sweating homeowner say, “Aw hell, it’ll work anyway.” It’s no wonder you people have such trouble with electronic devices; you don’t read the instructions!
LAUN: Here we go again. Blame the victim! It’s all our fault! (he stands in a rage, pounds on the table) Don’t try to pull that one! I happen to know first-hand that the poor homeowner who turned you in did read the directions! Did follow the directions! And what did you do?! What did you do, you … you, weed you?
VERGE: Oh, let me guess.
LAUN: Did you sprout anywhere in the lawn?
VERGE: (chuckling) No. The preventer worked … there. (laughs)
LAUN: You sprouted in the flower garden, didn’t you? Didn’t you?! In the flower garden! Admit it! Confess. Confess. You green, spiky devil you!
VERGE: Gee, did I? You’ll have to prove it, won’t you, detective?
LAUN: You better take over again, Shirley. Before I do something I’ll regret.
(Homes pauses. Leans back in her chair. Taps a pencil on the arm of the chair, thinking. Then, in a soft voice, but with piercing eyes, says)
HOMES: You’re an alien life form, aren’t you? An illegal alien!
COUNSEL: Detective! How dare you?!
HOMES: You aren’t from this planet, are you? You’re like a Triffid. Your seeds, your cursed, evil, immortal seeds came to Earth on a meteorite, didn’t they?
Counsel: Detective! We’re done here.
HOMES: Oh, don’t give me that tired out TV lawyer expression! “We’re done here. We’re done here.” I’m so sick of hearing that, I want the stupid phrase struck from existence. Just like your client. We’re not done here, counselor, not by a long shot.
I want an answer to my question!
VERGE: I believe I’ll plead the Fifth Amendment on that particular query.
HOMES: Fine. Even crabgrass has Constitutional Rights, I suppose.
VERGE: Next question, Detective, if you please.
HOMES: Is it true that while one unsuspecting homeowner was on vacation for only one week that you grew to more than six feet in width?!
VERGE: Talk about self-incrimination!
HOMES: Hypothetically, then. Are you even capable of such rapid growth?
VERGE: A walk in the park.
HOMES: Six feet in a week is a walk in the park for you?!
VERGE: Given exceptional growing conditions, such as a flower bed with lots of delicious loamy soil, plenty of sun, and an afternoon beverage, yes, I could have done it. I’m not saying I did, mind you, only that I could.
HOMES: And a single crabgrass plant can produce 150,000 seeds?!
VERGE: Let’s just say no one’s ever questioned my virility.
LAUN: You ain’t got a shred of conscience, have ya?
VERGE: Please, Detective. I’m crabgrass, not Gandhi.
LAUN: Geeze, no kiddin’? Lookit, pal, it’s time. You said you were gonna rat out yer ugly little playmates in exchange fer special consideration. So, let’s cut out the games and spill. I ain’t gettin’ any younger here.
VERGE: Too bad you weren’t born an annual. Like me. We age very well. No need for cosmetic surgery. Year after year, just the same. No gray hair, no paunch.
LAUN: Stuff it, pal.
VERGE: Looks as though you’ve already done that. (he smirks)
LAUN: Awright, wise guy. Give. I want names. Who was in on it widja?
COUNSEL: Not so fast, Detective. What’s the offer?
HOMES: Crabgrass gives up the others – on the stand – and he walks. This time.
VERGE: Oh my, I get to turn state’s evidence! I’ve always wanted to do that.
LAUN: What a surprise. The crumb wants to snitch!
VERGE: I told you I wasn’t Gandhi.
LAUN: Just a dirty lowlife.
VERGE: Why, thank you! What a nice thing to say.
LAUN: Names!
VERGE: You know the names. “The usual suspects,” as they say: my good pal, Dandy Lion; Chick Weed was in on it, too; Spotted Splurge ought to be locked up just because he’s so flamboyant; Pig Weed was the triggerman; and then the two babes, Wild Violet and Broad Plantain. I’m going to miss those two the most.
HOMES: They’re really going to hate you after this.
VERGE: Just like everybody else. So it goes.

Ed. Lange is a freelance writer, playwright, and stage director who has battled crabgrass for decades. A friend of his once rephrased a country song, “If it weren’t for crabgrass, I’d have no grass at all.”

British Columbia - Canada

Double your pleasure - Victoria and Vancouver

By Linda McClain, CTA

Do you live for the great outdoors? Would you enjoy exploring a destination with diverse attractions, spectacular wildlife and cultural significance? Such a destination is just hours from the Capital Region by air. Canada’s most Northwest province, British Columbia, has been blessed with breathtaking beauty and a rich colonial heritage. If you go, you can anticipate stunning scenery that is as natural and appealing as Canadian hospitality.
In fact, “You’re just too good to be true”, is a song that could have well been written for British Columbia, one of Canada’s most admired destinations.

How do I get there?
Flights from the Capital Region can have you landing in Vancouver before noon, local time. Plan to take advantage of the Pacific Northwest diversity and visit both Vancouver and Victoria on the same trip. Include Seattle, Washington, if you have enough time.

Weather
Summer: High 83F-Low 72F. Positioned on the South Coast of Vancouver Island, Victoria has the mildest climate in Canada. Summer temperatures along the coast can be enjoyed with very little humidity and pleasant sea breezes.
In contrast, Vancouver is surrounded by the ocean. This tends to make weather conditions somewhat unpredictable. Bring an umbrella for those unexpected showers.
Fall: High 66F-Low 46F. Some of Victoria’s and Vancouver’s most glorious weather can be experienced in September.
Winter: High 47F-Low 36F. Victoria and Vancouver have a slight chance of snowfall while other areas of British Columbia may face fierce winter weather conditions.
Spring: High 56F-Low 44F. Unlike the United States, the rainiest month is December.

What can I do there?
Vancouver - Gateway to the Canadian Rockies
You will soon discover that Vancouver and Vancouver Island are not one of the same. Queen Charlotte Strait and the Strait of Georgia separate the land mass between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Victoria is positioned at the southern tip of Vancouver Island.
Great for families and couples alike, Vancouver has an eclectic blend of demographics which make dining and shopping fun. It is home to Stanley Park, the largest city park in Canada. Vancouver is also a major port of embarkation, and the gateway to Alaska Inside Passage cruise itineraries from May to September each year.
Getting around the city can be like a treasure hunt. Love the monorail? Try the famous sky link, Vancouver’s monorail system.
Prefer to explore by watercraft? The city’s sea bus connects passengers from the downtown waterfront to North Vancouver, which is divided by False Creek. The ride is just 10 minutes in length, but a great way to enjoy the skyline, as well as a close-up of some of the many ships that dock.
A winter visit to Vancouver is not complete without a trip to famous Whistler Mountain. This exclusive ski destination is just an hour-and-a-half away and easily accessed by a variety of ground transportation services.
Victoria - The Garden City
Victoria is the capital city of North America’s largest coastal island. It has a wealth of colonial history, charming architecture and British influences. Ride an authentic British double-decker bus, take a horse and carriage tour or try the open air trolley tour. How about a classic car tour of the city? Sit back in a model T or classic 50s sedan while your driver narrates your city tour.

Places of interest:
Butchart Gardens - Stroll among 50 acres of enchanting theme gardens and “petal perfection” in Victoria’s most famous attraction.
Craigdarroch Castle - Built in the late 1800s and considered a superb masterpiece of Victorian architecture, both inside and out.
Gulf Islands - Located between the mainland and Vancouver Island, the BC ferries have scheduled service to many of its’ islands. When it comes to outdoors, the list of things to do is endless: hiking, biking, boating, camping, fishing, golfing, nature watching and more. There is also endless wildlife viewing featuring orcas, seal colonies, grizzly bears and bald eagles, to name a few.
Trivia facts
• Readers of Conde Nast Traveler Magazine rated Victoria the second best city in the world for environment and ambiance.
• Number of passengers traveled by ferries from Victoria to Vancouver in 1997- 22,259,246.
• Number of restaurants in greater Victoria - 762.
• Ranking given by Cousteau Society to Victoria, for winter diving - 2nd in the world.
• Number of objects in the Royal British Columbia Museum collection -10 million.
• Number of lights on the parliament buildings in Victoria - 3,333.
• Visit Victoria and Vancouver for a memorable vacation!
Currently, a valid US passport is required for all travel to Canada.

Linda McClain, CTA, is owner of Capital Region based Linda McClain Travel Services “From The Islands To The Highlands, No Dream Is Too Far From Here!” For more information call 372.7657 or visit www.lindamcclaintravel.net.

Knowing when it is time to “move on”

By Dan Moran

Making the decision to move on to a new job is a very difficult and often emotional undertaking. But there are defining moments in any job—a situation, a change or a significant revelation—that is a wake-up call. I recently worked with a client who made the decision to seek a new job after his 4-year old son asked his wife, “Does Daddy live somewhere else?” Tell me that’s not a wake-up call!
If you are experiencing feelings of a disconnect in your job, perhaps it is your time to change – to move on and seek something new and exciting and recharge your internal batteries. Below are some tips to decide if it’s time to go.

Too many bad days?
We all have had a bad day, week or even a month, in our jobs. It happens. It is important to evaluate a situation like this carefully and answer this question: Is this ongoing or just situational— driven by an internal business condition that will change? If the answer is yes, deal with that first. If it appears to be systemic (in the “grain” of the organization and not likely to change) or if you cannot answer the question, then it is likely time to move on.

Have you lost that “loving feeling”?
This is very common and a clear sign to move on. You enter the job or business full of enthusiasm and vigor and it wears off. You are not challenged (maybe bored, which has happened to me), you lose interest in the business or you don’t see growth, etc. It’s not that there is anything wrong with you or the company, you have just outgrown each other and if there are no other opportunities, it is time to move on.

Is your job affecting your health and family life?
Job stress affects your health in many ways including sleep, eating, and other routine functions. Excessive job demands will affect your family and relationships as well, and when this becomes an issue, move on.

Changes don’t fit you
Change helps businesses grow and at times, changes just don’t fit everyone. If you feel that company changes are not right for you, and you see no light at the end of the tunnel, time to move on.

You are marginalized and don’t like your boss
Everything is going great and then there is a new player or a new strategy that results in you being marginalized—not included in meetings or not as involved as you were before. You become disconnected. Top that with a new boss who you just don’t click with and you know it is time to move on.

You are not growing
This is the number one reason why people leave jobs—no growth or learning opportunities. Some companies “get it” and provide this environment; others do not or just say they do, but really don’t. The result? You find you’re “stuck”—not growing, not learning and not advancing. Talk to your management team and if there is no positive resolution, move on.
Change is good for all. When you are disconnected from your job, your performance suffers and that is not good for the company. It’s best for both that you move on with great experience under your belt and with a new set of friends.

Dan Moran is president & founder of Next-Act, a career management & transition firm located in Colonie. He specializes in helping people make career choices and seek new jobs. He is also a Certified Facilitator for Get Hired Now! and Get Clients Now! Programs, which help those in career transition and companies get results. You can reach him at 641.8968 or dmoran@next-act.com or visit www.next-act.com.

So you want to tri?

By Judith Torel

One of the biggest growing sports in America today is the triathlon. When most of us think triathlon we think of the grueling, ultra-distance Ironman event held every year in Hawaii. But, triathlon also includes shorter distances as well. Sprint distance triathlons are perfect for someone looking for a new fitness challenge.
If you are interested in entering into the extremely gratifying universe of triathlon, read on to find out how to prepare for your first multi-sport event. A word of warning however: triathlons can be highly addictive!

Pick a distance
The first thing you need to know about triathlons is that there are several different distance levels that progress in length. The following is an outline of the various distances:
Sprint: .5 mile swim; 11-20 mile bike; 3.2 mile run
Olympic: .9 mile swim; 25 mile bike; 6.2 mile run
Half-Ironman: 1.2 mile swim; 56 mile bike; 13.1 mile run
Ironman: 2.4 mile swim; 112 mile bike; 26.2 mile run
Most people start participating in triathlons from a background in one of the three events. For instance, many people have been runners who are either looking for a new challenge or who have suffered injuries and are looking for cross-training options. Youth triathletes are also increasing in number as younger athletes see triathlon in the Olympics and at hometown events which are increasing in frequency in our area and around the country.
Step one is to pick the distance that is going to stretch your limits without causing excessive anxiety. The sprint distance is perfect for most people, but if you regularly participate in workouts that last over two hours (a 40-mile bike ride with a group, for instance) then you may be more suited to begin with an Olympic distance. Assess your current fitness practices and pick the appropriate event length for you.
A great local sprint triathlon to consider is the Pine Bush Sprint which is held each year in July. Go to www.cdymca.org/events/pinebushtri/ for information. Other websites to look for triathlons are www.usatriathlon.org, www.trifind.com and www.adksportsandfitness.com.
Once you have picked the distance, the next step is to find an event. You will want to give yourself a minimum of 12 weeks to prepare for your first triathlon. At this point in the season (September) it is a good idea to target your first event for next spring. You can begin your formal training three months before, but you can start informal training right now while the weather in the Capital Region is still good for outdoor activity. Then you can take it indoors through the winter and then formally kick into a training program come early spring.

Gear and training venues
There is necessary equipment for triathlon. For the swim you need to have a pair of swim goggles, a swim cap (this is provided for you at every race, but you may want one of your own for trainings), a triathlon-specific top and shorts that can be worn into the water and on the bike and run (no time to change clothes during a multi-event!), and a wetsuit ( you don’t need one if your first event will be in water that is 74 degrees F or higher, but it is recommended as it buoys your body and helps you swim faster!).
For the bike portion of the race, you will see everything from mountain bikes to custom designed triathlon bikes on the course. You can upgrade once you determine you like the sport, but for your first race, a safe, tuned bike is all you need. You will also need a helmet since it is USAT (United States of America Triathlon Association) rule that all participants wear one. Bike shoes will be necessary if you use clipless pedals, but if you have toe clips then your running sneakers will also serve as bike shoes. The pros don’t use socks, but for mere mortals, socks will help prevent blisters and are recommended. Additionally you will want to have two water bottles and a spare tube, tire levers (for tube removal in case of a flat), and a CO2 cartridge (the newest answer to instant inflation of a tire!). Finally, sunglasses help cut the sun glare and stop bugs and debris from entering your eyes.
Running shoes are the only additional equipment you need for the run portion of your race. You will already have on your sunglasses, socks and triathlon outfit.
You will need to have access to either an open water venue or an Olympic size lap pool (25 yards/meters) to train. Outdoor swimming is somewhat limited in our area, but the Capital District Triathlon Association holds Tuesday night trainings at Chrystal Lake in Averill Park during the summer. Visit www.cdtriclub.org for more information.
The local YMCA’s have lap pools as do the Cicotti Youth Center for a membership fee. Also, The State University of New York at Albany and Siena have pools for alumni and local residents for specific fees.
Outdoor biking can be done anywhere including the Hudson Mohawk Bike Trail. After 5pm, the uptown State Office Campus is a two-mile loop with minimal cars and makes for a great training venue. Indoor cycle classes are a great winter option for training as are bikes mounted on indoor trainers set up in front of your TV in the comfort of your own home.
Running outside can be done all year long or you can run on a treadmill in your home or a gym to keep up with your training.

Fueling, hydrating and electrolyte replacement
Your nutrition schedule which includes fuel, hydration and electrolyte replacement will make or break your race. If you are starting with a sprint distance, the total event can take anywhere from 75 minutes to 2 hours depending on your fitness level. All other distances will exceed 90 minutes for the average beginner, which means a replacement schedule is necessary in order to avoid bonking (having to stop on the course) or DNFing (did not finish)!
The most commonly used products for fueling are gels and liquids like Gatorade. The rule of thumb is to take in 200-300 calories of quickly absorbable fuel every hour.
Hydration needs vary dramatically by athlete and environmental conditions, but the rule of thumb for hydration is 4-12 ounces of water per 15 minutes of activity.
Electrolytes which include sodium, calcium, magnesium, etc. also need to be replaced as you go during events and trainings. Hammer nutrition has a product called Endurolytes, which are specifically designed to replace lost micronutrients on the course so that you avoid muscle cramps and bonking. You can also get some electrolyte replacement from your hydration source if you use one of the sports drinks like Powerade.

Training programming
Just like with your equipment, you can go high end or moderate with your training programming. You will want to follow a formally designed program in order to assure the most positive experience on your first triathlon, not to mention if you are trying to PR (achieve a personal record on a particular race). This site, www.beginnertriathlete.com, is designed for first-time athletes. Here you will find a variety of training programs available for download. You will also be able to log in your workouts after you create your account and can also chat with other triathletes.
If you want a more personalized program and individualized guidance then it will be worth it to invest in a coach. Check out www.usatriathlon.org to find a certified coach in your area. The technology available today through GPS devices, heart rate monitors, power meters and computer software programs specifically designed for coaching, makes remote coaching a reality that is very effective and rewarding for the athlete while minimizing time constraints of meeting in person.
You can also self-coach, though this is the least desirable of the options for training. If you choose this route, then your main goal is to be able to progressively build yourself to complete the distances of each of the events separately during the week and bricked (combined bike/run workout) once a week. Rule of thumb is to get a minimum of two swims, two bikes and two runs each week with more required for the longer distance events.
For your first triathlon, speed is less important than endurance, so work on being able to achieve a comfortable pace for each of the events and then you can add speed work for future races of the same distance.
Triathloning is an extremely empowering experience that not only leads to great fitness benefits, but gives you the skills to maintain focus and personal composure through adverse and challenging conditions.

Judy Torel is a USAT coach, personal trainer, nutrition consultant and psychotherapist. She conducts online services through her website www.judytorel.com. Her office is located in Planet Fitness, Loudonville. She is also a competing triathlete who is currently training for Ironman, Florida.

Sun Sign Forecast

For September 2008

Best Days for September 2008: 10th, 13th, 21st and 26th. To lose those extra pounds, begin a diet on the 15th.

Aries: (March 21 to April 20) Work situations and relationships are highlighted this month. After the 8th, you set new career goals and this can be a time for recognition. Your beliefs and perspective on life also take on a deeper meaning as you search for knowledge on a higher level. You want some quiet time on the 15th. Communicate clearly with others and in partnerships after the 24th.

Taurus: (April 21 to May 20) Loved ones and children are highlighted this month. After the 8th, foreign travel and cultures gain your interest. You may begin a new study in an abstract subject. You rethink your goals and directions on the 15th. You analyze your work and health habits after the 24th. You work to improve the services you provide for others and your physical efficiency as well.

Gemini : (May 21 to June 20) Domestic affairs and family are highlighted this month. After the 8th, decisions regarding shared resources or assets are favored. This is the time to settle old debts. You rethink a career goal on the 15th. Misunderstandings may arise in dealings with loved ones and children after the 24th. Clearly state the issues and compromise at this time, if needed.

Cancer: (June 21 to July 22) Communications and mental pursuits are highlighted this month. After the 8th, one-to-one relationships run more smoothly. This is also a time to expand your social involvements and meet new people. You become interested in an abstract subject on the 15th. Home life and family issues can become confused after the 24th. Listen to others and resolve any differences.

Leo: (July 23 to August 22) Finances and financial security are highlighted this month. After the 8th, you review your spending and savings habits and make changes where needed. Reach agreements and settle old debts on the 15th. Review contracts or agreements a second time before signing after the 24th. Make sure the details are clear as there can be confusion in communications.

Virgo: (August 23 to September 22) Self-knowledge and personal appearance are highlighted this month. After the 8th, you enjoy times with loved ones and children. You seek new inspiration and other ways to have fun. You reach an understanding in a relationship on the 15th. Financial issues may become confused after the 24th. Review your spending habits and start a new savings plan or budget.

Libra: (September 23 to October 22) Self-analysis and spiritual enlightenment are highlighted this month. After the 8th, family relationships improve and you try to make your home more comfortable. A work situation changes on the 15th. You find expressing yourself to others becomes difficult after the 24th. This is also a period to examine your personal wants and needs and put your life in balance.

Scorpio: (October 23 to November 21) Long-term goals and community causes are highlighted this month. After the 8th, you expand your directions in life and join others who share your interests. There is a change in your romantic pursuits on the 15th. You revisit your spiritual beliefs and the inner child after the 24th. You ask questions and seek answers in search of expanding your understanding of life.

Sagittarius: (November 22 to December 21) Status in life and career goals are highlighted this month. After the 8th, present new ideas for projects to authority figures. This is a time of recognition for a job well-done. Resolve a family matter on the 15th. Analyze your goals to determine if they are feasible after the 24th. Your friends, acquaintances and social groups can also change at this time.

Capricorn: (December 22 to January 19) Intellectual and spiritual studies are highlighted this month. After the 8th, you are filled with optimism and self-confidence. This is also a period when new opportunities are offered. Attend a workshop on the 15th. Review and present all ideas in your career area, or the equivalent, in a clear, precise manner. Projects have a tendency to become delayed.

Aquarius: (January 20 to February 18) Jointly held finances and shared assets are highlighted this month. After the 8th, you feel rejuvenated on an inner and spiritual level. You may decide to volunteer for a favorite cause. You start a new savings plan on the 15th. Reconsider legal matters after the 24th as there can be some confusion around them. You want knowledge on a deeper level.

Pisces: (February 19 to March 20) One-to-one partnerships, both business and personal, are highlighted this month. After the 8th, career objectives and goals are easier to achieve. New clothes, a different hairstyle or color are indicated on the 15th. Matters concerning shared resources and assets, especially marital assets, can become confused after the 24th. Reread and understand all fine print.

Arlene is an author, astrologer and para-consultant and has studied and worked with astrology for more than 35 years. She has been a professional astrologer since 1980 and has a Certificate of Merit from Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson (CA) and a Certificate of Proficiency from the Mayo School of Astrology (London) In addition, she holds certifications from the National Spiritualist Association of Churches as both a Medium and Healer (NY 1982-2008).

Nurses Rock

I think it’s wonderful that this magazine tips its hat this month to the best and brightest doctors, but for my money (or should I say co-pay), nothing tops a great nurse.
Let’s start with how smart they have to be to do the job. A million years ago when I was a student at H.V.C.C., I tried to date a lovely young lady who was a nursing student. Notice I said tried to date, because despite the fact that she was a straight A student, the nursing curriculum she had to master was ridiculous.

Anatomy, pathology, radiology and a whole bunch of other things ending in “logy” were just appetizers on a buffet filled with more medical data than a chief of surgery needed to know. Here I was failing in the easiest science course available, Meteorology 101, (Teacher: “Mr. Gray what’s the difference between a Cirrus cloud and a Cumulus cloud?” John: “Um, when you tell a joke the Cirrus cloud doesn’t laugh.”) and here she knew every bone, muscle and artery in the body. The only time I could see her was when I agreed to help her study with flash cards, and let me tell you nobody wants to make out while learning about the lower bowel.

Once nurses graduate they can go in one of a hundred directions and all of them are equally important in my book. I’ve seen nurses working around the clock at the Children’s Hospital at Albany Med taking care of preemies that would die if not for constant supervision. The average person is afraid to breathe on these tiny infants, yet these nurses are aggressive, but tender, and almost psychic knowing just what the child needs to grow strong.

Move down the hall and you’ll find a different type of nurse, one who goes to work knowing some of the people she cares for will not make it to Christmas. These are the cancer patients who are so afraid and grasping for any scrap of hope. They find it in the eyes of those nurses who stay long after the doctor and technicians leave, reassuring them that they can beat this. And when the prognosis is not good, they are there just the same to adjust a pillow, listen to a story or just sit quietly because they know the sick person in that bed doesn’t want to be alone right now.

Its nurses who don’t know the meaning of the phrase “The kitchen’s closed” and find an extra meal for someone in the family who hasn’t eaten in 24 hours.

It’s that same nurse who brings the extra blanket and pillow and tells an exhausted spouse or sibling or parent not to worry about visitors’ hours tonight.

The minute we pop into this world they are the first to lay hands on us and make sure we are breathing and that the color of those tiny toes is just the right shade of pink. They are the ones who distract us in the doctor’s office when the needle is coming for all those inoculations through our school years. If you end up in the hospital, they are the ones playing Santa Claus checking the doctor’s orders twice to make certain we get the right meds. And of course, when we reach the end of our long walk, it is they who take care of us again at the nursing home making sure we keep our dignity.

I can’t say enough about nurses except we don’t pay them enough. We can’t. It must be a thankless job some days where the compensation can’t come close to the sacrifice. I couldn’t do it and not just for my inadequacies in science class. The abuse from patients who are scared or just mentally gone must be terrible. I think that only whales have thicker skin. And no matter how tough a shell you develop, surely there is no armor that can protect the heart. Whether you lose an infant born three months early, a cancer patient who won’t respond to treatment or an elderly person who you’ve taken care of for years, it has to hurt. And volunteering your heart for that inevitable pain is a sacrifice no paycheck can equal.

All of that said, they are also a lot of fun. I had a friend who worked as a school nurse in Albany some years ago and on a Saturday night when I had no plans she convinced me to come to a house party full of nothing but nurses. OH MY GOD. They give new meaning to the phrase “cut loose”. Not in a bad way mind you, just a group of gals who worked hard all day and knew how to unwind at night. I’ve never felt safer eating chips and dip at a party. I mean, if I started to choke there were 30 people in the room who could save me. Come to think of it, a lot of them were cute. Why didn’t I fake a little seizure just for the chance at “mouth to mouth”? Oh wait, a seizure is when they shove a ruler in your mouth to keep you from swallowing your tongue. See, I told you I was terrible at this medical stuff.

In closing, I’ll leave you with two anonymous quotes that I just love. “Nurses are angels in comfortable shoes”. And always remember that LPN stands for “loving person near”. Truer words were never spoken.

John Gray is a Fox23 News anchor and contributing writer at the Troy Record. He can be reached at johngray@fox23news.com