Hey, Japan? This is NOT helping the nursing shortage!

In other news: after the shindig and the my recurrent role of head holder and drunk carrier, my pulled shoulder muscle morphed into shoulder, neck and giant migraine pain. Oooo. A legitimate excuse for Percocet. Yay. I popped two of those babies and drifted off into the best sleep in months. I awoke at 0400 scratching like a dog hosting a flea convention, thought "I had BETTER NOT be developing a Percocet allergy!" and then fell back into a coma for 4 more hours. I don't know if that was the result of some weird forgotten dream or if I'm on the road to anaphylaxis the next time I'm injured. Ah, what's a little respiratory distress to stand in the way of my love affair with Percocet?

Jeez. How do they allow me to raise children?

The saga of the cougar dress continues. I took it over to my dear friend, who would never lie to me, no matter how often I might want her to. She told me that the dress was cute, didn't scream "cougar prowl" but that I needed a tan. This has been her mantra for the whole 18 years I have known her. Listen, Ms. Native American, quit trying to shove your skin-ist agenda down my throat! I glow in the dark, and I'm proud of it! However, it is a sundress and the tan lines from my bathing suit when I was in the Caymans didn't look all that great to my way of thinking. Plus, in an effort to find out just what the hell is wrong with me (physically that is; we are all aware of what is wrong with me mentally. I am nucking futs and some day I will slip into the abyss of insanity and be found frothing at the mouth and biting the furniture.), my fanTASTic family practice doc, who is a god among men, drew some lab work on me and found that my Vitamin D level was quite low. Shocking in the Pacific Northwest I know. So, I rationalized that buying a tanning package would actually be beneficial as it would be vitamin D light therapy not unlike what they do in Finland. Hey. I have an English degree, I can bullshit with the best of them. I happily, and cautiously, started tanning. The "areas to be lasered" are strictly off limits as far as UVA/UVB rays are concerned so I wore a thong in the tanning bed, so as not to piss off my aesthetician and have her turn into the laser Nazi. "No, hair removal for you! Come back 2 months!" The shindig for which I bought said "might be a cougar" dress is tomorrow, so I was tanning daily and increasing my time by two minutes a day, as is suggested by the tanning company. Two days into this, I realized that parts were getting tanned that I did not wish to be. Namely, the nippies. I couldn't care less if carpet matches the drapes, but I'm adamant that the nippes match the lipstick! Unless the lipstick is bright red, cuz Flaming Red Nipples is only good for a punk rock band name. But I digress. Really the only cure for tanning the nips is to cover them. Which I think if I came up with a handy dandy nip tanning cover, I could make some serious bank. Since I have yet to invent such a cover, I resorted to the old standby: the little round band-aid that are good for nothing. Except covering your nipples. The only problem with this is, you know how it feels to rip a band-aid off? Try taking off a band-aid that has been baked on to a fairly nerve-ending rich area. Good times.

Now, the kids are out of school, and I have been working everyday, so the only way to get this needed vitamin D therapy is to tan after work and then go get the kids. The tanning salon is out by my house and daycare is way the hell out on the other end of town. This is a lot of running back and forth, for which I just do not have the energy. So, I asked if I could tan at the salon, close to the daycare. Fortunately, they are owned by the same person, so I was welcome to tan either place. Yeehaw. Yesterday before I left for work, I gathered my supplies and went to get the little round band-aids. I didn't have those. In four different boxes of band-aids, I was out. What did I have? The knuckle band-aids. Well, those ought to work. After work I went to the new place, and asked for 2 minutes longer than I had tanned the day before. These two minute increments in the place by house had resulted in a nice deepening of my original tan and a slow fade of the dreaded tan lines. I got into the bed at the new place, and the first thing I noticed was this sucker sure closed a lot further than the other beds. I already feel like I'm in a lighted coffin but this was like being buried alive. My solution for this problem is like my solution for most problems. Ignore it; it will go away. (Not really helping for the pulled muscle in my shoulder, but I still have faith.) After my time was up, I peeled off the nip covers (labor breathing all the while), got dressed, and collected the offspring. I noticed nothing amiss. Until this morning. First, I don't know if it was the bed closing farther, stronger bulbs or the 2 extra minutes, but I look like Lobster Boy in the Freak Show at the circus. Second, remember those knuckle band-aids? Well, I have a very definite outline of those band-aids. Most people put little heart stickers to have a design when they tan. I basically ended up with what looks like the Rebel Alliance X-Wing fighters across my nipples. Awesome. It really speaks to the Star Wars geek inside me.

Mark Sanford's Theme Song

Heh.



What? Too soon?

Is it too much to ask clothing manufacturers and department stores that distribute said manufactured clothing that it be of a nature fitting my stage in life? I went to buy a dress for a little shindig I'm going to and my choices seemed to be relegated to "last living survivor of the Titanic" and "clinging bitterly to her youth with every last breath in her body" neither of which is the look for which I'm striving. I'm way too old to go to the juniors section; that's just sad. And here's another thing...since when did we time warp back to 1975? I'm almost positive some of the dresses I saw were patterned after dresses I actually wore in my elementary school career. After much searching and cussing, I did end up with a fine dress. Three, actually, since Penney's was having quite the sale and I felt the need to expand my wardrobe a tad. The dress I have decided to wear for the aforementioned shindig, I am growing to like more and more. My only fear is that it's kind of "cougary", so I may have to run it by some of my cohorts. Then again, the dress would be the only cougar thing about me: I'm not blonde, I'm not tanned, and my rack is factory original equipment.

Great new item from textsfromlastnight.com:

(714) I need hand sanitizer and jesus


And why Alice Cooper and the Muppets will always be my favorite

Today at Tae Kwon Do SoS was instructed to do an Army crawl along the floor. He started crawling in a manner that was not pleasing to the instructor and, when corrected, SoS flatly stated "I'm not doing an Army crawl, I'm doing a Navy crawl." He then stated that (insert SOSo'C's real name here) was in the Navy, so he was doing a Navy crawl. When the grandma behind me said "I don't think the Navy is doing a lot of crawling," my only thought was "SEALs?"

Vignettes

My reaction to certain events that have occurred on the unit lately:

Beautiful vaginal birth: meh.

Pushing with a patient for two and a half hours and ending up in a c-section: sucky.

Patient arriving via ambulance in 5 point restraints, a spit guard mask, and screaming "I'm going to slit your wrists; I'll fucking KILL you all." for her routine OB appointment: AWESOME!!

This may say something about me.

I want Stephen Colbert to have my baby!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama Orders Stephen's Haircut - Ray Odierno
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

WOW

I was lurking at This Ain't Hell and TSO had a post about the VA and prosthetics so I stole the video he posted. And if you watch this without getting misty and amazed, you have no heart. Or you aren't as big a tub of goo as I am.
But I'm gonna go with the first explanation.

Hilarity at the Les Schwab

I'm finally getting the tires on the Planet Killer rotated. I'm not sure why my dad is having a fit; I don't think I rotated the tires on the minivan once in ten years, so what's the big deal after 22k miles? But whatever, I'll get it done before we go to Idaho for the 4th just to make him happy. So, I'm sitting in the waiting room, reading blogs on my iPhone, when one of the employees says, "Dick in the Jeep?" Which immediately had me thinking about this:



I had another moment when I thought someone said "Hey, Suz?" I turned around wondering who in the hey thought they knew me that well, when the nice Hispanic man next to me stood up. Oh. Must have been "Jesus." Perhaps I should be more aware of my surroundings. Then I see on the reader on Fox news (volume turned down just like in the airport because G-d forbid you not be bored out of your melon), that David Carradine's family believe he was killed by Kung fu assassins. Okay, look. I'm sure you are distressed at this time, and my heart goes out to you, it really does. But you need to realize that he may have been in the hotel with an "entertainer" and this was an unfortunate end result of auto erotic asphyxiation as the rope around his neck and genitals lead me to believe. And Kung fu assassins? Wouldn't they be Muy Thai assassins in Thailand? Or perhaps these are assassins that were an off shoot of a secret society spawned by followers of Kung Fu and Caine, not realizing at first that this was a TV show and then, once they realized (30 years later) that that guy wasn't Chinese, they flew to Thailand to wreak their vengeance? What? I'm just askin'.

Because I have no original material

Yep, bogarted this from The Sniper as well. But it RESONATES, man!



Where else can you reference Arthur Fonzarelli's army of clones and Eva Peron?

Mrs. Hardy and the Sting Ray

Could she be any farther away? So, just to torture her, I made her take another:

Once again, I have blatantly ripped something off from The Sniper, but since, with one notable exception, none of you read The Sniper, it had to be done! And because it is TEH AWESOME! (For geeks like me)

Last Round Up

Even Mr. Happy Sunshine kicks back in the Caymans...but why is the rum gone?

Our last day on the island was Sunday. What a glorious day! No waking up to an alarm (which is the opening riff of Kickstart My Heart on my iPhone), no need to be anywhere that would turn us into brain sucking zombies in 13 seconds flat, just a full day of nothing to do. And that is exactly what Mrs. Hardy wanted to do...nothing. Aaaaahhhhhh! I turned her lazy! No one thought it could be done! But my influence, the Caribbean sun and sea and vast amounts of rum accomplished the impossible! Bwaaahaaahahahaha! Unfortunately for her, I dragged her ass out to the little death trap on wheels (as so coined by Nixon; thanks man!) and off we went for another day of driving by clairvoyance. Our plan was to drive around the island to Rum Point and Kaibo beach. I figured no matter what the road did, if I kept the water to my right, we'd get there just fine. Let's hear it for those critical nursing skills, shall we? I had gotten pretty good at driving on the left by this time, even if I did give away my foriegn-ness by turning on the windshield wipers every time I wanted the turn signal. Damn backwards car. After a 45 minute drive we arrived at Rum Point. This is when we knew we were in the right place

That's right! We're on Cayman time, baby! (I'm still on Cayman time but that's neither here nor there, really!) Did I mention that Pepsi is like the national drink in the Caymans second to rum? No wonder I like this place! We decided that a trip out to Stingray City would be a fine idea, even if Mrs. H. was as leery of the sting rays as she was of the turtles. We took a beautiful sail on a catamaran

(This is actually of the catamaran coming in to dock...not that you can tell, but isn't the water pretty?) The crew was a mixture of young tanned boys from New Zealand, England, Australia and BAHRAIN of all places! So Mrs. Hardy chatted up the captain (he was the one from Bahrain, she doesn't chat up strange men for no reason, I promise) and got some of her fears relieved about the adventure she will be embarking on in September. He did mention it got a little wild when the Saudis came over for the drink and the prostitutes which he mentioned was Bahrain's national product. To which I commented, "So, it's like Thailand then." No one disagreed. I'm not sure these boys were old enough to know that much about prostitution... :) We arrived in Sting Ray city and entered the water to play with the sting rays..which are basically underwater dogs. Or giant, swimming portabella mushrooms. Take your pick. Mrs. Hardy has the waterproof camera so that's where the pictures are. I'll post as soon as I wrassle 'em out of her cold, dead hands. On the way back in Mrs. H. asked if she could drive the boat and the captain heartily agreed. And then left her alone at the wheel. Did I mention she'd never been on a catamaran before, let alone sailed one? We let him Know the facts and he rather rapidly jumped back up to help.

Monday morning came awful early as our flight left at 0730 and we had to return the rental, get through security (haha! can you say cakewalk?) and most importantly, figure out the rum situation for Mr. Hardy. You can all breathe a sigh of relief, we entered the US with rum on board. We also sat next to a chatty young man who felt the need to tell us about every purchase he made in the Caymans and took us under his wing to guide us through customs in Miami. Really, dude, we can read. I shouldn't be catty, he was just trying to be helpful, but I had a lot of travel ahead of me and had no desire to be coddled. In Dallas, we ran into a young man who was returning to Ft. Lewis and bonded with our smart ass attitudes. Although he almost got smacked when, walking through First class I mentioned something about the "walk of shame," meaning that I felt like First Class looks at you as the scum of the earth when you walk by. (Like that line from Snakes on a Plane: "Coach? Is it safe there?") He looked at me startled, and I said, "Not THAT walk of shame!" And he said, "Oh, good, because you're too old for that." Listen, puppy, I'll have you know that I've never done a walk of shame, but really, I'm not sure if you can be too old for that. There are probably people in nursing homes who do the walk of shame! Now, there's a visual!

Oh, look...pics from Mrs. H.

Me and the portabella mushroom of the sea. Tried to get a stingray hickey; no such luck.

Mrs. H. and the man from Bahrain doing some sailin'!

We've decided we should live there... Mr Hardy wants to open a bar someday, why not in the Cayman islands? They can run the bar, I'll be the serving wench who treats sunstroke, dehydration and stingray hickeys on the side, the boys could attend the international school, and I'd be available for when the Hardys decided to reproduce. It's a fine plan!

Signs of the Apocolypse

Munchausen by Proxy Mom and the Feces

NC a-hole arranged his wife's rape at knifepoint so he could watch


David "Grasshopper" Carradine hangs himself

And the decline of civilization continues. People suck and we're on an express elevator to hell. Goin' down!

I've been home several days and find myself still on island time. Basically, I can't see the need to move more than I absolutely have to during the day, although I am distressed about the lack of servers to bring me food and drink whenever the whim strikes me. I think I left off detailing our trip on Saturday. The last day of the conference. The day they handed out the continuing education certificates at the morning break. Guess what time we left? C'mon! We had plans. And most of the day was case studies anyway and, while interesting, not really necessary. Besides, we had the big ass binder they gave us with screen shots of every powerpoint slide from every lecture. We were covered. Our plan for the day was to visit the Tortuga Rum Factory (yay! see how rum cakes are made! Pick up some rum for Mr. Hardy as he is miles under the water suffering from less than optimal oxygenation and bad smells!) First we thought we should run back out to Hell to see if we could pick up any kitschy items that we felt was imperative to have. Arrived in Hell and found out that they are no longer open on Saturdays, "sorry if this is inconvenient" Hell yes, it's inconvenient! But not nearly as inconvenient as trying to find the Rum Factory. Let me elaborate on the Cayman Island method of driving. Otherwise known as clusterfuck driving. There are many round abouts on the island. These are mostly faded white 3 foot diameter circles painted on the ground. Let me reiterate: faded and painted on the ground. Challenging. We've already gone over the whole roads that turn into different roads that arent on the map that turn into road that you need to be on, but there is also the complete lack of road signs; either those telling you what road you are on or those stating what road comes off the roundabout. After about and hour of driving, which included getting lost in some residential area (whose roads are not on the map so you can't figure out where you are to get where you are going! And before you ask, we had three different maps from three different establishments and they were all like this! The locals look at you like you are insane when you want a map in the first place) we finally arrived at the rum factory. We found out the "tour" of the rum factory was actually just looking through a bit window into the bakery (way too hot for that crap) and the duty free rum is only duty free if you are on a cruise ship. They don't ship (even though the website says they do) and after many minutes we figured out we'd have to buy the rum in the airport. Whatever. By this time there were two hot, hungry and cranky nurses. Not a good combo. But we did get a picture:

Woot! We ate in a restaurant that had a stripper pole and and a "Naughty School Girls Happy Hour" Women in costume drank free. Too bad Mrs. H left her costume at home! We then went and spent no less than 4 hours broiling on the beach being appalled by couples coupling in the sea (I shit you not) and fearing that we would be called upon to resuscitate The Corpse if his freaking heart gave out. (The corpse was a 400 pound member of our conference with a hot wife [for him anyway] who went for a walk down the road in the 90 degree heat as we took off for the Rum Factory. We felt sure we would see his bloated corpse on the way home. Nope, there he was in snorkel gear, floating like a giant sea creature). Dinner that night was a fancy affair at Casa Havana, touted as an "atmosphere of pre-Castro Cuba." If that is true, bring on the pre-Castro Cuba! A little slice of heaven. We had teriyaki duck with tempura risotto. I think I could live on that for evah!