Since I didn't have to work today, my plan last night was to stay up irresponsibly late.  I have been obsessed lately with watching "Smokey and the Bandit" on Netflix instant streaming, and so, around 11 last night, I started it. I saw the first 10 minutes and then I woke up at 0430 this morning, all the lights on, TV showing the "hey, dummy! you wanna watch this again or what?" screen and I was stretched out like Cool Hand Luke after the egg bet.

This is a poem the First Born wrote at the beginning of the year for Language Arts:

I AM poem

I am smart and artistically talented

I wonder what the compounds of an engine are

I hear my thoughts

I see my cat planning the enslavement of mankind

I want a strong laptop

I am smart and artistically talented

I pretend I'm a millionaire

I feel that my brother is the most annoying person on the world

I worry about my brother

I cry about nothing

I am smart and artistically talented

I understand we are in hard times

I say that Tupac Shakur can come back

I dream that I will get in to a good college like Harvard

I try to do my best in school

I hope we will have world peace

I am smart and artistically talented

Source: stumbleupon.com via Katie on Pinterest

Rodney!

Two more weeks! Booyah!!




And the apology. He really is very talented.

A friend of mine who served with me in Finland plays piano beautifully. He knows quite a bit about me and so was never disturbed when I would sneak into the back of the chapel and listen to him play. His playing has always calmed the turmoil in my heart and my head. Despite not having spent anytime together in the last 6 years, he still knows how to calm my head and my heart and he sent this to me because he thought I'd like it. He was right, despite the fact that I cry every time.

I Am Officially Losing It

I'm not sure how much more stupidity I can possibly take. I've been working with residents for 13 years. I know what to expect. I know that sometimes they are going to do things that will make me insane. Will make me want to punch them in the ovaries, whether they possess them or not. Will make me wonder how on earth they received their medical degree. And how stupid they think I am. This last week I had a resident that I nearly strangled with his own innards. He was working with an intern (sweet girl, a little scared of this thing we call "labor" and "delivery")and he spent the entire day smirking at patronizing me. We had a patient that was clearly, to anyone with half a brain and lick of experience in OP presentation: blood in the catheter, coupling contractions, belly that looked like a ski slope. Classic. I continued to explain to him why keeping her with her head down and changing from side to side was the most prudent course of action despite his wanting to sit her bolt upright. When she finally got to 9 centimeters and he declared he "really wanted her sitting up" I decided, "fuck you, fine." So I sat her bolt upright. And an hour later she had a swollen cervix. So now, she's in trendelenberg and changing from side to side. After about another hour, the intern comes in to check her cervix and announces, "The foley came out." I said, "It came out? Is the balloon deflated?" "No," she says, "it's right here." And she holds up the end of the foley with the 10 ml balloon still intact. Ouch. I look around to make sure my delivery table is actually in the room (oh, good, there it is) because anyone who had been doing this job for any length of time knows the only reason that bulb came out is because a a big, fat HEAD pushed it out. So, I said, "Go ahead and check her." The intern gets a strange look on her face, and says, "I don't think I feel any cervix." After she said she wanted me to follow her, I did, and immediately ran into head. I declared her ready to have a baby just as Dr. Hairball walked into the room. At this point, he grabs a glove, saunters over to the patient and then tells the the intern, "You might be able to call her +2 station." Now, this is where I am biting a hole in my lip to keep from saying, "It's a good thing you followed me, because with your three years of experience I'm sure you know better than I, who has only been doing this job, in a high risk hospital that does 3000 deliveries a year, since you were 15 years old." I wanted to, but that's what I wanted to say. Luckily, the patient is right there and I still have a thin veneer of professionalism. Very thin, but still existing. I tell them I was going to straight cath her before we started pushing because I didn't know how long that foley had been out, and as I go to put in the catheter, all I see is head. Then I got shitty. "You call THAT +2???" Oops.

Of course, this pales in comparison to the idiot attending I dealt with the other day. This guy is an OB, a perv, and dumber than a bag of hammers. He scarred one of my poor corpsman for life by changing his scrubs in the stock room. "It was all man boobs and nipple hair." she nearly sobbed. She'll probably never want to see a naked man ever again. We had a post-partum hemorrhage the other day, that was significant enough I wanted to weigh the pads. So, I put the same number and quality of pads on the scale, zero it out and weigh to get the amount of blood she has lost. First he asked me how I knew that was right because she had all kinds of pads on there. Yes, I know this. I weighed the dry ones first and zeroed the scale; I know how to weigh pads! Not my first rodeo and the blood loss was 1952 grams. Which equates to 1952 milliliters. So then he says, "I'm going to call her loss 800 mls." You can't call it that, I weighed the pads; its 1952 mls. "So, your guesstimate is what?" It's NOT A GUESS! IT'S A MEASUREMENT! IT IS 1952 MLS!!!! So then I had to explain how 1 ml equals 1 gm "But it's liquid not a solid." Hello??? Yes, and 1 ml weighs 1 gram. A pint's a pound the world around, have you never heard of this? My mother says it all the time! Liquid has weight and the weight is known. "Okay, but it wasn't all blood, all liquid, some of it was clot." For the love of GOD MAN! MATTER IS CONSTANT!! THE SAME AMOUNT WILL WEIGH THE SAME NO MATTER WHAT STATE SAID MATTER IS IN!!! THIS IS HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS!!! YOU CALL YOURSELF A DOCTOR???? Needless to say, I need my Ativan refilled.

Movember Movement!

My friend Shawn in involved in a charity event. It's called Movember. Now, I know you all think Movember is only "No shave November" for those lazy bastards who would rather have small rodents living on their faces than have to brave the cold steel or whirling blades of a razor. Not so, my loyal reader (what? is there more than one??), not so. Movember is actually a world wide event where mustaches are grown as a charity fundraiser to support men's cancer research and awareness. You know, those cancers with nasty names like "testicular" and "prostrate" and yes, even "breast." I know breast cancer is covered in the boobie-centric month of October and is represented by, what looks like a 500 gallon vat of Pepto Bismol being spewed all over the world, but men get breast cancer too, folks. I'm sure the manly men would much rather be represented by a full, sexy, mustache than anything in pink. Did you know Brian Piccolo died at 26 years of age from a testicular cancer that wasn't discovered until it was in his chest cavity? Or that a next door neighbor of mine lost a testicle at 15 years old from testicular cancer? This isn't something that strikes only when these Y chromosomers are old peeps.

So, anyway, back to Shawn. He has a Movember page on the Movemeber site. Here you can make a tax deductible, charitable contribution to either Shawn, his team Major League Moustaches, or both for that matter! You can also check out his growth (ha!) on both Facebook and on Twitter So, come on peeps! Make a donation! Loosen those pocketbooks and those wallets. Unstrangle the moths and release the fists! Donate so, if my boys or anyone else's boys, God forbid have to face cancer, we can be that much closer to a cure. And you can be a part of it! Go YOU!

I know I usually talk about "cooter electrocution," but this last time I swear my aesthetician had the laser set on "Kill/death/murder/serial killer/death row/electric chair". Holy Schnikes!

The next month is going to be me pre-gaming for Rodney Carrington. So you get to go along for the ride!

I was telling someone at work a story about my horse (probably about breaking my ankle falling off of her, that one is always good for a laugh) and it reminded me of this one.  I was in middle school and had a job feeding the other horses in the mornings.  I would ride my bike to the barn at the ass crack of dawn before school, looking like Super Janitor with all the keys to the tackrooms hanging off my belt, and feed about 15 horses  so the other owners didn't have to worry about getting mussed before work or school.  Then, I had to ride my bike home, shower, change, and get myself the 5 miles to school before the bell rang, but hey, I was making about 40 bucks a week and that was bank for an 8th grader in the early 80's, baby!

Like all large stables without in-house cats or dogs, we had a significant rat problem.  Stems from all that readily available grain. Despite using metal garbage cans to store it in, enough fell on the ground from either the humans being careless or the horses being sloppy to keep our rat population fat and sassy.  Now, when I say rat, I don't mean the kind you get at the pet store and keep at home as a companion, waiting for it to chew your head off.  I'm talking RATS.  Rats the size of small dogs.  Rats that would kick the shit out of a Chihuahua, and make a Pit Bull pause.  And these suckers had no fear.  If you came upon one, they'd look at you like, "What the hell do you want, bitch?"   The owners began leaving rat poison out in the tackrooms to try and reduce the number our disease carrying pets.  Rat poison in basically warfarin, which is a blood thinner, commonly known as Coumadin, and used in people with artificial heart valves.  The rats eat this tasty treat and, at some point, suffer catastrophic internal hemorrhaging.  Not a fun way to die, be ye man or beast.

So, here I am, one foggy morning, feeding the horses and in one of the stalls was a rat that was obviously in some distress.  Grossed out as I was, I knew I couldn't leave it in the stall where it might bite the several thousands of dollars worth of show horse in it's dying moments.  I grabbed an Apple Picker (wide, flat, non-sharp tined pitchfork used for cleaning stalls) and picked the poor rodent up and carried it to the manure pile, thereby saving the horse a bite and, well, what better cemetery for a large swamp rat?  As I was carrying it, I heard this scratchy, grinding sound.  I had no idea what it could be.  Until I tried to dump the rat off the fork and it held on, not only with it's front paws, but it also had a death (ha) grip on the tines with it's teeth. Gah..  Using my burgeoning critical thinking skills, I held the handle vertical and the rat slid off the tines onto the manure pile.  And started coming at me with what I could only imagine was blood lust in it's eyes.  Not wanting that thing anywhere near me, I picked it up with the fork again.  I also didn't want it to latch onto the tines again, so I started bouncing it up and down on the fork, so it couldn't get a grip.  My dilemma was now, "what to do with the little bastard?"  I started to get a little freaked out by this time, and decided to just bury it.  Yes, alive.  But it was barely alive, which is almost dead...so...there.  I flipped it one more time, and instead of catching it, let it fall onto the manure pile.  As it started coming toward me, I began to cover it with manure, thinking, wrongly as it turned out, that the weight of the manure would stop it in it's tracks.  No, this was the freaking Terminator of barn rats; it just kept coming at me.  I covered it with more manure and started beating the hell out of it until it stopped moving.  I don't know if the extra covering of manure was so it couldn't see what was coming or to protect my own sensibilities.

It was scary hair time again and so, since today was a holiday, we went to see Michael-The-Extremely-Gay-Hairdresser.  His hairstyle suggestions for SoS were severely limited as SoS had, once again, taken it upon himself to modify his coif.  He wasn't clear to the scalp, as he has been known to do, so that was a relief.  However, he also took the scissors to his eyebrows.  Seriously, what is wrong with this kid?  He was upset to find that he couldn't get "just a trim" like he wanted since he had cut the front so short.  Perhaps now he will leave his hair to the professionals.  FB got his usual barely-enough-trim-to-even-see-that-we-cut-it cut and Michael changed my color to a nice fall/winter brunette.  Which is good, because my poor hair was begging on it's knees and promising all manner of craziness to not be bleached again.  My mother, of course, hates it.
I like it.

FB came to me last night and said "Mom, I've got this bump and it's purple."  Do you know what fear that strikes in the heart of a mother?  When your teenager (or close enough) comes to you talking about bumps??  With the trepidation I imagine I would feel before sneaking up on a rabid tiger and poking it in the ass with a sharp stick, I asked, "Um, where is this bump?"  He said it was on the bottom of his stomach and pulled the waistband of his underwear down to the top of his hairline to show me the biggest, angriest ingrown hair I have ever seen.  "Good grief!  How long has that been there?"  He had no idea.  "Doesn't it hurt?"  Yes, yes it did.  So I got a straight pin, doused both it and the site with rubbing alcohol, and proceeded to lance this sucker.  At first I just poked it with the needle to see what would happen and then applied just the slightest pressure.  It was evacuated easily, but the whole time I just kept thinking, "Don't be MRSA, don't be MRSA, I really can't handle MRSA."   I'm pretty sure we're okay on that count as the ingrown hair came out with evacuation.  Although, I must admit, I always thought if this situation ever happened that FB would be old enough to deal with it himself.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be happening where I had to take care of it.  But since when has that kid ever done anything on the accepted timeline:?

No matter if I get beat into the ground, have six deliveries in 12 hours, have to crawl home on my knees over glass, slaughter my own livestock and grind my own wheat for even one meal, I will never be this tough.  Or amazing.

Grades of Hot

The Sniper used to have Titillation Tuesdays (now it's kind of whenever) for the dudes and, for equality's sake, had Bridget the Flogging Molly Chick do Manmeat Mondays (now defunct) for the dudettes. The Sniper is nothing if not full of equality and democracy.  However comma since Bridget and her MM selections have been missing lo these 18 months or so, I feel a vacuum in the Hotness universe.  I would not presume to try and fill her stylish stilettos (knowing that no one named "Bridget the Floggin Molly Chick" would ever wear sensible pumps), and yet I feel the compunction, nay the downright need to express my Grades of Hotness scale.

There is Boy Next Door Hot:

(sometimes known as Cyclops hot)

Jailbait Hot:

Mutant Hot:

Average Smart, Snarky-as-hell- Dude Hot:

And, of course, Classic Kilt Hot:

Okay, I think I'm done now.  I'm gonna need a moment to myself, please.

I was just thinking; is there anything that feels more fanTAStic than a nice orgasm? One would think Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome would be a cause for celebration.   That is, until I found out the definition is "spontaneous, persistent, and uncontrollable genital arousal, with or without orgasm"  Well, that sucks.  It's also referred to as "Restless Genital Syndrome" which brings to mind "Restless Leg Syndrome."  I had Restless Leg Syndrome when I was pregnant and I had to continuously bicycle my legs or I felt like I was going to lose my tiny little mind.  Not exactly what I'm looking for in the arousal department.

In a slightly related vein, heeeeeeereee's RODNEY! (going to see him Novemeber 26th. Yayski! Oh, and beware of language. Funny, but language.)

Since I had to stop running because the arthritic ankle threw off the line of my whole leg and it felt as if gremlins were shoving pieces of shrapnel into my bones from my foot to my hip, I have let things, ahem, slide. So, now in an effort to regain lost ground, I have once again turned to that rabid freak, Tony Horton. Yes, I have restarted P90X. It was so effective the last time I used it, I'm almost sure I can get through it, despite yelling all manner of abusive and insulting remarks at Tony. Poor Tony. An hour a day a day I heap vitriol of the foulest kind on him; he who is only trying to help.

I refuse to do Pyleometrics this time, however. I don't care how much shame I feel because the one legged guy and his prosthesis are jumping all over the screen with nary a wince, that shit hurts me. And speaking of hurt. Why, oh why, does it hurt more the second time around? Yeesh. All I've done is Synergistics (core and cardio mostly), Cardio and that freaking Yoga, which is enough to make you get down on your knees and beg for Percocet. My abs, lats, and shoulders hurt so bad I can't cough or laugh without crying like a big girl. And don't get me started on sneezing. Soaking in a hot tub sounded like heaven. Unfortunately, I don't own one of those. I do have a big garden tub. And as soon as I got into it, someone rang the doorbell. Just as well I guess. If you think about it, the concept of bathtubs is kind of gross. Sitting in your own filth in stagnant water. Oooohh, relaxing.

Hot tubs, however, a genius idea. Just hope you don't run into these peeps.

Sometimes You Just Need Some Cameo

Really just because there aren't enough nasally singers wearing giant, scarlet codpieces anymore. And I dig that about them.

Glinda Will Cut a Bitch

Being the single mother of boys has lost it's glamor.  Humor. Har.  Seriously, I didn't plan on being a single parent and there are aspects of parenting that I was preeeetty much betting on being handled by the Y chromosome half of the parental unit.  For instance, testicular exams, foreskin maintenance and hygeine, you get the picture.  It's not that I'm squeamish about sharing this information with my boys; I'm a Labor and Delivery nurse for the love of Mike!  I'd just like someone to relief pitch once in a while.  It's frankly exhausting.  And I'll tell you why.   The other night, I arrived home from work, spent some quality time with the boys and then went to my room to decompress and read for the last half hour before it was time to beat them into submission and get them to bed, when I hear, what can only be described as caterwauling, coming from downstairs.  Think Siamese cats fighting over a PA system.  I heard one of the offspring pounding up the stairs and took bets on which one would come apprise me of whatever hideous sin the other had committed. SoS came to my door and with an outraged, bordering on horrified, expression on his face exclaimed, "Mom!  FB was lookin' at NUDED WOMEN!"  Well, just hell.  I walked downstairs and FB was coming out of the office, books under his arm, computer shut down and a resigned look on his face.  I didn't even get a word out before he said, "I know."  All I could think was, "Buddy, you have NO idea."  So we had a chat about how looking at porn was inappropriate and disrespectful to women, how I understood that he had all these feelings and he was curious, but dealing with it this way was, again, inappropriate, and when he was an adult and married he would have a naked woman he could look at whenever he wanted.  I know that is not completely accurate, but why burst the kid's bubble now?  With any luck, he'll marry a woman who is more like his mother in that department ( having been referred to as "oversexed" and "like a guy") , rather than what seems to be the norm among my friends.  He is grounded from the computer for however long I feel its going to take for me to beat (ha) this dead horse and when he's allowed to trip the Internet fantastic again, he's going to find his freedom curtailed.  Nuclear missile firing controls aren't as locked down as our family PC. And, why yes, I do find it ironic that the porn surfer turned out to be the low key First Born rather than the boob loving little perv, Spawn of Satan.

I have purchased several items of bedroom furniture for the boys and it has all arrived in flat, heavy boxes.  You want to know the sweetest words in the English language?  "No Assembly Required."  From now on I'm buying all my furniture in this condition, extra cost be damned.  I have spent several hours a day using a screwdriver and my right forearm and palm is so sore that it is difficult to use it in any twisting type motion.  It would probably feel better with some kind of brace, but I am just perverse enough to tell anyone who asked how I injured it that my batteries died at an inopportune moment.  And then snicker up my sleeve.

In the last three weeks I have been a part of four postpartum hemorrhages (one of which resulted in a airlift to a higher level facility and an in flight hypovolemic MI), a cord prolapse and subsequent emergent c-section, had to perform three ECGs, a nasty forceps delivery, and a postpartum fainting episode that presented like a postictal event.  Yay.  Thus, I haven't posted lately.  And yes!  I have come up with yet another excuse! 

Woot!

Good grief! If I did this at 38 weeks pregnant, I'd still be on the ground!

11 September 2001 - 11 September 2011

Nursing Makes Your Tongue Wrong

At times, we as nurses, are afflicted with a major case of malapropism. For instance, my friend who once asked McDonald's to "circumcise," rather than "supersize," her meal. At a time at Major City Hospital when we had to add bleach to the labor tubs, run it through the jets, drain the tub and refill it before we could let a patient use it, she once told her patient's mother, "I just put the bitch in the tub," when said mother asked what was happening next in her daughter's labor. You see how this can lead us into some unusual conversations.

We have run into a flurry of malapropisms at Small Military Hospital, all in the last week. My absolute favorites:

When cleaning a patient up after a delivery and trying to put dry linen under her, my friend asked her to "Lift your bush." She meant "tush." My question was, in today's hairless society, did the patient know what she was talking about?

During discharge teaching, while talking to the patient about signs and symptoms of infection, another friend told the patient, "If you notice any pussy discharge..." She meant pus-y (i.e. like or pertaining to pus), although, technically, this phrasing was also accurate.

Last but not least, in talking to one of our OB/GYNs about some item of business, yet another friend was heard to exclaim, "Cooters to you!" In this case she meant "kudos," but I maintain this too is accurate phrasing and I intend to use it as the only appropriate way to greet him from now on.

Moles have developed a rodent Disneyland in my front yard. They eschew the backyard because that is the territory of Knucklehead McSpazatron and The Crackhead, not to mention the large two footed mammals that seem to run roughshod on my property. The front yard, however, is fair game to the little vermin. I woke up the other day to find mole hills all over the front lawn, giving yet more ammunition to those HOA bastards as to what an unfit member of the neighborhood I really am. And so as not to have to scream "I'll cut a bitch!" the next time they send me a "Letter of Infraction" (and the fact that I actually do take some pride in my lawn),I decided this problem needed to be dealt with promptly.
At times, I have the same outlook on moles as Carl Spackler has for gophers:

I'm trying to be a kinder, gentler soul, so I didn't want to kill the moles per se, I just wanted to repel them. Preferably to the yard of one of the Homeowner Nazis, as I am a vindictive bitch. I noticed my local Home Depot carried a product called "Uncle Ian's Mole, Vole, Rabbit and Deer Repellent" that was safe for kids, dogs (hey, I have those!) and got some good reviews on its efficacy. Okily dokily, neighbor! I'll try it. I was very disturbed however, by the graphics on the packaging. It had a drawing of a mole, a vole, a rabbit, and this:

WHAT THE HELL??!!?? I've never seen a deer do that! And if I had, I can assure you, I wouldn't be looking to repel it, I'd be looking to get it and it's crazy assed, vampire looking self out of the same plane of existence as I! Who was the marketing director of this product and how much LSD were they on to give a green light on this packaging?

I looked to see what this repellent was made of and notice it was "89% Dried Blood."  Exsqueeze me?  What blood?  Who's blood?  Where did you get the blood?  And is that why the deer looks like that?  Does it repel  vampire deer because they only like their blood fresh and liquid?  I dunno.  So as I'm applying this product in the manner to which I was directed, all I could think of was this:

Nevertheless, despite my distaste of the ingredients and the freaky ass deer, that is some serious mole repellent.

So, I'm in a delivery, minding my own business, cleaning up the new mother, talking about her deliciously cute little boy that has just joined us, when I catch the glimmer of something liquid out of the corner of my eye.  Simultaneously, I feel a wet *splash* on the back of my neck.  I slowly turn my head, knowing something I would rather not have happened, happened, and there stood the first year resident, still in his gown, looking at me with horror in his eyes.  More than likely from the look of death in mine.  Because said resident was holding the syringe that he had used to inject lidocaine, and, in trying to help clean up, had squirted it into the placenta bucket.  Which is flat and low walled. And containing a placenta.  A messy, soggy, oogy placenta.  Now, anyone with a basic grasp of physics, as one would hope someone with not a few science classes under his belt would have, knows that shooting a liquid under pressure at a flat surface is going to cause some ricochet.  And then one of Newton's laws will then apply; either a body stays in motion (the lidocaine flying from the placenta bucket) until acted upon by an equal force (my neck) or the acceleration of a body is directly proportional to the force exerted and directly proportional to the mass.  Meaning the lidocaine hit me at about the speed of sound.

The resident stood there gawking while I hissed through clenched teeth, "Don't ever do that again."  He began to apologize profusely while I scrubbed at my neck with one of those "this-will-kill-everything-from-the-plague-to-mad-cow-disease-and-may-even-put-a-dent-in-herpes" wipes (you know, the ones that say never, in any circumstances, use on bare skin).  I spent the rest of the day dreaming of a bleach bath.

The life of a resident is, by nature, incredibly...well, sucky, to use a besties venacular.  The learning curve is huge, faculty is always pimping you on the most innocuous and trivial decisions of patient care, nurse are, let's face it, pitbulls with lipstick until you earn their trust and respect.  It's not a life I would choose for myself.  Mainly, because I am a loud mouth and don't take kindly to that level of bullshit.  Once in a while, a resident appears who is completely competent, confident, and, most important, receptive to suggestions from the care team.  My family practice doc was one of these residents.  Which explains, in part, why he is my family practice doc.  We have a resident on our floor now who, I believe, will follow his same path.  Residents can be wonderful and they can drive you to want to shove them into the nearest food trolley until they promise to quit acting like a complete ass.  But they are always good for some quotes:

Resident: "Help!  I need a doctor!"
Corpsman: "You are the doctor."
Resident:  "No!  I mean a real one!"

Resident while checking a cervix:  "Okay, well, I'll just get out of your hair now...."

R1, first day on the floor:  "I heard we had patients in triage!  That's so cool!"
Extremely jaded nurse:  "Oh, that's so cute;  stay green Pony Boy!"

Nurse trying to guide resident: "So do you want to do all the cultures?"
Resident: "We should probably check for funk in her thing."

Ponderings

I know there are events that I'm supposed to be detailing, but I have, in my usual manner, been distracted by all manner of inane, but consuming, questions.  For instance:

Is there a special class given to a certain sect of  graduating doctors to teach them to be complete assholes that discount all suggestions or advice from nurses that have been doing their job in a particular field since these self-same doctors were in middle school?  Could I have made that sentence any longer without any punctuation?  From whence did the word "cocktail" originate, and why do we call a drink by that name?  For that matter, why are roosters called cocks?  And who thought a penis looked like a rooster? As I age, am I getting more tolerant or more apathetic?  And do I really care?  Why is it no one gets a classical reference anymore?  Why do people worship Jesus' foreskin?  Can one ever be too rich?  Because we know you can be too thin. I'm talking to you Mary-Kate Olson.  Does my 12 year old really think I'm going to let him be home alone for 12 straight hours during the day instead of going to The Girls and Boys Club?  I know his parents after all.  Is it possible that my dogs actually have access to crack?  Their behavior would lead me to believe it's so.

Here's another wicked smart Navy guy with a literary bent...go drop by and enjoy.

I really did survive the back-to-back family reunions, no matter how it appears.  I'm not, however, recovered from the debilitating fatigue from way, way WAY too much family time.  My dad's family reunion is always every year, and always the same weekend every year; the first weekend after Father's Day.  This isn't too bad, as you always know when to ask for time off.  However, depending where we have it, it is either hot and dry (Utah), hot and humid (Oklahoma), or hot and hypoxic (Colorado. At least for those of us used to living at sea level).  My dad's oldest sister is getting on a bit (she's older that my mom's dad), and so lately we try to keep it close to her home, which means Utah.  The only thing worse than Utah in June is Utah in July and August, so I am grateful for small favors.  The boys and I flew to Salt Lake and then rented a car to drive the 2 hours north to Logan.  The plan was to return the car to the airport the next day, jump in my parents' SUV and travel down to Bryce Canyon and Zion.  Yippee.  Locked in a car with my kids and my parents who have already spent 5 days together in close quarters.  Whoohoo.  The only thing that would make this better is staying in the same motel rooms..oh, wait.

After dropping the dogs off at the kennel, we got to the airport in plenty of time to stand in an incredibly long line to get through security.  I had the kids' passports with me, as well as their dad's death certificate, because I'm positive some day, someone will ask for their photo ids or proof that I have permission to drag my children hither and yon.  It hasn't happened yet, but I'll be prepared if it ever does!  It looked as though I was in line for the naked body scanner, but it was taking so long to evaluate what was being seen, that the line was growing exponentially with each passing minute and we were hurried through the regular metal detector. In an aside here, wouldn't that be a sucky job; looking at the naked body scanner images all day long?  I know it's not supposed to show graphic images, but I've seen pictures of the images it does show, and I think that is nightmare inducing enough.  I've had enough 400 lb patients to know they exist, and, while I'm used to having those naked images burned into my retina, can you imagine being a poor TSA agent sitting there all unsuspecting when, WHAMMO!  Image of a giant pannus and no way to escape it?   Argh.

The flight was uneventful, and after SoS had to go to the bathroom six times from the gate to the rental desk, we finally got in the car and were off.  We got to my aunt's about a half hour before dinner, dodged what felt like 8500 Dachshunds (okay 5), ate a little, talked a little and then headed back to the motel for some swimming time.  FB is like a giant great Dane puppy right now.  At 12 he's close to 5'8, about 170lbs and his appendages are moving through time and space without any real control on his part, not to mention he is in a hormonal stupor that leaves him oblivious to pretty much anything.  My aunt's house has one step at the door.  You step down from the house to the step and the step to the driveway.  Apparently, this was a little too much terrain to navigate for FB.  He walked out of the house to to get something from the car and had barely cleared the doorway before he was on his hands and knees.  "Dude, did you trip?"  "No."  "Twist your ankle?" "No."  "Step on your shoelace?" "No."  The only other explanation is a temporary astral projection being brought on by a rip in the space-time continuum.  Then next morning, I was trying to get SoS out of the back seat so we could go in to breakfast, when I experienced a mini earthquake and heard a large grunt.  It seems FB got tangled up in the strap to his book bag and fell out of the car.  The car that was about six inches off the ground.  I'm such a bad mother, I almost couldn't ask if he was okay because I was bent over trying not to pee from laughing about it.

Here's a side note about being a grown ass woman and sharing a motel room with your parents and your children:  try to avoid it. No one wants to subject themselves to their father's baggy, peek-a-boo boxers, the need to be considerate and curb one's night owl tendencies, and don't get me started on the dual teeth flossing concerto. How I wished my children and I could have been spared!  The horror, the horror!  I couldn't get my own room because I know my parents would give me all kinds of flack about it being ridiculous to spend money for two rooms when we could stay in one, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Here's one problem with this.  The first night when I was about to shower I realized I had forgotten my pajamas.  Not a huge problem since I had my House of Blues Las Vegas t-shirt that only came in 2XL and comes to just north of  my knees.  It could double as pajamas.  The next problem I noticed was that I had one pair of boyshort undies and the rest were all thongs.  Thongs pack really small and are a good choice when you are trying to keep three people's worth of clothing down to one bag.  Not a good choice when you are sharing a room with your children and your parents and you have no pajama pants.  So, while I was safe on the first night, the next three were spent putting my shorts back on after my shower then trying to shimmy out of them and into bed without exposing too much of myself to my parents or my children.  Not to mention that SoS slept with me, he's a snuggler, and I spent three nights unsticking his sweaty little body from my ass. 

If one stays on I-15 you can get through the state of Utah, north to south, in about 5 hours.  Salt Lake is north, Bryce and Zion are south.  I decided I wanted to take the kids to a dinosaur museum in Price, which was more east than south and would add about 3 hours on to our trip, but what an experience to see, right?  Raptor bones so far found only in Utah, how cool is that?  It would have been really cool, had I remembered what state I was in and that there is nothing, but nothing, that would allow a museum to be open in central Utah on a Sunday.  Really wished that we would have remembered what day it was before we started this trek off the beaten path.  We ended up staying in a motel in Panguitch, Utah, which is exactly as small as it sounds.  Said motel was not picked by my mom and I, who wanted the cute little individual units that looked like separate little Victorian houses, but by my dad for the sole reason there was a '32 Ford parked at one of the units with some really cool rims he wanted to get for his 55 Chevy.  If you only know the number of decisions in my life that have revolved around my dad's need for bitchin' car parts.

We got to Bryce the next day and spent time looking at the hoodoos.  I oohed and aahed, and listened to my parents gasping at 9100 ft above sea level praying the whole time that I wasn't going to have to code them.  Put a damper on the vacation, that's for sure. The kids and I decided we would hike down a trail that descended about 520 feet into the canyon; all slickrock switchbacks.  Did I mention that it felt like the surface of the sun?  Ninety degrees in the desert, hiking down  rocks with no visible vegetation.  Basically it was hot.  But gorgeous.  And yes, I left the parents in the relative cool of the shade at Sunset Point Lookout, otherwise I would have to employ some life saving skills and I was just not feeling it.

This is looking up at Sunset Point about a quarter of the way down the trail.  My parents are on either side of the tree.  So not far at all.

And this is looking down to what lies in store.  Awesome.

This is looking up from the canyon known as Wall Street.  Don't go in there if you're at ALL claustrophobic.

HH

Awesome view, yes?
Howzabout this?

Meanwhile, this is what the offspring were involved in:

Overwhelmed with the natural beauty, apparently.

More to follow, but I should probably do something besides blog today.

I found, as I was helping SoS with the aforementioned Blue Poison Arrow Frog habitat, that brown is not a color that is standard in paint sets these days.  Is this part of the millennial "we can't do anything that doesn't blow sunshine up your skirts" mentality of child rearing?  Seriously, I needed brown paint and couldn't seem to find any.  But, I'm educated, resourceful...desperate....I can figure out how to make brown paint, can't I?  I had several craft paints left over and started my artistic alchemy.  Red, yellow, green, hmmmm...I've got some kind of grayish-green ooze happening here.  Perhaps some purple and some more yellow?  Nope.  I decided to call the Senior Chief 's wife; she homeschools, this should be like breathing to her!  She was useless.  Together we decided that maybe adding brown colored food stuffs would change this to what we wanted.  Cinnamon!  It's brown!  It will work!  What it does is make the grayish-green ooze fill with particulate matter.  It doesn't blend, and it certainly doesn't color.  Next on the list was Worcestershire.  Hmmm.  No change in color.  How about some vanilla?  Why I thought that would work when the Worcestershire wouldn't is beyond me; it's basically the same thing except sweet.  And now the ooze smells like pancakes and I'm starving.  I decide that this color would be fine for the rocks the frog uses as shelter, especially since we were going to glue moss on to them anyway.  Did I mention that black paint didn't come in this paint set either? Yeah, out of luck on both counts.  So, what are we going to do for the black spots on the frog?  Hey!  Charcoal Puffy Paint!  That will work!  And it didn't look too bad.  Especially when you put the frog in his shelter so that the majority of his little self was hidden.  Our last obstacle was the predator...the only snake not affected by the poison in the frog's skin.  This is a specific snake and it is specifically colored.  Specifically, brown and orange.  Well, shit.  Orange I can handle; but I still have brown issues and I refuse to drive to Target to get brown paint for this one project.  But, since I doubted SoS's teacher would know exactly what color this snake was, I thought we could fudge it by painting it black.  I can make black, right?  If you mix everything together it should make black, I'm almost sure of it.  Wrong.  It makes even more grayish green ooze.  By this time I was over this project (and SoS was really jonesing to get on the Xbox) and I remembered that black fingernail polish is a staple in my fashion zeitgeist. (Can one have a fashion zeitgeist?  I have no idea, but it sounds good.)  So, SoS painted the shiniest, blackest snake Snootsville Elementary has ever seen.

I now have a Twitter account.  Fear not, I am sufficiently satisfied with this little experiment in narcissism and self indulgence;  I have no intentions of tweeting. I can't imagine how obnoxious I would have to be to think I would need to publish every impulse that jumps the synaptic gap.  I joined so I could follow Steve Martin, John Cleese, The Onion, Drudge Report, etc.because, apparently my Google Reader doesn't leave me feeling nearly as overwhelmed as I would like, and I need even more to keep the spice in my insanity.  What gets me though is I keep getting emails about "So-and-so is now following you on Twitter!"  Why? I could see if I were writing something wittily brilliant on a daily basis, but the way things are, I can hardly manage something mundanely mediocre here in any kind of timely fashion.  It remains a mystery to me.

I saw a guy at the Costco gas station the other day who was wearing Napoleon Dynamite's moon boots. I came close to yelling out "LaFawnduh!" just to see if I could get a reaction.  

I am in the midst of helping SoS create a "Blue Poison Arrow Frog Habitat"as his last big project before school is out.  So I have made a snake (that is immune to the poison and therefore, the only predator the frog has), several rocks (they hide out under them in the rainfores0t, termites and ants for food (really just rolled up bits of clay and the leavings from mistakes I have made) and, of course, the frog itself.  I had a really cool one made up, with little fingers and toes, and it was bitchin; if I do say so myself.  Unfortunately, it was a trifle fragile and every time I moved it, it would lose an appendage or two.  Not to mention all the fingers and toes that have now joined the ranks of "ants and termites."  I tried to repair it several times and, just when I thought the glue had done the trick, another piece of the little bastard would break off.  I finally chucked him into the garbage and started over.  Blue Poison Arrow Frog v. 2.0 seems to be made of sterner stuff,  but it won't matter if it isn't.  We're running out of time, Connor needs to pain these things and we have to figure out how to make a tropical rainforest out of a shoebox. By Friday.  Hmmmmm. 

We will be heading to Utah for a family reunion in a week and a half, and then, two weeks later, heading for Idaho for another family reunion.  No matter what, the chaos and mayhem of those two trips should result in some awesome story fodder.

Marshal Dillon! Marshal Dillon!

I loved Gunsmoke.  It was a weekly snuggle-fest with my dad and I had a deep, deep crush on James Arness.  (Which may have led to my recent Mike Rowe lust; they share a look)  RIP Marshal.

Update:  I just found out he was wounded at Anzio .  Amazing how many actors of that time period were combat vets. 

Well, yeah, kinda....

My boss loaned me Never Say Never which is, for those of you not in the know, a video biography of Justin Bieber. Now, before both of my loyal fans start calling the authorities and signing me up for vivisection because I have obviously, been overtaken by some evil alien race, I decided to watch it under duress. My boss and I are one in the same; i.e broads not prone to touchy, feely, skeezy teen worship. She sort of forced the DVD on me, and as my evaluation is coming up soon, I felt compelled to watch. Jokes. But I do try to keep and open mind when people tell me to watch something, even if it leaves me feeling like, "What kind of crazy shit is this?" And I was surprisingly impressed. This kid isn't the the usual Disney production psuedo "just discovered next big thing." The kid actually has talent; he isn't just an overly hyped flash-in-the-pan. He plays drums, guitar and keyboard, which frankly, I think he does better than he sings, but he sings well too. My favorite part was Snoop Dogg telling him he should grow pig tails with accoutrements. And there was one little girl with a Kathy Bates-ish Annie Wilkes vibe about her when she said they WOULD be husband and wife one day. Keep tabs on that chick Justin, I'm just sayin'.

My ability to escape charge nurse at all costs has come to an end, and like days of old, I'm having to protect my nurses from irate doctors and defuse doctoral nuclear meltdowns. Except here, I don't even get the extra 2 bucks and hour for it. Yay. After the last altercation we had, the doc called me and asked if he had scared my orientee. When I told him I don't think that he did, he asked if he had scared me. After I stopped crying from laughing so hard I almost peed, I informed him I have been doing this job waaaaaayyyy too long to be scared by him. What I was thinking is that I have had worse from better docs, but for the sake of peace, I kept that one an inner monologue. Good thing the filters were working that day.

Had a lady come in the other day that said there was something wrong with her "fun". Perhaps I misheard; I'm sorry, your what? Her "fun". Yes, this is how this adult female who has given birth refers to her vulva/vagina. Serious? Once again kids, if you're old enough to use it, you're old enough to refer to it by the appropriate terminology!

THE GUITAR IS OUT OF TUNE!

 

  Will Ferrell writes a song for garth brooks Video
- Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

The baby boom continues and three out of the last four shifts I've worked have been double delivery days. Not such a big deal except for the whole not being able to shift these women off to post-partum (I hates post-partum my preciousssss; it's nasty evil thingsss it issssss.) and so I have been feeling the effects of getting my ass kicked at work. Today still wasn't a day off because the Comcast dude was coming between 8 and 10 (sadistic bastards), and I have 2300 square feet of house to clean. And yes, all 2300 of it needs to be cleaned. I've been so tired it's amazing I wasn't wearing the same clothes for the last 4 days.

I was doing paperwork when the Comcast dude shows up, I let him in and the first thing he says is, "Are you painting?" Not a complete non-sequiter as I have this all over the walls downstairs.

So, I tell him "Yes, I've lived in the house 9 years, it's time to put some color on the walls." He proceeds to say, "I like the brown. Is the other color orange?" When I tell him it's called chili pepper and I've decided to go with the brown because the chili pepper would be too overwhelming, he responded, "Yes, that is too much; do the brown." Apparently, here you get free interior design advice with your cable upgrade.

Our little hospital doesn't have a plethora of gustatory choices. You have the galley, with its arbitrary hours of operation and Subway. Well, there are also the vending machines, but after the last snowstorm where the power was out and the generator didn't kick on for half a day (and yet, I can't determine that those food items were ever exchanged)I consider those machines of ptomaine a fallback position at best. The galley is never open on Sundays, Subway is only open until two and on Easter, not at all. So we were faced with the prospect of no readily available food and a pack of corpsmen with no compunction against begging like beaten puppies. Saturday was a rough day, but they all batted their little lashes and suckered me into bringing food. Their request was Shot and a Beer Pork Stew. So delicious it will make you weep. Unfortunately, it takes 3 hours to cook, and that's after all the prep work, including going to the store to purchase the needed ingredients, because it's not like I had them sitting around. Well, except for the beer and tequila. So, after a busy 12 hour shift, I finally put this sucker in the oven at 2130. Ye gads. I set my alarm for 0030 so I could take the damn thing out of the oven and shove it in the fridge for when I got up at 0430 for work. Except that I smacked the snooze until 5, but that's another story. So, my alarm ranng, I stumbled downstairs and pulled the dutch oven (heh. heh heh.)out and noticed a bit of spillage on the bottom of the oven. "Aha!" thinks I in my sleep deprived state, "I will just press ye olde self cleaning button and be productive while I fitfully while away the remaining hours." Did I mention that I made a double batch? And that it didn't quite fit in the dutch oven? There was a leeeeetle overflow when I put the lid on, and that was before I stuck in in the oven at 350 for 3 hours. Apparently, there was a tad more spillage than I originally noticed, because about 30 minutes later I was blasted out of bed by the ear piercing shriek of a dozen harpies, aka the smoke alarm. I scurried downstairs, flipped on the light and blearily looked for the source. Wasn't hard to spot as a veritable forest fire's worth of smoke was pouring from my oven. I turned off the oven, whapped a dishcloth at the closest smoke alarm and opened the back door, praying that this cloud bank of smoke would dissipate soon, Because I need sleep and I can't let the back door stand open all night long (insert appropriate Lionel Ritchie here). 40 minutes later I'm out on the deck in my jammies, eyes stinging and marveling at how clear the sky is at 2 am. Especially since I can't visualize my kitchen ceiling at this point. As the smoke coming from my oven was now white instead of black (did my oven just choose a pope?), I said screw it, closed the back door, opened a window and turned on the stove fan. And up to bed I went. That's what I get for trying to be efficient; sleep deprived and smelling like I've been camping for 6 months. Not to mention sending Crackhead into a neurotic fit that he didn't come down from for about a week.


Crackhead and Knucklehead McSpazatron have been shedding like mad, which is shocking as it it still usually 35-40 degrees around here and Crystal Mt has extending the ski season to June 21st. What the deuce? I, being extremely busy, not to mention excruciatingly lazy, have been taking them to the local Petco to get the grooming done. It is so worth it to me to pay 70 bucks to get these yahoos washed, fluffed and folded than to do it my self and have to spend the next weeks finding yet more hair in the boys' bathroom. They also trim nails which is a big deal in Crackhead's case because a) he's a Lab with thick, tough, black nails and you can't see the vein and b) he's a crackhead and I have not the barbiturates it would take for me to trim his nails. I got them back from the last outing and didn't notice anything amiss until I got them out of the Planet Killer and noticed the pool of blood Crackhead was sitting in. (Thank the good Lord once again, that I sprung for leather seats. w00t!) I couldn't figure out where this had come from; he wasn't bleeding when we left the groomers and it's only about 3 blocks back to the house. I employed my super nursing critical thinking skills and applied direct pressure (yeah, That was a lot of fun) and had FB dial up Senior Chief's Wife, she of the large menagerie and suspicion of all things medical/veterinarian. She should know how to stop this mess without aid of a styptic pencil, cuz, let's face it folks, how many people have one of those lying around? She actually answered (shocker!) but didn't know, so she employed the almighty Google. So thankful she was home, because my next recourse would have been to have FB Google and that would have just caused a shit storm of frustration. As it turns out, dipping the affected claw into cornstarch will help with bleeding. Great! That I have. So I direct FB to the pantry, top shelf, in the middle, and ask him to bring me the cornstarch and a spoon. I then ask him to get some on a spoon and hand it to me. This is the vision I see coming over my shoulder as I continue to try out for the WWE while I try to hold pressure on this dog's freaking claw:

Really? Did he think I was going to stick Dude's head in it? I mean, while being a crappy drawing, it is a fair representation of the scale of cornstarch to dog claw we're talking about here (not to mention my artistic skills. ENGLISH DEGREE, DAMMIT!). I have no idea why I made his foot look like the crone's hand in Snow White, but if you think it looks like he has hammertoe, that's because he does look like he has hammertoe.

He's a weird little duck.

I was in Target (surprise!) and heard "Hold It Against Me" on the PA, and I thought of this (which is the only reason I even know a Britney song):

Silly Marines.

The corpsmen and I were having a lengthy discussion of good vs. great movies, and of course this came up: (Sorry I can't embed; just clicky-click)

http://www.familyguyfiles.com/peter-hates-the-godfather-video/

"Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, I mean you never see.... ROBERT DUVAL!"

My new(ish) job has me back to 12 hour shifts with a rare, blessed 8 thrown in once in awhile.  Being a poor widow woman, I rely heavily on my mother and the graces of the local Boys and Girls Club for the kiddos.  This enables me to work long hours, knowing that my children are cared for and, more importantly, not performing unsupervised experiments on each other or burning each other in effigy.  The way this works is, my mother comes over in time for me to actually arrive to work on time, gets the kids off to school, and then they take a bus from their respective schools to the Boys and Girls Club for a few hours until my mom fetches them home again, jiggity-jig.  FB, despite being far too cool for this, can be relied to arrive at the Club albeit with much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.  SoS, on the other hand, looooooooves the Boys and Girls Club, and will often end up thereon my days off instead of taking the bus home.  Mind you, he is reminded which bus he is to take on a daily basis, which, in good nursing school fashion, he can repeat back verbatim.  Now, this child has a memory to rival Rain Man's.  He has, without consulting a map or signposts, gotten my mother un-lost from the woods.  It is a rare day he doesn't actually know what he's doing; I think we can agree on that.  Apparently, today he "forgot" and came home instead of going to the Club, where all activities are SUPERVISED.  An hour and a half later, my mother went to pick the boys up and found out, after FB searched all over the place, that SoS had never checked in.  She races to my house and the boy is outside, garage door up, bike and scooter out, Knucklehead McSpazatron staked out in the front yard, and my poor retired, neighbors out in their front yard, probably praying for someone to come home, for the love of SHIVA!  The neighbor had fixed SoS's scooter, more than likely got his ear talked off, SoS had staked the dog out because, "we hadn't done it in awhile, and (he) wanted to do it one more time."  I'm just glad he didn't let Crackhead out and ended up chasing him through the county.  Long, fervent conversations on safety followed.

In all the hubbub, my mom meant to make some dinner for the kids before SoS went to Scouts, but SoS's adventure threw off her schedule and they didn't have time to wait for the meatloaf to finish.  So, she left instructions with FB on when to take dinner out of the oven and got SoS McD's to go.  When she got home she discovered that FB had eaten 7/8 of the meatloaf and 6 of the 8 biscuits were gone.  He swears he only ate 2 biscuits and the other 4 must have been devoured by the dogs.  These are some talented dogs, peeps!  They were able to lift those four biscuits individually completely without disturbing the pan.  I'm going to have to hire these guys out for delicate micro-processor building. What is it about tweeners and teenagers that lead them to believe the adults in their lives have the IQ of your basic cabbage? 

There are a few things I should never do.  Let us first propose that most nurses are under medicated, OCD germaphobes.  As such, cleaning carpets is best left to the professionals, or at least, some method that does not allow one to view the product of the cleaning.  Because, right now, I'm debating whether I should demolish the house and just start over.  Frankly, if what I've seen the last few days is any indication. we are living in a disease ridden hovel, furnished in smut and dog hair. 

I actually started to write this several days ago and fell asleep in the middle of it.  I took it as a sign.  Of what, I have no idea.  


Just a small comment on the government shutdown that didn't happen on Saturday.  Being a federal employee in a health care setting, makes me an essential employee, and thus there was no hope of a furlough and I better show my face at work.  As I have noted to my father (who worries incessantly about me being a single working mother) I don't make a shit ton of money, but I make a LOT of money, and if I'm hurting it's because, basically, I'm an idiot.  Even with my predilection for all things Target, I have enough to meet my needs and most of my wants.  So, I'd have to use my tax return to pay for necessities instead of buying a Tempurpedic for my birthday.  Oh, gasp!  I'd have to wait to buy my luxury bed item.  My outraged stemmed from thinking about the troops in forward areas who wouldn't get paid, or even my poor little E1s to E3s, some of which have little mouths to feed, trying to live on half pay.  And good for Navy Federal who said they would cover the other half the paychecks for their members.  Awesome!  Until you realize, these people will get the retro pay, all in one lump sum I'm sure, get absolutely raped on the taxes and then Navy Fed will, rightly so, want their money back.  And so these poor kids will be back in the same boat.  Meanwhile Congress and the CIC, bitching and moaning about we're so sorry, we have no money to pay our service members.  Hey!  Here's an idea:  take a leaf out of Lee Iacocca's book (literally!) and pay yourself $1 a year salary until we're out of this hole.
/rant off

Okay, I just smashed my soapbox into kindling; so here's my theme song:

Talk about mudflaps, my girl's got 'em!

As I believe I've mentioned before, FB's bed is a captain's bed that requires great feats of strength and agility to make.  Why I thought this bed would be a good purchase was, no doubt, influenced by my having a six foot tall, 200 pound man conveniently located in my house at the time.  Since that is no longer the case, I dread making the damn thing.  For some reason, I only had one set of sheets for this bed, which required me to strip the bed, wash sheets, and remake all in the same day.  Which is more effort than I really want to exert in any given moment.  So, I bought new sheets.  Yay!  And this week I stripped his bed, and Voila!  I had sheets to put on it right away!  Now, to get to the point of this post.  So, I have this stupid HUGE mattress off the bed so I can make the far side of it before I flop it back on the frame and make the rest of it, and I'm sweating like a diabetic in a candy store from lifting, turning, stretching, and climbing over all the crap all over the room despite telling him 95 THOUSAND TIMES to clean his farooking room, and I'm getting all dreamy eyed about the smell of clean sheets when I look down and see, on my hormonal 12 year old's bedroom floor, one of my thongs.  And not the definition of thong from the '70s, mind you, my 2011 thong!  Of course, the rational, analytical part of my brain knew, knew, that it had been stuck to the sheets with static cling from the dryer and it fell off when I shook out the sheets, but for a split second that was drowned out by the reptile/monkey boy part of my brain absolutely screeching "WHAT THE HELL IS MY THONG DOING ON HIS FLOOR????"

w00t!

This Is My Anthem Lately.....Seriously.

The Cat From Hell has become extremely loving and sociable. After 11 years of his tyranny, I can't tell if he is on his way to The Happy Hunting Grounds or if he has finally made the decision to slay us in our beds in the dark of night.

Last week, when the kids were on Mid-winter Break, yet another excuse for teachers in our district to have a week off (and yes, Spring Break will be coming up in a couple of weeks, the kids and I went to Michael The Extremely Gay Hairdresser to get coiffed. Michael decided that we needed to start trending my hair into a blonde, chunky bob. And so he has started the gradual transition. The First Born only gets the very tippy ends of his hair trimmed, to maintain the cool teenage long hair look (heaving a sigh of relief that Justin Bieber has now shorn his famous locks) and the Spawn of Satan likes his hair military short, so, in his words, to avoid the need to scrub a lot to get his hair clean. This also precludes the need to comb, style, or really, manage his hair in anyway whatsoever. I am fine with SoS's hairstyle choices because he looks cute with his hair like that and if it gets too long he starts hacking into it with a pair of scissors. So Michael cut his hair to his specifications; not bootcamp shorn, but short enough to not cause any problems. I had this Monday and Tuesday off and worked Wednesday. SoS came to say goodnight Wednesday night while I was brushing my teeth and, as I leaned over to kiss him goodnight, I noticed some light colored spots on his head. Upon closer inspection, I realized that he had cut his hair to the scalp for a major part of the top of his head. Had this been the first time this had happened I would have handled this situation with some sort of decorum and calm. As this was the third time, in a year, I sort of, um, lost my shit, shall we say.

I yelled about how I had paid good money for a haircut just last week and why did I bother if he was just going to hack into his hair, why did he hack into his hair, he looks like an idiot, did he really want his friends to make fun of him because they will, I should just shave his head if this is what he was going to do and WHAT WAS HE THINKING?!? He in turn was bawling, he didn't know why he did it, he didn't want his head shaved and so on, so on, so on. There was a pile of hair on the bathroom floor, in the garbage and, for some reason, all over the toilet. I stomped downstairs and got the clippers, stomped back upstairs and bent his head backwards over the sink while I shaved him. The clippers need to be sharpened and they caught on his hair, pulling his head back as I went along his scalp. With every pull SoS exclaimed, "Ow! Why does it hurt?" I pointed out that if he had left well enough alone, he would be pain free and in bed by now. Because of the havoc he wreaked, I had to shave his hair down to the point where he no longer looked as if he were suffering from a bad case of mange. Which, is to the scalp. Meanwhile the First Born is taking a shower behind us and out of the corner of my eye I see him get out of the shower, dry off, and, without making eye contact, slink into his bedroom to get dressed. He then came out, brushed his teeth, said goodnight, and went straight to bed without our usual conversation about not reading in bed after I have declared lights out. He was just trying to avoid being caught in any crossfire, I'm sure. Mama was lit and he was toeing the line to avoid my notice. SoS got into the shower to rinse the hair off, got out and tried to explain his position. Unfortunately for him, I wanted to part of any words coming out of his mouth, dried him off in a manner that may have removed skin and then made him find his scissors while I stood there and continued to vent my spleen. This is when I noticed the piles of hair in the bedroom as well. Personally, I think my children will require therapy at some point in their lives. The only question is how soon and on whose insurance.

Stolen from Outlaw 13. But a pretty cool watch.

Things were a bit lightweight today (avoiding the word that dare not speak it's name, you see.  I still have to go back tomorrow), so I thought I'd actually indulge in trying to update my training record.  Which contains exactly two items.  My refusal to bow to the demands of the man continue!  One item I needed to complete was "Immunization Training."  Apparently, nursing school and twelve years of direct patient care holds no water with the DoD when it comes to believing that I am competent to give an immunization.  But hey!  I get 15 Continuing Education Units when I finish!  Yay!  Totally not worth it when it took 7 hours to complete four out of the eight pre-tests, modules and post-tests that I am required to go through and place in my training record of suffering. 
Here's a verbatim quote from module on anaphylaxis:

Most people who have esperienced an anaphylaxis reaction will want to prevent it from happening again.

MOST people??  So there are people out there who love the thrill of anaphylaxis?  The swelling, the rash, the the difficulty breathing is as good as a bungee jump to these people?  (Reminds me of that bastard 10th dentist who doesn't recommend sugar-free gum.  Is he trying to pay off his Tuscan villa by promoting dental caries?)

During the influenza module I was reading about transmission and the following conversation ensued:
Me: "Children spread disease like wildfire; they're bug factories."
Anonymous Resident: "Especially those immunocompromised kids.  Those little bastards can shed forever."
Me: (maniacal laughter) "I have to write that down.  That might even be a blog post.)
Anonymous Resident: "Can you refer to me as 'an anonymous resident'?"

We all have our light and dark, our yin and yang. I'm just not sure if everyone else's are as wildly divergent as mine. I can swing from borderline freakish OCD at work, to horrifyingly stereotypical Gen-Xer slacker-from-hell once I hit the sweet, sweet chaos of home. If I have a patient with more than one IV line, I look like a squirrel on crack gathering the last known nuts for winter as I untwist, untie, and un-macrame. I am completely focused on each line being separate and identifiable from bag to hub, including labeling every pump and port. And then, then I can relax.

My slacker-from-hell persona usually shows up during sone kind of cleaning activity. Specifically, my broiler pan. I have a love/hate relationship with my broiler pan. I love the ease of broiling, but it can be a pain in the ass. If you spray the pan with nonstick spray, you have to be careful not to spray anywhere else because then you broil the spray into a sticky mess that is hard enough to cut glass and requires a sand blaster to clean. And if I don't use cooking spray, the meat us pretty much spot welded to the broiler by the marinade, sauce or it's own tasty juices. So, I'm then stuck soaking, scrubbing and swearing at the broiler until it's clean. Sometimes, I scrub until it is as smooth and shiny as the day I first laid a piece of succulent beef on it. (mmmmmmm succulent beef.) The flop side of this is that I think to myself, "Self, these suckers are 15 bucks max at Target." And then I go dump it in the trash in blissful satisfaction without the need to clear the SOS soap out from under my nails.

Where am I going with this? I broiled up Bamabi the other day and have finally decided that the broiler has soaked long enough. I just need to decide which me I'm going to be. Tough decision. Perhaps I should sleep on it some more.

He just got his Tenderfoot badge in Scouts. And this is what he wore to his Court of Honor.  Obviously, I was at work or this shit wouldn't have happened.  It's like only wearing your thong and push-up bra during your wedding.  Jeez.

Okay, one more!

Those are some screaming little chickies!

I've been working like a dog non-stop, my house is trying to implode on itself and I have a tweener who still can't grasp the concept of turning in his homework on time.  Is it any wonder I forgot to send my niece a birthday card (with moolah!  Oh, well, she'll forgive me.  Because there will be moolah!) and forgot to write a post about Elvis' birthday!  Good grief this is becoming a habit!  So here, another of E's songs from that luscious '68 comeback special.  Yum-O!  (Put any connotation on that "O" you would like, there!)

So Tuesday I didn't have to go in to work until 1100.  It was an actual sunny day here in the PNW (quite rare in the winter, you know) and I thought it was going to be a good day.  SoS missed his bus and I had to take him to school, a dog got out and I had to chase him around the neighborhood, I was then running late, hurried out to get in the car, twisted my ankle on a kid shoe that wasn't put away, fell and hit my head on the furnace.  By the time I got to work, I not only had to park by the helipad (which is so far from the hospital that you have to call an ambulance to ferry the patient from the actual hospital to said helipad.  Seriously.), I had to park so far away by the helipad I thought I was going to be in the Sound with little wavelets lapping at my running boards.  And that's before I set foot on the floor.  The rest of the week has been equally disturbing.