Leslie LaPointe APRN, MSN, CPNP Lawrence & Memorial Hospital

Green is our favorite color.  For years now Lawrence & Memorial Hospital has been making great strides in many key areas to minimize the hospital’s impact on the environment, including doubling its recycling of paper and cardboard, and dramatically reducing hazardous chemicals and water usage.

In 2009, Practice Greenhealth, a national group that monitors the efforts of all hospitals to protect their environment, honored L&M for a successful program to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate mercury, which is found in certain types of hospital equipment.

Another example of L&M’s improvements is the replacement of traditional mops with microfiber flat mops. With the new system, you just fill up one bucket and you have a mop for every single room, so you’re using only 25 percent of the water and the chemicals. It’s also better for infection prevention because you’re using a clean mop for every room.

In 2010, what better way than a garden as a new effort to truly go green, and we’re asking your help. Gardens are less costly to maintain and use less water than lawns. The garden will provide a peaceful place for patients, their families and visitors to heal or just sit and appreciate the beautiful landscape. Our plan is to create a garden for four seasons. We have plants that even will bring interest in the winter. Many people have generously volunteered to build the garden. We’re now looking for the funds or donations of the hardscape and plants. We plan on a patio space using pavers about 12 feet by 12 feet with four benches. We even found some great benches made of recycled products. Two other benches will be tucked away for a little privacy or meditation.

If you would like to help, we are selling the bricks as a fundraiser. Each brick will have 3 lines with 16 characters per line for your inscription. We can email you a form for the “Brick Walk”. For more information, call Graham Gavert in the Development Office at 860.442.0711, x2240 or email him at ggavert@lmhosp.org. We also have opportunities to donate 4 benches, a fountain, the patio, the mulch, and more. We would be happy to acknowledge if someone graciously donated the funds for these items.

Sincerely,
Leslie LaPointe
APRN, MSN, CPNP
Member, L&M Go Green Committee
Chairwoman for the Healing Garden Project

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After a long, cold, and particularly snowy winter, it can be fun to look forward to Spring holidays and think about how to celebrate them with family and friends.

The Spa at Norwich Inn and Executive Chef Daniel Chong-Jiménez, can make your job a little easier with the Spa’s lavish and traditional events: An Easter Brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 4; a Mother’s Day Buffet from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 9, and a more casual Father’s Day Barbecue – on the Terrace Deck, weather permitting – from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 20.

For Easter and Mother’s Day, guests generally come dressed to celebrate the holiday, and the Spa responds with beautiful flower arrangements, lavishly decorated buffet tables and a wide span of menu offerings to please all ages – everyone from toddlers to great grand-parents.  The price is $14.95 for each child five to 10 years old, and $39.95 for each adult.

The 100+ menu items for these first two holidays include options for everyone in the family: the meat-and-potatoes guy (Herb-Roasted Prime Rib au jus), the vegetarian and the vegan, with their slightly different paths, starting from the premise of avoiding meat) the raw food enthusiast (Raw Bar with Shrimp Cocktail and Connecticut Oysters & Clams) the seafood-lover (Pan-Seared Salmon with Maple Glaze), and the “I’m on a diet and I want watch my calories” diner, who will have plenty of salads, fruits, vegetables, healthfully prepared protein (Sliced Turkey Breast, for example). For youngsters who are a bit suspicious of the food grownups eat, there will be a Children’s Buffet, including Hot Dogs, Mac & Cheese and Kids’ Desserts. There will also be an elegant selection of desserts for all.

Father’s Day is far more casual in dress and menu, and much of the food comes right off the grill, including chicken, steak, ribs, and corn on the cob.

Reservations are highly recommended by calling 860.425.3630. For a complete list of menu items for each event, visit www.thespaatnorwichinn.com/dining_seasonal.aspx.  The Spa at Norwich Inn is located at 607 West Thames St., Norwich.

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by Roger Zotti

In Steve Lazarus’s remarkable and often laugh-out-loud  memoir, “The Pope and Me at Yankee Stadium,” he’s at his hilarious best when he writes about some of his co-venders – like Roderick Coleman. “During any given day he’ll stop wherever he happens to be… set down his Cracker Jacks… stand ramrod straight, and announce, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, now batting, number fif-ty fiiive, Hidecki Matsui… Matsui… Matsui.”  (Roderick always “[throws] in the reverb from the loudspeaker.”)  He’s equally uproarious when he tells us about his Grandma Rosie, who “threw expletives around like a discus champion… Like peeling wallpaper, we just got used to Grandma Rosie – until company came; then we cringed.”

Steve wrote his book because “It got to a point where after you read a book, you say, ‘My story’s more interesting than that.’ I thought that being a comedian and vendor I had an interesting and unique story to tell. I don’t think anybody has ever walked in my shoes.” The events Steve writes about take place between 1977 – when he started vending at the original Yankee Stadium – and 2008.

Though writing “The Pope and Me at Yankee Stadium” with his longtime friend and co-vender, Sandy Miles, was a plus,  Steve said, “we also got into many arguments about what to put in the book and what not to – well, that’s a way to almost break up a friendship.” Also, reliving some of the things “I lived through wasn’t easy or enjoyable. There’s some serious stuff in the book about gambling and being brought up gambling.” But overall, Steve added, “writing the book was a positive experience.”

What Steve hopes readers take away from his book is, first, that though people know what a vendor is “they don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, and I hope they say, ‘Wow! I never knew that about a vendor.” Second, there’s the book’s gambling aspect – which is, Steve makes clear, a serious disease. “On TV you see these celebrity rehabs for drugs, but you never see or learn much about gambling rehab. Maybe after reading my book, people will realize that gambling is a serious problem.” (Read the chapter titled “Seventh Inning.” You’ll learn how Steve supported his gambling problem that was “slowly and surely sucking the life out of me on a daily basis.”)

As for the standup comedy Steve started doing in the early nineties, making people laugh “is the greatest job in the world. I recommend it highly to anyone who has always said, ‘I want to be a comedian.’ Just do it because it’s enjoyable.” Steve’s biggest comedic influences are George Carlin and Robert Klein – “because it is so hard to come up with new material like those guys did year after year.”

If the people and situations Steve writes about weren’t real, they’d have to be invented – which is a big reason why his book is so distinctive and terrific. Visit Steve’s website, www.ThePopeAndMe.com, to order it. It’s a great read.

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(l-r) State Representative Christopher Coutu with his uncle Edward J. Coutu. Edward passed away on March 20.

April 24, 1918 – March 20, 2010

Edward J. Coutu, 91, formerly of Taftville died Saturday, March 20 at the Norwichtown Rehab & Care Center. Edward was employed for 28 years as an Electrician for the State of CT DOT retiring many years ago. He was a WWII Army veteran having enlisted in the Army in 1941 and was honorably discharged in1945 with the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was a communicant of Sacred Heart Church, Taftville. He was a Past Commander of the V.F.W. Post 2212, Taftville, was a life member of the Sprague Rod & Gun Club and a life member of the Taftville Fire Dept. Edward was married to Marguerite (Maynard) Coutu, who died in 2004. Survivors include sister Juliette Dupuis and her husband Arthur, Taftville, his sister-in-law Dorothy (Maynard) Osga, Jewett City, and numerous nieces and nephews.

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Grade 12 – Honors with Distinction
Catherine Brown
Hannah Grant
Summer Grant
Faith Hoffman
Emily Minton
Alexander Moore
Susanna Pilny

Grade 12 -First Honors
Kevin Boyd
James Camperchioli
Brandon Dexter
Katherine Ericson
Madeline Mador
Alexandra Milan
Ryan Ordille
Brendan Peters
John Sedensky
Jerry Theiler
Ashley Walenta
Tyler Wild

Grade 12 – Second Honors
Colin Ahern
Juliana Bassett
Kaylie Bissonette
Elvis Crespo
Jaclyn Cronin
Will Evola
Jared Farley
Perry Frink
Will Gazlay
Jillian Kowalski
Stefan Nagy
Daniel Petersen
Stephanie Plasse
Mark Pugsley
Lindsay Rolfe
Allan Smith
Lucero Truszkowski
Robert Wollschlager

Grade 11 – Honors with Distinction
Erin Amarello
Alexandra Bousquet
Ronald Mazurkiewicz
David Scott
Brandon St. Jean

Grade 11 – First Honors
Hannah Benoit
Thomas Engel
Julia Evola
Kelsey Claspell
Zachary O’Friel
Timothy Neilan
Maura Pitluck
Catharine Satti
Brandon Smith
Paul Steinhagen

Grade 11 – Second Honors
Ryan Gazlay
Jackie Giraldo
Emily Glavan
Jared Mangano
Jeffrey Merlo
Nicholas Pike
Brett Rankowitz
Mary Reagan
Anna Savitsky
Chelsea Shirshac
Mario Strafaci
Trevor Turgeon

Grade 10 – Honors with Distinction
Tara Kowalski
Justin Perkins Ollila

Grade 10 – First Honors
Kaitlin Baillargeon
Ryan Cronin
Abram Doubleday-Bush
Mackenzie Gagne
Susan Kusmierski
Ellen Mador
Emma Northridge
Mary Sedensky
Nora Sternlof

Grade 10 – Second Honors
Rebecca Baldasty
Avery Barlow
Mary Kate Bassett
Jordan Buscetto
Jacqueline Csisar
Robert Daly
Vincenzo Denniston
Daniel Gehan
Alexander Johnson
Allison Londregan
Jonathan Malchiodi
Gabrielle Nieves
Alexa Sauchuk
Emma Theiler

Grade 9 – Honors with Distinction
Olivia Arruda
Justin Cavitt
Joseph Ferraro
Grace Kirkpatrick
Samuel Nave
Kevin Peters
Julia Scott
Alexandria Severino
Benjamin Whewell

Grade 9 – First Honors
Zachary Belisle
Eric Brown
Philomena Buscetto
Elizabeth Gaccione
John Kennedy
Kevin Kersey
Alexander Kuvalanka
Emily Patten
Michelle See

Grade 9 – Second Honors
John Amarello
Brianna Beebe
Sabrina Brown
Victor Calle
Katherine Chambers
Colton Day
Jennifer Ericson
Hannah Garvey
Christian Gospodinoff
Joseph Granatosky
Shannon Griffin
Cassandra Keefe
Ethan McDowell
Nicole Menner
Brittany Spurgas
Coretta Swift

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