Verbal Incontinence

2012-01-21T22:50:00.000-08:00

Living with boys is so bizarre. They smell. They do incomprehensible things. They smell. How can someone come out of a shower and smell as bad, if not worse, than when they went in? How can their bedroom be fresh and clean smelling when they go to bed and smell like the mouth of hell in the morning? I keep a can of air freshener beside FB's room, so that, if I have to enter, I can hose it down first just so I won't keel over from the boy smell. We've been going through a period here where they can't seem to lift the ring on the toilet to go to the bathroom and then end up peeing all over the seat. Now, first of all, I demand that the toilet lids be shut at all times because I hate the look of the inside of a toilet, and do you know what gets aerosolized and floats onto your toothbrush??? Yuck. And whether it's true or not, just yuck. The point being, they have to lift the lid anyway, how hard can it be to lift the seat as well? Especially since I've been drilling it into their heads since they were potty training. So, now I make them come back to the bathroom, completely clean the toilet, and threaten them with sitting down to pee for the remaining time they live in my house. You'd think it would sink in a little better than it has. They are usually better for a few days and then I start to see some backsliding. Usually when there is important video gaming is to be done.

2012-01-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

When we came on shift this morning there was a drawing on the white board in the physician's room depicting a rather large laceration and repair that had occurred during a recent delivery. In order to put everything into perspective, all landmarks are represented; i.e. anus, vulva, tears, umbilicus, etc. This same white board is in full view from any position in the nurse's station. The particular tear that was being discussed was a midline laceration that extended bilaterally into the sulcus. Or sulci, perhaps in this case. I am orienting a nurse to our unit who has OB experience, but not recently, and she mentioned she had never heard the term "sulcus." So, I took her into the physician's room and explained the repair, pointing out the landmarks as points of reference, as in "The little starfish looking thing is the anus." Several hours into the shift, I wondered aloud if maybe it was time to erase the illustration as I was tired of looking at that anus all morning, and my orientee volunteered to be the one to clean up the board. A few minutes later, I noticed this:

Yeah, she left the anus, just for me.

Today was an incredibly slooooooooooooow day. Six postpartum couplets and not one triage. Not even a triage phone call. None. Nada. Zero. Zip. Nolla, Nothing. Knitting runs rampant at the nursing station and one of our female corpsmen was teaching another how to knit, when she stated she couldn't remember what was "knitting" and what was "purling." So, I clarified by stating, "knitting goes in from the front (meaning of the stitch) and purling goes in from the back." Which wasn't a problem until the 17 year old boy living inside me kicked in and I started laughing hysterically. When relaying this story to the night shift crew, one said, "So if you don't have a partner, does that mean you're crocheting?" Hilarity ensued, much to the horror of the young corpsmen at the table.

2012-01-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

Hey! Yeah, remember me? I still live here! I can't quite commit to staying or going, posting or deleting the blog. I'm going to try to be more consistent and see if I have anything left to say. Not really sure why I started the blog in the first place, which leads one to wonder why I should continue it. I don't work in the 'hood anymore, so my access to outlandish stories from pregnant, coked out, drug fiends has been severely curtailed. Don't get a lot of those in Navy land. A combination of extreme fatigue added to formulating my nefarious designs on the Lawn Boy's body and virtue and my brain is filled to capacity and unable to process anything right now.

Best advice ever given:

2011-12-01T18:14:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-11-13T12:14:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-08T20:23:00.001-08:00

Source: stumbleupon.com via Katie on Pinterest

Rodney!

2011-11-07T21:18:00.001-08:00

Two more weeks! Booyah!!

And the apology. He really is very talented.

2011-11-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-10-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-10-16T22:37:00.003-07:00

2011-10-15T22:19:00.001-07:00

2011-10-12T21:33:00.001-07:00

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!

2011-10-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-10T23:04:00.000-07:00

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:?

2011-10-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

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.)

2011-10-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-02T20:29:00.001-07:00

2011-10-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-09-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

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

11 September 2001 - 11 September 2011

2011-09-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Nursing Makes Your Tongue Wrong

2011-09-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

2011-06-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-06-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-06-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

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....

2011-05-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

2011-05-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-05-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-05-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-05-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-04-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

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!"

2011-04-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-04-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-03-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-03-03T22:02:00.001-08:00

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

2011-03-03T21:55:00.001-08:00

2011-03-03T21:46:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-02-23T22:26:00.001-08:00

Stolen from Outlaw 13. But a pretty cool watch.

2011-01-29T20:20:00.000-08:00

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'?"

2011-01-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-01-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-01-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Those are some screaming little chickies!

2011-01-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

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!)

2011-01-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

Okay! That's it! With the celebration of FB's birthday (being today...I was a made a mommy 12 years ago today. Hard to believe. I don't feel 12 years older. And he looks 15. Whaddya gonna do?) the holiday food train has come to an official and complete stop. The leftover birthday cake will be looked at longingly and sniffed heartily, but no longer will pass down my gullet. The 4 gallons of ice cream sitting barely touched in my freezer will be touched by the children alone. (Why four may you ask? Because I was in the middle of the holiday food carte blanche that I extended to myself and they were buy one, get one free. There were three flavors I HAD to have and you can't buy three gallons of ice cream when it's BOGO...you have to get four. My logic is infalliable; don't try to debate me on this.) So have I spoken, so shall it be. Well, that's the plan anyway. I've indulged to the point my body is going to demand broccoli at knife point.

2010-12-28T17:53:00.000-08:00

I was tooling around Netflix adding more movies I have no time to watch to my queue when it struck me that Paul Walker is a fine looking man.

Those are some awful purdy blue eyes, and I really don't care that his gorgeous teeth are capped. It helps that he also looks like this:

Definitely would be hard pressed to kick that out of bed for eating crackers. Of course, my heart still belongs to Mike Rowe as long as we're talking about impossibilities. I don't know if anyone can match him for sheer snark and sarcasm. Not to mention I wouldn't get CPS called on my ass for grabbing his.

Has anyone noticed that Steven Seagal, renaissance man that he is, is still making movies despite working for a Louisiana Sheriff's department for the last 20 years? Or was filming up until 2009? Wanna know why you don't? Because, although he is a great shot, speaks fluent Japanese, and is a master in several martial arts, let's face it; the man still can't act. Wooden is an adjective that comes to mind. Not that I still don't watch nearly everyone of his movies when they come on the tube, but still. Can't act. And he thinks he's the recreation of a Lama or something. (No, not llama, Lama. He's not that nuts.)

I'm sitting here in a post holiday funk, waiting for pizza to arrive and for a phone call from the groomers stating that I can come fetch Knucklehead McSpazatron and Crackhead. They have been there since 1300. Apparently, although I had an appointment, it was walk-in day at Petco and they are not allowed to turn away walk-ins despite running out of kennel room, leashes, tie rings to clip said leashes to, and a 4-5 hour wait time for scheduled appointments to be done. I heard all this at check in. It seems the natives were a trifle displeased with management today. So now I'm sitting next to my cell phone, wondering if it is going to ring to come fetch them the same second that the pizza arrives, or if they can't get Crackhead cleaned up well enough because of the tsunami of spittle he has invariably filled the boutique with. ( He tends to drool when nervous. Looks like a Saint Bernard when he really gets going.) As it is nearly 6 pm, I'm starting to wonder if I need to call to see if everything is alright or if they've forgotten my phone number. And I still haven't started on FBs birthday, which is tomorrow. Tree is still up, decorations everywhere, and family room a shambles from the daylong Xbox fest he has indulged with his friends over WiFi. I just have to get through his birthday shenanigans and I am starting the "Campaign of Fitness." I let myself have WAY too much leeway this holiday season, and with still not being able to run or put a lot of stress on my knee, that has resulted in some dastardly after effects. Yeesh. I'm going to have to cover all the mirrors in the bathroom in shame.

Castra Praetoria: Twas The Night Before Christmapocalypse

2010-12-25T16:06:00.000-08:00

America's 1st Sgt is serving in Bahrain these days (yes, the same Bahrain as my Bardy Hardys!) and I just had to link to his Christmas posts. They speak to me in a way nothing else would at this time of year.
(Just roll over the sentence below. For some reason I can't get my links to highlight. Stupid links.)

Castra Praetoria: Twas The Night Before Christmapocalypse

Makes me weep softly into my pillow in gratitude.

Here's a little PSA he posted as well:

A man after my own heart. I too may be indulging in a zombie movie or two this Yuletide evening.

Merry Christmas my loves!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!! Thank Goodnes For The Kegels...

2010-12-11T00:03:00.000-08:00

Prenatal Pole Dancing DVD from Christina Applegate

"And the cold pole feels good on my 'rhoids."

Testosterone Poisoning Is Making My Son Retarded

2010-12-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

The First Born has finally got his phone, DS, and computer privileges back after 2 long months. Now, had it been me who had lost the above mentioned electronics for not turning in my homework in an expeditious (or, really, AT ALL) manner, you can bet that I would be pretty diligent about getting my little ducks in a row. Not this yutz. Today's homework conversation went as follows:

Me: "Did you have homework to turn in today?"
FB: (Looking all around, mumbling incoherently and generally irritating me) "Not really."
Me: "What does that mean? You either did or you didn't."
FB: "Well, she....um...see....I didn't...um...."
Me: "SON, did you have homework last night?"
FB "Yes."
Me "Did you turn it in today?"
FB "No. She didn't ask for it."
Me: "When she gave you the assignment, did she tell you when it was due?"
FB "Yes."
Me "Was it due today?"
FB "Yes."
Me: *crickets* "Then you should have turned it in whether she asked you for it or not, because it was DUE TODAY."
FB: "Oh."

What makes this conversation most frustrating is that it is not the first, or even fifty-first time we've had the same conversation, only with minor variations.

I've been making peanut butter balls because it's time to make such things. I hate Christmas baking. You'd think that I'd enjoy it more since it only comes around once a year, but that is not the case. As with putting lights on the tree, I am a surly misanthrope until I get the bulk of this crap done. Seriously, some day, I'm just going to say, "Let's go to Caymans for Christmas" just so I can enjoy this stinkin' holiday. But my point was not to blather on about my Grinchly attitude. That is for another post. No, I'm still on the boy not being able to think his way out of a paper bag secondary to toxic testosterone poisoning. I was making said peanut butter balls (you remember them? I was talking about them right up there, see?), and dodging Labrador lips at the same time, because Crackhead hasn't yet figured out that I mean STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN when I growl it at him 25 times a minute. Unlike Knucklehead McSpazatron, who so obediently lies by the couch and eyes me like a vulture wondering about the sick lion. It was time to go get Spawn of Satan from the bus, so I said, "FB? I'm going to the bus stop; keep an eye on the dogs so they don't get the peanut butter balls." As I received assurance that he would guard the peanut butter balls like his own, I went to the bus stop, which is only about 500 feet from the house, by the way. I wasn't gone an eternity for the love of Mike! (Mike? Mike Rowe? *sigh*) SoS and I get back and the dogs are locked in the office with FB. Ingenious! I think. The boy is using his noggin to make sure that the PBBs are safe! Then I hear, "Mom? The dogs pulled the peanut butter balls off the counter, but it's okay; I put them back." I was greeted by a counter full of mushy, slushy, LICKED peanut butter balls. And that child thought everything was A-OK. I'm about to have him tested.

December 7, 1941

2010-12-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

2010-11-29T22:10:00.000-08:00

I am in severe lust with Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs. He's snarky, sarcastic, articulate, and has a great singing voice. Ain't bad looking either.

Wonder if I could make him leave his amazing, beautiful girlfriend to be swept off his feet by a cranky mommy of two.....

2010-11-29T19:07:00.001-08:00

I just found out Leslie Nielsen died on Sunday...that's what I get for working so much. In my mourning, I will now watch Airplane non-stop for the next 6 hours.

2010-11-27T23:08:00.000-08:00

The mama llama went to Idaho for Thanksgiving and, since I had to work this weekend, the boys went to stay with my niece. The lack of children running around, combined with me leaving the house at 0600 and not returning until 2030 or there about, not to mention my overwhelming fatigue from being extremely busy and my normal status insomnia, has resulted in household goods not being put back where they normally would be. There is clean laundry all over the coffee table, mail stacked on the kitchen table, and cedar chips from the dog houses on the deck all over the floor by the back door. I didn't realize how far I had let things go, however, until FB came into my bathroom to say goodnight after the boys got back home tonight. It wasn't until after he left that I hoped he's either really oblivious and/or extremely tired, because otherwise he couldn't have missed the fairly large purple penis sitting front and center on my vanity between the sinks. Poor kid is going to have scars if he survives being raised by me.

Awesome. Awesome Day.

2010-11-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

You ever have one of those days where your brain just can't connect the dots? Where tasks that should be mere muscle memory become like a monkey doing a math puzzle and even those that know and love you want to call you Blonde? Everything I did today had me feeling like a complete airhead. I was near to asking someone to blow in my ear so I could get a fill up. I don't know if I am more sleep deprived than usual, suffering from the effects of sunspots or incipient senility, but I had problems today.

One of the nurses came and asked me to evaluate her patient who was a post-op C-section with calf pain. I went to the bedside, queried where the pain was, what it felt like, if she had been wearing her TED hose and SCDs, felt for heat, unequal swelling and checked for Homan's sign. All were negative except for pain with gentle palpation. I looked at both of her calves and they didn't appear to be any different in size/swelling, but, being the experienced high risk obstetric inpatient nurse I am (with the certification to prove it...HA!), I measured both calves. And I measured them again. And then a third time. Then I did equal measurements on both legs from ankles to knees. Now this was a large woman. Her calves were nearly the size of my thighs, but I knew, just KNEW she couldn't be measuring 460cm on her right leg and 420cm on her left. They didn't look that big or that different. So I measured again. And got the same result. The clinical picture didn't fit the imperial evidence. Hmmm. Nonetheless, I paged her physician and told him of my findings. He said, "There is how much difference between the two?" I repeated my findings, adding, "I measured three times. But she has no, and I mean NO symptoms other than the slight pain. " He said he would be down in a few minutes. I hung up and my synapse fired. I realized that since this tape measure was different from the one I'd used for the last 12 years, something was amiss. Back I went to the room and re-measured, this time looking closely at the numbers and realizing the line for the centimeters is where the decimal point would go. So what I was reading as 46(line)0 cm would actually be 46(point)0 cm. Could I be a bigger asshole? Or a bigger airhead! I knew what I was seeing and what my brain was perceiving could not be accurate. (lets not get into me not saying, "gee, this doesn't look like an abnormally long tape measure...say one 4 meters long."). Holy crap. I'm retarded. I beat cheeks out to the phone, re-page the doc and clarify my findings. He replied, "I was hoping you read that wrong." He proceeded to call me "460" for the rest of the night. There are worse nicknames, I guess. And at least it wasn't the middle of the night that I unleashed my stupidity on him. I still can't wait until his ass graduates in July though.

Then, I came home to find my flag wrapped around the outdoor light fixture and the pole bent, tinfoil that the dogs got out of the recycle bin in the pantry chewed up all over the carpet, and a house at 53 degrees and a non functioning furnace. So here I sit, blogging in a house only 10 degrees warmer than the November night with the gas fireplace trying to warm my children as the emergency furnace fixer guy tries to get me heat so at least my pipes won't freeze. Again, awesome. Awesome day.

ADDENDUM: That no good, lousy, waste-of-space, ain't-worth-the-powder-it-would-take-to-blow-him-to-hell, motherfucking contractor of mine screwed me over AGAIN! There is water in the bottom of my furnace from his half assed fitting job on the vent pipes. There's not supposed to be water in the bottom of my gas heated, electronic ignition furnace you fuckstick!! Yet again, I have been Corey'd! That's what I'm going to use in place of the f-bomb from now on: "Oh, Corey!" or "mother-corey-er!" If it wasn't worth dragging his ass to court and the ensuing fees after 8 years in this house, I'd have to do it. Shitballs.

2010-11-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

Once again, working in the medical field gleans a cornucopia of unusable knowledge. We nurses were sitting around in the nurses station during a brief lull; the flurry of brand new dependents had ceased, charting was caught up, and no corpsmen had to be severely beaten around the head and neck just for the hell of it. In short, a peaceful moment. I was contemplating my next course of action with my patients, including how to keep a wonderful woman with a repeat c-section without Duramorph because of a "soft" morphine allergy and only marcaine and fentanyl spinal, and without a post-op PCA, from climbing the walls all night as she had to deal with that major abdominal surgery without long acting narcotics in her spinal or a button of love to push as needed when I heard, "How the hell would anyone know it was JESUS' foreskin?" As you could imagine, my head broke the sound barrier swiveling on my neck to see just from whence came such a query. A colleague is finishing her degree and one class, apparently, required her to investigate religious artifacts and relics and their meaning to the flock. Why this is important in a nursing degree, I have no idea. It seems that the Latern Basilica in Rome has the Holy Foreskin as one of its relics. During the Middle Ages there were reports of up to 18 different foreskin relics around Europe. That seems a bit much for an eight day old infant, even if he is the Son of God. Apparently, various miraculous powers have been attributed to the Holy Prepuce including it rising into the heavens and becoming the rings of Saturn. Also, it expands when held near a virgin. We all began to make comments sacrilegious, blasphemous and all manner of other ous-es, until it was decided that we were getting a little off the chain. Although, we all agreed that "hey, I have a miraculous foreskin." is the pick up line of the century, hands down. There are pages and pages of Google results on this particular subject, so even though I haven't given the Savior's foreskin any thought at all, many people throughout history have.

In keeping with the strangeness of the topic, another colleague informed us that there is a Museum of Menstruation in Washington, DC. The website claims, "discover the rich history of menstruation and women's health!" No thanks, my history is more than enough.

There Aren't Enough Drugs In The World

2010-11-05T19:24:00.001-07:00

FB's bed is a wooden captain's bed. Loft type bed with drawers underneath; you get the picture. Being made of wood, it squeaks with every movement and it is very apparent when the boy is restless and having difficulty settling to sleep. The other night I was downstairs and I became aware of squeaking above me. The squeaking had a pattern...it was rhythmic, if you will. RHYTHMIC SQUEAKING COMING FROM MY SON"S BED. I began to hyperventilate and turned up the volume to drown out the sound of my worst nightmare.

A few days later my mom dropped them off and said, "I walked into the bedroom last night and I don't know what FB was doing, but he was acting awful guilty."

I will now go to my happy place and live in a state of denial for the next 10 years.

Wowzers. I Don't Need To Think I'm Pretty That Badly....

2010-10-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

The thing about working in labor and delivery is that we are extremely open to talking about lady parts. And where I am now at Small Military Hospital, we talk openly about lady parts even when the poor 19 year old corpsman are around. Hey, this openess will more than likely make them more sensitive to their future significant others' needs, so really, we are performing a community service. Don't ask me how this came about, but one slow day we were talking and someone asked, "Well, have you seen that vulva jewelry?" I thought she was talking about Vajazzling, which has been around for awhile, but I think is kinda dumb. And ouchy. But no, she was talking about this on Etsy. Holy crap.

From the page:

Celebrate your own beauty. Each piece is an original, one of a kind, hand sculpted image of its owner to remind her that regardless of what the world and the people in it may tell her: she is beautiful.

So, apparently you send this person a picture of your vulva and she makes a 1.6"x1" pendant that you can wear for a night on the town or cleaning stalls, the choice is yours. My favorite part is where she says that if you are not comfortable sending a picture, you can just describe it. I'm thinking anyone who is buying this hand sculpted image of their vulva to wear, isn't going to have a problem sending a picture. And if you don't send a picture or a description "you will receive one of our beautiful flesh-toned Vulva pendants." So you could just be walking around with some anonymous vag around your neck. I guess that could be less embarrassing for some.

"Is that an original, one of a kind, hand sculpted image of your vulva on a chain????"

"Well, no, it's not my vulva. I actually don't know to whom it belongs. I'm just wearing it "

One would think this page was one of those freaky one-offs that show up on Etsy every once in awhile, but as I was searching for the page to make this post I found a plethora of Etsy vulva art, arranged on one page for your convenience.

2010-10-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

So, I survived my great Middle Eastern adventure. Not that I had concerns regarding my destination, it was more that I wondered if I could survive 18 hours in the air without hurting myself. Or my fellow travelers for that matter. Why do some women dress for air travel as if they are running a special on massage services at at "gentleman's club"? I can think of nothing more uncomfortable than being wedged into a coach seat next Skippy The Incredible Snoring Fat Man unless it was being wedged there in a micro mini, 4 inch stilettos and showing off the twins to the extent everyone knows them on a first name basis. But that's just me. Personally, I had on a pair of capris, a lightweight shirt, a hoodie, and a pair of Keens. Given a chance I probably would have worn my damn jammies, but contrarty to popular belief, I do have some social graces. The hoodie happened to be FB's because as I was scurrying around trying to get out of the house and to the hotel before the airporter left my ass (and I made it by *that* much only because I pulled in front of him and frantically waved, refusing to let him leave without me), I could not seem to locate my dignified, adultish hoodie. I grabbed FB's and spent my trip hunkered in this thing with the punk ass graphics. Ah well, at least I was warm on the plane.

Dana Delaney, when she was filming China Beach went to Viet Nam for a visit and said the heat "just hit you in the crotch and all you could think about was sex." Obviously a different heat from Bahrain because that heat hit me with a full body slam and all I could think about was air conditioning. Of which there was plenty. Usually set at 45 degrees below the coldest place on Earth. So, despite being in the Middle East with temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s, my punk ass hoodie and I spent some quality time together.

About a week before I came home we had gone to bed and my cell phone rang. What? I looked at the display and it read "FB's Middle School." What, what what??? Answering cautiously, the man on the other end introduced himself as the 6th grade counselor and he would like to speak with me regarding FB. I informed him of where I was and he replied, "Oh, then I will send you and email; would that be okay?" Yes, please, because this short minute is going to cost me $300 dollars. I got up the next morning, wrestled the Nav away from the Drudge report, and logged on to my email. 6th Grade Counselor had done what he said and so I opened said email and read, "I would like to talk to you regarding FB." That was his message in its entirety. Unfortunately, I had gotten that much from the 14 seconds on the phone the night before. And it's not as if I thought he wanted to discuss some other 6th grader. I took a cleansing breath and sent a reply requesting a little more detail, if it wasn't too much trouble. Apparently, the school was concerned regarding FB's academic progress. When I got home this is the conversation FB and I had:

Me: "So, how is school going since I was gone?"
FB: "Great!"
Me: "Good, good. So getting your homework done?'
FB: "Yep!"
Me: "Getting good grades on it?"
FB: "Yep!"
Me: "So, no problems then?"
FB: "Nope!"
Me: "Your guidance counselor called me while I was gone. Why do you think that was?"
FB: *crickets* "I don't know."

Luckily, there is this wonderful thing in our school district called Parent Portal where you can log on to the school website and, not only see your child's assignments, but their grades as well. And his were, in a word, DEPLORABLE! He was getting A's in Global Adventures (sounds like something in special ed) and PE. The rest were Cs and below including, (are you ready? because I wasn't) an F in Language Arts. Do you want to know how bad it chaps the ass of a mother with an English degree for her kid to get an F in Language Arts? There isn't enough Boudreaux's Butt Paste on the planet! Now all of these grades are the result of his lazy ass not doing, or not turning in, his homework. His in class classwork show As; he's just being a turd. So we had a fulfilling discussion about grades and his future (including such inspiring phrases as "I don't even care that you're crying! You SHOULD be crying!") and he and his phone have parted ways until I see some serious improvement on them thar grades. Jeez.

2010-09-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

This working thing is really puting a wrinkle in the ol' bloggin'. There are a few posts that have been running around in my head for a while, and if I don't get them down, they will just float off into the dark, cobwebby corners of my mind, and then forget it! No way I'm going over there without a MLB regulation sized bat! I went to get the Glittery Hoohah electrocuted the other day. I just realized I shouldn't call it the Glittery Hoohah, lest readers, all 2 of you, think that I've been engaging in some Vagazzling. Fear not, friends! My September issues have not grown to such proportions that I would stick crystals on my girly parts, thereby rendering the Glittery Hoohah a GLITTERY Hoohah. I can't see where there is anything comfortable, or aesthetic really, about this for anyone. They have to get in the way. Although the dragonfly was cute. But if they are going to post pics, they might want to stick to chicks without razor burn and stubble. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, back to the electrocution.... We were well into said torture(that I willingly pay for. I know: shut up whiner), when I felt a rumbly in my tumbly. Oh, this can't be good. Really, can there be a less opportune or socially acceptable place to float an air biscuit? I think you would be more readily forgiven for cutting one loose on a first date in an enclose car, or ripping a loud one in the middle of your wedding vows than during an aesthetic procedure such as this. And due to the nature of said procedure, there is no way to tighten your cheeks to keep it in until the feeling passes. No, you lay there, praying and sweating like a supplicant in front of the volcano, promising all manner of behavioral and lifestyle changes that you don't intend to keep, if this moment will just faaaaaaddddddeeeee awaaaaaaaayyyyyy.

You may remember this post I wrote a year and a half ago. Well, look what happens afterwards:

I was born where?!? Yer kiddin'!

Mr. and Mrs. Hardy were naughty, but the results are cute.

Look at that face! Although, that's the same look his dad gives me when he calls me a "retarded jackass."

Those Who Cannot Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It - George Santayana

2010-09-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's been nine years. In the ensuing nine years, since our view of our world and ourselves changed, have we gotten a little removed from the event? Do we look on it, even in the little time that has passed, as an event as remote from our daily lives as Pearl Harbor? A tragic event that shaped us, but is so far in our history as to not effect us? I believe it continues to shape us; it's an event that causes our future to be incredibly fluid, more so than it might have been otherwise. The images from 9/11 are harsh and still shocking. Seeing them again is like being back on that Tuesday morning, in tears and shaking that such a horrific tragedy could happen. Not just here, but anywhere.

I wish they would make Ground Zero and the field outside Shanksville national monuments. I love the pictures of the twin pillars of light reaching high and brilliant into the night sky. I wish we were not violently changed nine years ago, but since that is futile, I hope we never forget.

Are You Sure This Isn't Skinamax?

2010-09-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

I saw this on in a patient's room on network TV at 1130 in the morning. It's almost uncomfortable to watch...I kept thinking I was going to get busted for watching pr0n!

2010-09-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

My friend posted this on FB and I had to repost it everywhere because it made me laugh. Mostly because the Cat from Hell is named Sylvester and this is the same attitude I get from him every freaking day.

First Day of School 2010 edition

2010-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

6th Grade Thug Life:

When did this kid get so enormous?

2nd Grade Cuteness:

He wasn't too excited....

FB in Idaho

2010-09-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

FB spent a week in Idaho with Fun Uncle Chris and the Best Aunt and Cousin Ever. Reminiscent of the summers of my youth where our parents would turf us to our grandparents (11 miles from where FUC [ha!] lives now) for a few months. There we would say goodbye to Grandma at 7 in the morning and she wouldn't see us again until dinner. Sometimes we'd roll around for lunch and grace her with our presence and whatever smells we happen to be exuding at the moment. We ran wild and free; fishing, swimming, biking, growing up. So my bro sent some pictures:

They swear that's a foot and a half long corndog from the fair, but I have my doubts. The least offensive guess I have is a deep fried Geoduck.

FB enjoying a massive jalapeno filled hamburger. Apparently, he hammered this back along with a big order of curly fries and more than one soda. Oh, to be a growing boy.

FB and the Cuz on the beach cruisers, preparing to ride into town. I bit my tongue about the lack of protective headgear. He spent the week with the Cuz (formerly known as PChinkins..now lacking the chins) riding all over the town like some pedal power bike gang. I would like to point out that, despite FB wearing the same thing, these pictures were not taken on the same day. And that I sent him to my brothers with more than his swim trunks and a single shirt.

This may be the closest he came to bathing all week:

My bro assured me they were in the water everyday, and that he took that opportunity to keep FB as clean as the dog. After his shower the night he got home I asked him how it felt to be clean and he said that he had taken a shower that morning. When I said that was because his uncle knew better than to send him home to me without one, he replied, "Aunt Ardie wouldn't let me out of the house unless I took one first." Which frankly, makes more sense. My brother wouldn't have cared if the entire complement of passengers on the plane would need to be revived after being overcome by the miasma of funk from my boy, but the SIL is a little more philanthropic.

I'm not dead! I feel happy! I feeeeel haaaapppy!

2010-08-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

No, contrary to how it appears, I have not shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. It does appear that I channeling a serious amount of Monty Python, however. I've started a new job....actually, it's the same job, it's just in a different locale, and thus entails an ass ton of different protocols, paperwork, etc, ja niin pois pain. (That there is Finnish, is pronounced "ya neen pois pine" and means "et cetera." I'm in a strange mood; sue me.) More about the job later (like how I'm winning friends and influencing people, namely an anesthesiologist, by pulling an IV he didn't think was running well enough [it was BTW] after he started another one. What? She was an uncomplicated section. And I hadn't had any Pepsi yet. So I had a brain fart that would have caused even anesthesiologists that know and love me to question my skills. Let alone one who doesn't know me from some chick off the street. Whatev...)

Steve's biological father sent me a nice wad of cash, which he does on occasion in, what I believe to be, an exercise in redemption for being such a dick when his kids were little. He wanted me to do something fun with the boys so I bought this:

It came in three separate boxes with a total weight of 286 pounds. The enclosure poles alone weighed 174 pounds. I thought I was going to rupture something dragging those suckers into the backyard. It took me three days after work to put this sumbitch together. The trampoline itself was no sweat; legs and frame snapped together and the mat was fairly simple as well despite 96 tension springs and "help" from an overexcited 7 year old, which resulted in some of the said springs getting hooked a little off kilter and needing to be unhooked and then re hooked in the proper place. Do you know how hard it is to unhook a tension spring after it has found a home? I was sweating more than virgin in a cat house. The enclosure poles were an exercise in torture. The bottom and top half of the poles had to be joined, then the top and bottom foam padding had to be put on, then you had to put this big, blue vinyl condom on over that, and put on these notched top caps. (There was much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth going on, not to mention some more blood, sweat, an inkling of tears.) To attach the poles to the frame you had to hold these 20 pound poles about 2 and a half feet of the ground while attaching them with three U rings. They were so kind as to include one of those cheapo, flat wrenches that are completely useless, and my children had decided to get into my socket set for some reason known only to themselves, despite threats of a fatwa if they mess with my tools without asking, and proceeded to lose the ONE socket I could use. So, I attached all eight of these poles with a little open end wrench. Much cussing ensued. Senior Chief's wife called in the middle of this and when FB told her I was putting up the trampoline she asked him if he were helping or hiding in the house. My friends know me oh so well. And FB laughed when she asked and not because he thought she was joking. Putting up the net involved a step ladder, bungee cords that had to be hooked to the top of each pole, weaved through the net, hooked on the frame, and then a nylon tie was wrapped around all of that, and tied on the bottom. EIGHT FREAKING TIMES!!! Next time someone sends me a bunch of money, I'm spending it on cookies and Pepsi.

The boys seem to enjoy it, however.

Yeah, I don't know why it's not right side up, and I'm too tired to figure it out. Besides, keeping your brain engaged will help ward off Alzheimer's. In parting, while I was hugging SoS goodnight he informed me that he could see down my shirt and he was lookin'. As you see, nothing changes here.

Angel Flight

2010-07-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

Watch through the backstory, get to the song and listen to the lyrics. With the drive to get the Runyon Creek Bridge named after Patrick, this seemed apropos.

Captain Patrick Brian Olson

2010-07-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

Patrick was my friend Kristin's older brother. As a fairly shy transplant to North Carolina, I did not know Patrick well. But through Kristin I knew he was a great big brother. Through the friends I made that had grown up with Patrick I knew he was a generous and loving friend.

Kristin and Patrick with their grandparents

(photo courtesy of Kristin Olson)

Patrick played football all three years of high school; a member of our celebrated "Chain Gang" who won the conference championship in 1982. (And peeps, you don't know football until you know SOUTHERN football.) He also wrestled all three years. We were a 3A school and most everybody was a multi-sport athlete. During this time, Patrick spent three years on the Student Council and in the Interact Club, as well as an officer in the National Honor Society.

(photo courtesy of Washington High School Packromak 1983

Washington, NC)

He attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. (Quite a climate change for a North Carolina boy!) and married the love of his life, Robin.

Patrick and Robin, senior year

(photo courtesy of Washington High School Packromak 1983

Washington, NC)

(photo courtesy of Air Force Academy Heritage War Memorial site)

Patrick was a 25 year old 1st Lieutenant when he flew an A-10 in Desert Storm. From the Air Force Academy's Heritage War Memorial site:

"Captain Patrick B. Olson died on 27 February 1991 while on a combat mission in Saudi Arabia supporting Operation Desert Storm. Olsen was piloting an OA-10 aircraft and was directing other warplanes toward Iraqi tanks. He had a call from Army troopers who believed Iraqi tanks were about to pull an end run on their position. Olson threw his Warthog's 57-foot-6-inch wing almost vertical to the ground as he banked sharply to aim at the Iraqi armor. Gunfire erupted around him and hit his aircraft. The damage was serious and Olson tried to land the aircraft. He was inches from putting down on a sand airfield when his OA-10 flipped over. He did not have time to eject."

Patrick in Saudi with what his sister called "that goofy mustache."

(photo courtesy of Kristin Olson)

What this does not say is that Patrick flew his Warthog on one engine and no hydraulics to a friendly base and that his landing gear collapsed and the A-10 cartwheeled.

The point of this post is not only to highlight a home town hero, but also bring a petition to your attention. This petition was started to encourage the City Council members in Washington, North Carolina to name a new bridge on River Road after Patrick. In the last few days, due mainly to Facebook, the number of signatures on this petition has grown from 30 to 158. Please consider visiting the petition and adding your name. It doesn't matter if you have no ties to Patrick, Washington, North Carolina, the Air Force, the NCDOT, or really, even me. (I know it's hard to believe I said that, since I espouse that it is really all about me!) Please add your signature to honor a fallen hero and to help us all remember Patrick.

I'd just like to add a commentary by one of Patrick's former squadron members from the Air Force Print News Today:

Selfless Service

Commentary by Lt. Col. Dean Lee
87th Flying Training Squadron commander

2/10/2009 - LAUGHLIN AFB, Texas -- Have you ever sat down and really thought about why you joined the military? Perhaps it was to get education benefits or to see the world. Or maybe it was to please a family member or to get away from a situation. Many join the military to gain a skill or just obtain a steady job.

Whenever I contemplate why I joined the Air Force, I think about a friend I made during my first assignment. His name was Lt. Patrick Olson, but we all called him "Oly". We both were new A-10 Pilots at Davis Monthan AFB and deployed to fight in OPERATION DESERT STORM. On one particular mission during the second day of the ground war Oly, a forward air controller, was calling in fighters to attack the hasty Iraqi evacuation out of Kuwait. I still remember that day.

The weather was cold and there was an overcast deck about 3000 feet above the ground. Oly had to fly in and out of the clouds to spot the enemy movement then pass the information to the fighters. One of the times when Oly dove below the clouds, enemy artillery lit him up and shredded his A-10. Oly was able to maneuver the jet back into the clouds and egress towards friendly lines. He had so much battle damage to his jet that he had to fly on one engine and the third backup flight control system.

He successfully maneuvered the crippled jet back to a friendly base, but he was unable to adequately control the jet during the landing and was killed in the crash. "Oly" will always be remembered for giving his life preventing hundreds of Iraqis from escaping Kuwait.

But the thing I will always remember about Oly was how much he loved serving his country. When they recovered his personal effects, they found an American flag in his G-suit pocket. He flew every single mission with that flag in his pocket to remind himself of who he was serving. To say the least, Oly personified our slogan of "Service before Self".

Ever since Oly's crash, I have always carried a flag in my G-suit pocket when I fly partly in respect for my long lost friend, but also to remind me of why I continue to serve in the military. Some days I forget and view my service as work, or just a job.

But I try to remember that we are "serving" in the military, not just "working" in the military. Oly served his country, and I want to be like him. Though you and I might not be flying combat missions everyday or heralded as heroes, I do think we can re-orient our perspective to remember why we are serving our country.

Because in reality, America is relying on us. We are public servants and have the privilege to serve. The next time we contemplate why we joined the military; let's remember heroes like Oly who gave their all so we could have so much. Whatever your reason for joining the military, Let us all unite as we provide "Service before Self".

(Patrick was posthumously promoted to the rank of Captain.)

2010-07-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

What's this? Oh, this is where the microwave used to be. Yeah, don't worry about that.

What? Oh, this is just the scorched and blackened interior of the microwave. No need to worry.

Yeah, this is just a continuation of the previous photo. Heed it no mind.

That? That's just the round plastic thingy (it's an industry term) that the glass plate for the microwave is seated on. Why does it look like a charred marshmallow? Well, it's a funny story.

I came home from work yesterday and, as I hit the door, I thought, "Something smells like it burnt." I came in the house and my dear babysitter greeted me with what has become her standard mantra: "The only thing that happened today was....(insert minor catastrophe here)."
Apparently, contrary to my strict orders and house rules, SoS decided to make popcorn by himself. Unfortunately, because he is not allowed to do this, he is unaware of the existence of the handy-dandy "popcorn" button, that enables you to push/cook/done. He put it in for, what he assured me, was "74." Seconds, minutes, hours, months, who knows, but 74 was the magic number. The babysitter told me she cleaned it out as best she could, and despite the molten mess in the bottom, "I put the plate back in and turned it on and it still works." I could win an Olympic medal in keeping my countenence as my brain screeched, "You turned ON the fire damaged microwave???" Teenagers. What are ya gonna do? As soon as she left, I broke out the screwdriver, removed the microwave and escorted into the garage. While my house no longer has "eau de Yellowstone wildfire" wafting through it, the garage is heady with the scent. I left this morning with instruction that the boys were not to touch the microwave. Nor were they to hammer, dissasemble, drop, kick, smash, crash, mutilate, or staple it.

So this afternoon I was greeted with, "the only thing that happened was FB put the wrong soap in the dishwasher and there were bubbles everywhere. No water, just bubbles. But I cleaned it up." It's going to be a long summer.

2010-07-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

This is the sweet art project my son did. He's a lover. He's also the one who, yesterday, did this:

SoS: "Grandma! Smell my hand!" (holds closed hand up to her face)
My Unwitting Mother: "What did you get into?" (as she smells his hand)
SoS: "I FARTED!" (laughs maniacally)
MUM: "Why would he do that to his Grandma?"
Me: "Because he knew his momma wouldn't fall for that."

He is also getting even more obsessed with boobs, if that is humanly possible. We were snuggling on the couch, one of his favorite activities, when he looked at me and said, "Mom, I love you." Having said that, he then put a hand on each side and squished my boobs together. "What are you doing?"
"I like the way that looks." Yeah, well, you need to keep your paws off my person. Conversations about appropriateness ensued.

2010-07-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I came to understand how some parents cross the line. That line that separates discipline from abuse. It's because SoS has developed this habit of, how should I put it to not offend any one's sensibilities and to portray the true nature of his crime... he's been, well, FUCKING PISSING ON MY CARPET! Now, I have no idea if this is defiance, laziness, or a feeling of Lebowski simpatico with El Duderinio in our house, but it's ridiculous and needs to stop. He's done it several times and each time, it ends with tears and promises of not doing it again and GROUNDING, SEVERE, SEVERE, GROUNDING!!!! Last night I went in to check on him, as I knew he was probably reading instead of sleeping and, just as I opened the door, I heard the ending stream of pee hitting his carpet. FLAMES! SHOUTING! FEELINGS OF INSANITY! Seriously, I wanted to play handball with his head and then throw him through a wall. As it was, I jerked everything out of his room, off his bed and made him clean his carpet while I stood over him like a Centurion overseeing a slave on a Roman ship. All I would have needed was a cat o' nine tails. What could possess someone to start something like this at 7 1/2 years of age?? Except being possessed, of course. I went in to his room after he cried himself to sleep (while I'm in my room thinking, "Good! You should cry yourself to sleep!" Not my finest moment.), and I marveled at how I could love someone so much and want to beat them all week long at the same time. He will be the death of me, I'm almost sure of it.

Ever have a friend of your kid's that you just can't take? When my brother was in middle school my dad hated two of his friends; he thought they were little junior criminals. As it turns out, my dad is a psychic genius, because those two yahoos are in prison right now. FB has this friend that just seems to rub me the wrong way. He's a sweet kid, really, and polite..almost too polite. Almost, but not quite broaching that Eddie Haskell level of obsequiousness that turns adults stomachs as he tries to weasel his way into their good graces. Of course, the kid is only 11; give him time, he may reach the zenith of Haskell-ness. He's very imaginative and loves to relay his stories in great detail. Like, constantly. At some point, this kid needs to take a breath. And he really needs to stop showing up at my door at 8 in the morning.

Apparently, In My House Swimming Is A Blood Sport As Well

2010-07-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

Enjoy the Fireworks

2010-07-04T20:59:00.001-07:00

Fortes et Liber

2010-07-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

2010-06-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

I got my laptop FIXED!! Booyah! Well, let me put a qualifier on that. My AC jack is now fixed. The laptop itself is still slower than the second coming due to the extraneous crap that is bogging it down like so much sludge in the bottom of the septic tank that is my processor. And no, it's not porn. Just in case you were wondering. The Dell tech came to my house to fix it, which is always a little strange for me, despite knowing they are bonded. This doesn't mean they can't snap does it? Almost made me want to carry my industrial strength pepper spray in my back pocket when he showed up. He called and asked if it were okay if he were here between 10 and 11 am. I said it would be, but that I had a dental appointment at noon. At 11:30 he shows up, because he had been "stuck in traffic." Yeah, like I've never used that excuse before. I figured it shouldn't be a problem, because, hey! How long can it take to replace a motherboard? Apparently, longer than the 20 minutes he had before I had to leave. As he sat puttering around with his anti-static bracelet at my kitchen table, I was suffering paroxysms of anxiety to the point I had to run to the bathroom six times due to nervous pee. At noon (you know, the time I was supposed to be checking in) I checked to see where he was. As he was putting the keyboard back on, I called the dentist's office and told them I would be 5-10 minutes late. No prob. Except, when I hung up, I remembered I lived 10 minutes away. Crap. So I said to the Dell man, "I'm actually late for an appointment; would it be okay for me to leave you here and you just leave when you're ready?" He looked at little taken aback and said, "Well, yes, if you're comfortable with that." I thought to myself, "the kids are in daycare, the dogs are outside, if you find anything you want to steal, I'm sure my homeowners (and DELL) will be willing to cover it." So I buzzed my ass right on out of there. It wasn't until I was breaking the sound barrier on the highway that I realized he could very well be trying on my panties. Or, barring that since he was a big, fat man, sniffing them. ACK! What the hell, I'll just do a shit ton of laundry when I get home.

I have been slightly remiss in my bi-yearly dental appointments. I was sure it had been at least a year since I had last darkened the door of TM, DDS. And then, my little white-girl-with-dreadlocks-tooth-fairy-helper informed me that we hadn't done xrays since 2005. Erm...then when was the last time I was in here? 2006???!!!???? Holy crap! It's not like my dentist is this guy:

I had to endure much chastising from the Hygienist of Guilt, about how it would probably take more than one appointment to clear the gunk off my teeth, and I shouldn't be surprised if my mouth was completely fucked up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ha! Little did she know, I am blessed with the ability to bullshit my way through a concept paper 15 minutes before it's due, and the teeth of a goddess; no matter how much I ignore the "floss twice daily" command. She was praising my dental hygiene so much, I thought there should have been a choir of angels behind her.

I've been on vacation the last week..not that we went anywhere. Originally, I had taken the time to go to my father's family reunion. Which they have every FREAKING year. Really? A year isn't enough time for me to miss them that much. And before someone comes down on my ass about being a cold hearted bitch, not that I'm denying it AT ALL, you have to understand my dad's family reunions. He, his remaining brother, and his sisters (who can't spend three days together without getting a tad..um..cranky with each other) sit around and tell the same stories. At one time, like 30 years ago, my cousin and I decided that we should assign each story a number and then they could just call out the assigned number and we could get the reunion over in half the time. Good, yes? The last three years the reunion has taken place in a YMCA camp a few hours away from Denver. The family got a deal if we committed to three years. Unfortunately, Colorado suffered from an infestation of the Pine Boring Beetle, or some other damn boring insect, that killed all the trees at this camp. Beautiful vista? Not so much. 50 acres of kindling, that's what we have here. Not to mention, we sea level dwellers find it difficult to perfuse anything at that altitude. Lungs, brain tissue, heart, it's all cyanotic. So I spent my time forcing my offspring to help me get below the first level of grime/detritus in the house. Yay! Who needs Disneyland? We have Baseboardland! And Swiffer-up-the-animal-hair-ville. Whee!

Today, to celebrate my last day on vacation, I mowed the lawn and then decided to clean my couches. I have leather couches, just like I have leather interior in the Planet Killer, because I have children and dogs. And children. Easy clean up and usually no staining, even when it's black Sharpie marker. And yes, I know that from experience. I usually have a pretty practical eye when it comes to furniture and furnishings. I knew, for example, when I married the hubster one of the first things that had to go was the pedestal kitchen table with the 800 pound glass table top that was secured with 4 little suction cups. I knew this because I got pregnant about 14 seconds after we got married. All it would take is the curtain climber crawling up on that thing and presto! Flounder baby! Unfortunately, I have periods, as we all know, where I am freaking RETARDED! What kind of carpet do you want in your new house? How about oatmeal colored Berber? Yeah! That will be great, especially when I add two kids, two dogs, a cat, and everything that comes with them. Same with the couches. Did I get brown? Did I get black? You know those colors that would hide crayon, Sharpie, DIRT? No, I got Oyster Shell. Oyster Shell is a cream color with a hint of a pinkish tinge. Just the thing for a family. And it's not like these are couches that are in the rarely used living room that one might sit on twice a year. No, these are the couches that have been lived on, slept on, eaten on, you name it. You wouldn't think it would be hard to pick the right kind of couch for the right kind of situation. You know what I'm saying: don't buy a microfiber couch if you plan to have sex on it; don't buy an Oyster Shell colored couch if you plan to take it off the showroom floor. Anyway, I'd been thinking that I should clean these suckers for some time, but I was stopped by, well, sheer laziness, really. It's a pain in the ass to clean these sonsabitches. One is 8 feet long with recliners on both ends, the love seat is regular size with recliners as well, and they are kind of poofy with the cushions. Makes them comfy to sit/sleep on, but, seriously, pain in the ass to clean. To make this easier, I decide to use the Kirby vacuum. It is an extravaganza of attachments. I'm almost sure it could launch the space shuttle if I hooked up the right tube/handle/head. I slathered the couch with leather cleaner, started up the upholstery cleaner head and Great Hera's Ghost! The filth! I'm almost inclined to let friends and relatives know they should get swabbed for MRSA! How the hell did these things get so disgusting. Apparently, I have macular degeneration.

Michael-The-Extremely-Gay-Hairdresser decided that he liked the blond highlights in my hair, and so he decided to make me ALL blond. Wowzers. I feel downright Barbie-ish. Good thing I'm so down to earth, otherwise it might go to my head. I'd buy a condo, a corvette, and start having an unfulfilled relationship with a sexually ambiguous metrosexual.

Michael has quite the menagerie in his backyard. I noticed a Stellar Jay and the following conversation ensued:
Me: "That's a huge Jay!"
MTEGH" "Yeah, I call him BJ. BJ bobs up and down. And he comes when I call him. He can swallow one nut while holding another in his mouth."
Me: *snicker* *snort* *choke* *snerk*

Didn't Know Longboarding Was A Bloodsport Didja?

2010-06-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is without the road rash on his side, forearm, elbow, hand, knee and shin. Go big or go home as I always say.

What Did We Do? Is Our Town Bad? What Have We Done?

2010-06-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

Yes! Two, count 'em, TWO days of sun and above 60 degrees! w00t!

Light Posting Haiku

2010-06-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

Broken Laptop waits quietly
Useless with no way to charge
I sulk

Out of warranty
Expensive daycare
Damn frugality

Dell IT help
Indian accent
pushing upgrades

Extended warranty
On credit account
Need new motherboard crap

Horrible flop sweat
Waiting for tech to come
I hate desktop

Want my wireless life back
Missing my laptop motherfucker
I sulk

2010-06-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Dear OB triage patients: If you have sex in the morning, at some point the after effects will leave your body. This is normal. One would have thought this is something that would have occurred to you, at least after the very first time you had sex, if not before 24 weeks in your gestation. Please do not be surprised when we tell you it isn't amniotic fluid; but fluid filled with flagellates. And please stop bringing your flagellates to my attention because I just see that as bragging that you're getting some and it makes me jealous. Which will cause me to say snarky things at the nurses station. I'm just sayin'.

2010-06-15T21:44:00.000-07:00

If Blogger decides that it actually is going to work tonight, this is a video of FB's belt test in Tae Kwon Do. He had to break board with three different kicks; so of course the only video I get of him is on the board he needed two tries to break. He usually breaks on the first kick in class, so naturally he requires two kicks in front of a Grand Master judge. (And no, it wasn't Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five. Although, how cool would that be?)

Speaking of FB: Every year his school has a science fair. All students are encouraged to participate, but 5th graders are required. They know from the beginning of the year that this is something they must do. FB, being his father's son, decided on a project about a month before it was due. He decided to throw paper airplanes through a fire and see how long it would take for them to catch fire. Was this an approved topic? He assured me it was. Is your teacher nearing retirement? He didn't understand the question. I bought the requisite tri-fold presentation board for him to begin preparing. A week later I found it behind his door, bent with holes from the door stop. He started his presentation on Word like so: "Question: I wonder what would happen if I threw a paper airplane through a fire? Hypothesis: I believe it would catch fire and burn down to ashes. Because paper catches fire easily." Oh, so this is the "No Shit, Sherlock" science fair. I harangued him in my maternal manner, "What kind of paper are you going to use? What style of airplane? What are the variables going to be?" His answer to everthing: "I know. I will. I am." etc., etc., ad infinitum. Two days (yes, I said TWO DAYS) before his project is due, he and his friends are outside with a pie plate full of debris, lighting it on fire, and throwing paper airplanes through it. Acrid smoke is billowing through the neighborhood because they have picked fresh cedar boughs to try to alight. After many failed attempts to get these planes to light, I asked him if he knew what his problem was. He decided that maybe he needed a bigger fire (oh, yeah, I'm sure the neighbors are on board with that). The hemming and hawing went on for several minutes before I pointed out that his hypothesis was wrong because the planes had too much velocity to ignite just flying through the flames. He concurred and the night before the science project was due he used black duct tape to patch his presentation board, cut out the sentences from what he printed from Word, and .....that was pretty much it. I figured, live and learn, he'll see what his effort bring him. What I forgot is the whole "don't crush their little spirits" attitude of this school, because they gave him a "B". A freakin' "B"!! Although he only got half credit on presentation, organization and some other "tion" that escapes me right now. I asked if he were okay with his presentation. He said yes. I pointed out the 50% scores. He said, "But I got a good grade." I then waxed poetic, and apoplectic truth be told, on effort, work ethic and values of grades. The words "half assed" may or may not have been bandied about; I can neither confirm or deny. The end result is, he now knows that a hard earned, worked your ass off "C" will triumph over a half assed "B" any day in this house. Hard as it is to be the daughter of a nurse, being the son of a woman raised by an engineer is probably much worse.

SoS had a book report that required him to build a "riddle vest." What the hell? Does no one do normal things anymore? Then again, how much did I enjoy handwritten, stand in front of the class book reports when I was in first grade? Or, you know, ever? So, he did his book report on anteaters. He was very cautious about his clues because he didn't want to give it away on the first one

Yes, he chose "It eats termites" because "It eats ants" would have been such a gimme. After the class guesses what it might be, he gets to turn around and show the answer

And that there, as I'm sure you will agree, is an accurate depiction of a giant anteater. The hearts connotate his love of the aforementioned termites.

We were in the car this afternoon when a song by The Police came on. FB, being my son, was immediately reminded of a quote from a cartoon.
FB "Cheese it, it's the FUR."
Me: "I think you mean the FUZZ."
FB: "Oh, yeah. Cheese it, it's the Fuzz."

Speaking of this afternoon, I had to rush out from work to get my mammy's grammed. This place makes me a little nervous as they are the biggest bunch of Boob Nazis I've ever met. The first time the gave me shit about how they recommend that a baseline be done at 35 and not 40, despite no literature to support that recommendation and my lack of access to a time machine to transport me back to my 35th year. Yeah, well, I'm not 35, so I hope you can adjust and move on. Then they hassled me about skipping a year. I argued with them for a little while that I was 40 at my baseline and now (at the time) I was 41 which is NOT skipping a year. Until I realized that since I was only 2 weeks away from turning 42 that I technically had skipped a year. I was due in February, so I was wondering what kind of mayhem was going to ensue from that. What with them getting all up in my business about my menstrual cycle, birth control preferences and family history, they were too busy to notice that I was a little late. Then she asked how often I did self exams. And, just like when the dentist asks how often I floss, I laughed at her. Why do you force me to lie to you? We both know that even if I say "every few months" it's a giant falsehood. I check my scrub pockets for pens every day I work, isn't that enough? It's pretty vigorous. C'mon. And can I just say, what the hell? It's the 21st century. We should have flying cars, fetal monitors that actually work, and a better way to do this test. And one that doesn't require jewelry removal, because that shit itches.

I got a phone call from my neighbor inuring as to whether I had gotten a new dog, or if everything was all right at my house, becuase there was a lot of continuous barking. It seems dear Dude, likes to while away the hours while I'm at work, by giving voice to whatever thought enters his head. Uh oh. I went to my neighbor across the street, he of the long time dog ownership, to see what he thought of bark collars. When I mentioned that Dude was apparently, a little loud, he nodded and said, "Yeah, we were wondering if we should talk to you about it." Oh great! I'm THAT neighbor! The one with the dog you just wish would shut the FUCK UP! Like the dog that used to bark at my dad when he pulled into the driveway, of OUR house after a long day of work. Stand in front of his dog house and bay at my father in his own driveway. My father enjoyed this so much he started carrying one of the BB guns in the car and peppering the ground around it until it went into it's doghouse. Got to where Puppy (that was the name of this full grown dog, Puppy) would hear the ol' VW sqaureback pullin' in and would go into his house until my dad was in ours. I don't want to be that neighbor. So, I hope the collar is working, but no one has been around when I am to ask. But, no phone calls, or "courtesy" visits from the county sheriff, so I guess no news is no jail time.

Cartman Cracks Me Up

2010-06-10T20:44:00.001-07:00

Argh!

2010-06-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

I just found out Godsmack and Shinedown are going to be at Pain in the Grass this year! And Iron Maiden and Alice in Chains are coming this summer!11!11!!1!Eleventy! And there is no way I have the time/money/babysitter to see all, or any, of these. Argh!

I was talking to Bad Daddy at work today about when to buy my ticket for my grand Middle Eastern extravaganza. Being of Middle Eastern descent and traveling to and fro as he does, he should know, yes? I explained that if I buy now and the prices go down, I'll be pissed. If I wait and the prices go up, I'll be pissed. Basically, I'll be pissed. When he found out how much the ticket is his advice was to buy it as I wouldn't find a better price. So, I guess I'm buying a ticket. Now I just have to figure out if I want to be extremely cranky at the beginning of my flight (very, very AM departure)or at the end (very, very, PM arrival the next day). What the hell, I'll be in the air and on the ground for layovers for 22 hours; I don't think cranky is avoidable. Firetruckin' be-yotch, anyone?

It's been hard for we poor PacNWsters since someone seems to have forgotten to dial the thermostat back from winter. Sitting at a nice 56 degrees for a June 10 kind of puts our knickers in a twist. Some adventurous soul decided he was going to glean whatever UV rays might be fighting through the overcast skies and rain showers today on our scoot-ward home from the daily grind. I saw him in my rear view mirror in his bright red convertible with the top down. (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, dude; have you seen the weather?) Hey, more power to you. He then pulled alongside me at the stop light and, from my vantage point high upon the Planet Killer, I glanced over. As I am sure we are all wont to do. AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! He had his shirt off! And he had moobs! Big, giant, MOOBS!! With nippies the size of manhole covers! Resting on his hairy beer gut! ARGH!

I was in Al's picking up a little of the moo juice (de-fatted and organic of course; there are more than enough hormones and cases of precocious puberty running amok in this house, thankyouverymuch!) and I noticed the turtledove cooings of a couple following me around the dairy case. Hey, young love. They can't help it if that kind of stuff makes me want to regurgitate a dinner from last year; I'm just not squishy like that. I grab the chalk water (so called by my father, the son of a dairy farmer, who still speaks fondly of ladling the cream off the top of the raw milk on the farm and eating it on his cereal) and come face to face with a, surprisingly, older woman and, what can only be described as Sasquatch's little brother. ARGH! Muscle shirt with an insulating layer of back/arm hair to keep him comfy in this inclement weather! ARGH! Get that guy some wax! A laser! Some Nad's!
Speaking of Nad's; Is it me, or is that the worst product name ever? Reminds me of the boys' inter-mural football team of our brother dorm my frosh year of college. Called themselves "The Nads" and gave some bullshit explanation of the name to circumvent the morality police (private religious university, remember} and then we all stood on the sidelines cheering, "Go Nads! Go Nads!" We were sooooo street!

Posting may be light until I get the laptop back from the emergency room. The AC jack problem ceased to be a problem. In fact, it ceased all together. I may need sedation until I get it back. It was and adventure trying to keep FB from turning reading my one of my least appropriate stickers on the way to the fix-it store. Namely, the hand in a peace sign with "Fuck Off And Die" written on the fingers. I'm such a good mom.

A Chicks Moment

2010-06-09T21:39:00.001-07:00

2010-06-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

I gave my kids Fig Newtons (all right they were Fig NEWMANS, but whatever)for dessert and they just did this whole bit...practically verbatim.

Jokes.com

Brian Regan - Serving Size

comedians.comedycentral.com

Futurama New Episodes

Ugly Americans

Funny TV Comedy Blog

I Love Rodney Carrington.

2010-06-08T15:45:00.000-07:00

My Ass Is Hot!

2010-06-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

I wish that meant that I had a bum countries would go to war for (damn you, Helen of Troy! Okay, I know that it was allegedly over her "beauty, " but I guarantee it had something to do with her ass). Unfortunately, I'm sure it's because I fried my tuckus in the tanning bed.

Well, That Sucks.

2010-06-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

2010-06-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

My house feels like a deleted scene from A Christmas Story, featuring the Bumpus hounds.

Sonsabitches! Bumpuses!

In related news; have you seen Ralphie lately?

Ow! And not because I shot my eye out! Go Red Ryder!

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

The New Man In My Life

2010-05-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

He's a sweet guy with a sweet face (although he looks like a crack head here). His former family didn't do much with him besides housebreak him (thank you sweet little 8 lb 7 oz Baby Jesus), teach him to sit, and crate train him. He has very few social skills and less manners. His favorite greeting is to give your salad a good toss. Not fun. But he does aim to please even if he won't come when you call him if you don't have a treat in your hand (found that out after chasing around the neighborhood for 15 minutes; definitely one of the top 5 on "what Dude needs to learn to get along with Big Momma Alpha Dog.")

His roommate is plenty pleased despite what he may look like in this picture:

Really, he's not sulking; he's exhausted and praying for bed. They've been playing (and trying to establish dominance) non-stop since Friday night. Poor Knucklehead McSpazatron is down right SEDATE at this point. Right now Bugs is stretched out on the floor chasing dreams and Dude is crashed in his crate snoring like a band saw. Bwahahahahaaaaa! "A tired dog is a good dog" is right!

This gentleman is not all that pleased with the recent turn of events:

As you can see, he is plotting my painful and violent death. Actually, both boys (two legged as well as four) know who runs the joint, and are pretty cautious about making him really angry. And he has yet to express his displeasure by pissing on the rug (cuz it really ties the room together), so I have no need to waterboard him into submission