I gave a two-word political update the other day to the leadership team at Clovis Community Medical Center.

Sacramento -- "Disarray." DC -- "Uncertainty."

Every year, we go through this budget meltdown that is aorta of California politics. Call it "bad things happening to good people" or, for the cynical, "fat cats getting what they deserve."

Every week I participate in California Hospital Association and other conference calls, to get a sense of movement. Here are a couple of Sacramento assessments: "A lot is going on but nothing is happening ... We're pedaling in a quagmire of quicksand. It's not a pleasant situation."

In DC, the reform situation is so fluid, any snapshot is Photoshopped faster than it can be digitized. One helpful resource is this Kaiser Foundation website that allows various proposals to be examined side by side: http://healthreform.kff.org/

All this leaves those of us who fret about the future looking for sips of sanity. And even though newspapers seem to have flushed nearly all the color from their comics pages, I've retained one black-and-white Calvin and Hobbes strip from 1995. Though it's sad that Calvin and his tiger are no longer roaming the "funny pages" -- digital or otherwise -- this one always makes me smile:

Calvin's walking with a box of eggs in his arms with tiger Hobbes behind him.

“You’re going to juggle eggs?” Hobbes asks.

“It’s a metaphor for life, Hobbes,” says Calvin.

Clutching a handful of eggs, he says: “Each egg represents one of life’s concerns and the goal is to give each the appropriate amount of individual attention while simultaneously watching and guiding all the others.”

As he tosses the bunch in the air, he adds: “Life is about balance and staying quick and alert as everything threatens to spin out of control!”

Finally, with broken eggs everywhere, Hobbes observes: “And sometimes we make a big mess of things.”

To which Calvin, holding up more eggs, replies: “But the important thing is persistence.”