Scuba Winding Down

Last Monday was our last scuba class. Admittedly, I didn't study as hard as I should have. I mostly read over the study guide. I had Nivens and Nightmare on, and their broadcast was distracting. All that talk of shaving delicate parts and whatnot.

At any rate, I go to my last class, which is classroom lecture, followed by the test. Some 85 multiple choice question test. As we sat in the little classroom, that weird guy kept clucking throughout the entire thing, but worse. This time, it was cackling. Periodically, he would call out letters, and then at one point, he started laughing. It even alarmed the children. The adults just had to work harder to ignore him. I resisted the urge to go stab his throat with my ink pen and toss him into the swimming pool.

I think it was safe to say that what his problem was had little do with ADD, and more to do with stuff that only Librium can help with.

Needless to say, I passed. And so did Stewie! We decided to strike while the iron is hot, and book our open water dive for next month.

Hopefully, The Clucker won't be in our group.

The Latest and Greatest Car Saga!

So, I still don't have my car back since it decided to host a car-b-q two weeks ago. I swear, I'm going to have to get it detailed just to get the smell out.

Anyway, the garage called me yesterday. The garage guy said, "Well, the good news is that is was a bad blah-de-blah switch and we can fix it."

Great! Oh, but wait, there's bad news. The announcement of "good news" always comes paired with "bad news". Like they have make sure you are aware of which is good, and which is bad.

Mechanic: Good news! It's a blah-de-blah switch and we can fix it.
Me: Good...er, what's the bad news?
Mechanic: That part is on back order.
Me: For how long?
Mechanic: Indefinitely. Chrysler has about 3000 of them on back order.
Me: So what does that mean???
Mechanic: It means you are going to have to go without headlights.
Me: I can't do that! I work nights, for crying out loud!!
Mechanic: Well, I was able to locate a used one for you.
Me: And?
Mechanic: It's going to cost you just under $300.
Me: Sheesh! Do they provide complimentary lube?
Mechanic: No, an oil change is extra.
Me: ...


So, it is agreed that they will put the used part in the car when it comes in, because used is better than nothing at all...especially since there are over 2000 other schmucks out there waiting for the same part.


The weekend rolls around, and I pick up the car on Sunday. I have working headlights, but no turn signals. While in Johnson County this wouldn't be seen as an issue, not having turn signals make me nervous. I call the shop on Monday to report my findings, and I can literally hear the mechanic deflate on the other end of the phone. I am told to bring it back to the shop the following morning.


Wednesday, I speak to the mechanic who tells me that another hard-to-find part they procured was also faulty, but they have found ANOTHER part, and it will be in two days. Magic!


Friday, I call the shop and mechanic tells me that the part came in, but it was the wrong part and we are now back to square one waiting for a part to be shipped from somewhere. Anywhere. He is as exasperated as I am. My only option is to drive my car around JoCo style and wait for the call that my Holy Grail of parts has arrived.


Which happened to be 30 minutes after I got off the phone. The mechanic is ecstatic that the car is now fixed and he can now get it out of his shop and I can stop calling to harp on him. I'm just happy that I will be getting my car back and I can quit borrowing Mom's car.

So, I picked it up this weekend. The headlights work, the turn signals work. However, my fog lights don't work because the multifunction switch doesn't have the turn-cranky option for fog lights.

I quit.

Damn you, Chrysler! Damn you to hell! For all those bailouts you just got, the least you can do is give me a new car that you don't make replacement parts for because you can't afford to because no one is buying your overpriced turds that break down once you get one mile away from the dealership. Not to mention you owe so much money, that your vendors refuse to make even one rubber band for you until they get what you owe, and other vendors won't even touch you because they know you have an aversion to paying your bills.

It's sad to think that I wouldn't have nearly the problems if I owned a foreign car. Which will probably be my next vehicle purchase.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.

A Night That Goes Downhill

Had scuba class again, and this time, it was all classwork. We worked on dive tables, went over gear...and overall good class. Save for that one person who kept chattering during the entire thing. I refer to it as "clucking"...where the words coming out of your mouth are just partial words, you don't make much sense, and it goes non-stop.

The guy came this close to having me go over and poke him in the eye with my ink pen. Stewie guessed he had ADD. I surmised that he was probably going to have a nurse-induced head injury by the end of our scuba training.

Afterwards, Stewie and I went to the Blue Grotto for beverages and snacks. Because it was a Monday, and later in the evening, it wasn't that crowded. We opted for a table inside. Ordered some food, and spent the rest of the evening chatting about life, scuba, lamenting relationships, work, and a host of other things that escape me for the time being.

The food was great. The ambience was great. The place was gorgeous. The establishment had a mod and trendy feel with coming off all douche-baggy. However, at the bar, a butterfaced blond wearing clothes that would have looked better on a Hannah Montana fan, was completely hammered and had wrapped herself around her boyfriend. When someone behaves so inappropriately at a place where you expect to see grown-ups behaving like grown-ups and not strippers, it's hard to hard to not look...but I found my eyes wandering over to her and her apparent disregard for decorum. Her eyes met mine a couple times and apparently thought I was going to make a play for her boyfriend, because then it got worse. At one point, she pulled up her shirt and flashed him (mine are bigger), checking his tonsils to make sure they were still there, and I think she may have started dry humping his leg.

At some point, he reached his hand up under her skirt. Maybe he was studying to be a gynecologist and needed practice. I don't know, and I don't care. I only hoped he would wash his hands thoroughly before touching anything else.

Now, I don't consider myself a prude in terms of sex and sexuality. On the contrary, I have pretty impressive freak flag. However, I come from the school of "Lady on the streets, freak in the sheets". There is a time and a place for everything, and playing Finger bang in someplace other than Erotic City...not cool.

Have some dignity and save that crap for a venue that doesn't serve food to it's patrons. Or at most drinking establishments in Westport....I hear they like that sort of thing there.

After we watched Skanky McButterface being carried out by her boyfriend (of the evening), we stayed and gabbed a little more with the other staff...all of whom witnessed the behavior, and admitted that it was standard for her. And that she was married. But the guy who was checking for pubic lice wasn't her husband.

This just gets better and better!

Other than the Porn Show, my experience at Blue Grotto was pleasant, and I would definitely visit again. The establishment can't be faulted because some of it's patrons might have the couth of Funkhouser's wife, so I'm sure my experience was an isolated incident (I hope).

At any rate, Stewie and I said our goodbyes, and we got in our cars. Mine smelled suspiciously like burning wires, and my headlights wouldn't turn on. Because I'm terrified of being in a burning car, I flag Stewie down and she drove me home. So, in the morning, I have to go take my car in the shop and hope they have it fixed by the time I have to go to work.

Electric work on a car is rarely cheap. I'll make sure to take some extra lube when I go to pick it up.

Meanwhile, I'll just hope and pray that it doesn't spontaneously combust in the parking lot.

AND I'll practice relaxing my sphincter muscles.

Under da Sea!

Well, so maybe it's more like Under the Swimming Pool.

I've always wanted to take proper scuba classes since I did a resort dive during a visit to Cozumel. A resort dive is basically where you get a 30 minutes crash course hitting the hot spots of scuba. Then, you go an do a dive that may be 30 feet underwater...tops. All while you are being led around by your "dive master" who has to babysit you because in 30 minutes, you can't possibly know what the hell you are doing underwater. Our "dive master" Pedro spent move of the dive staring at my chest. The other guy could have ran out of air, and I'm fairly confident that Pedro wouldn't have noticed.

At any rate, as crude a dive as it was, I was hooked on the whole idea of venturing underwater. I've been blathering about taking classes since then, but then life would always get in the way, and my plans would go back on the list of crap I wanted to do, whenever I would get around to doing it.

Recently, my friend and coworker Stewie and myself decided to pull the trigger and take scuba classes. She finally put foot to ass and now we are in the midst of learning what could be the most expensive hobby I have ever decided to take up.

First night, I was expecting it to be strictly classroom stuff, but found out at the last minute that we would be venturing in the pool. I was forced to shave my legs, which wasn't overly terrible when you compare it to the fact I'd been eating baked beans all weekend. I'm sure the bubbles and the smell would distract from the fact that you look like the missing link.

We strapped on 1000lbs of gear and ventured into the pool. Now, when I say I'm not a mouth-breather, I'm not making a statement that I don't belong in the unwashed hippy demographic. I breathe in and out of my nose...usually. Scuba demands you become a mouth breather because your nose is holed up on some mask that fogs up every two minutes because chlorinated water and diving masks are not on speaking terms.

Mask on my face, I pop the regulator in my mouth and submerge. I immediately have a small panic attack and am hyperventilating underwater. Apparently, I'm not alone as my entire class is producing copious amounts of air bubbles. The instructor observes that we are using our air at an alarming rate.

The second night is strictly pool time, and I do much better with the breathing. However, the water is cooler for some reason, and everyone is blue by the time the class ends, some 3 hours later. We learn the art of jumping into the water from the side of the pool while packing a bazillion pounds of gear. It doesn't help that we carry some extra weight to weigh us down because some of us are more buoyant than others.

Boobs float. Who knew!

I also discovered that I have the talent that enables me to jump out of my fins and leave them on the side of the pool.

The instructor (cute but unfortunately married) is somewhat of a hardass. I can appreciate it, though. Scuba is one of those things that if you miss the smallest detail, you drown. He gets annoyed when our attention strays, so I try not to piss him off. I get the impression that the guy has a fury you don't ever want to be the lucky recipient of. Sort of like mine.

Right now, I'm looking for a wetsuit that won't make me look like 20lbs of sausage stuffed into a 10lb neoprene wrapper. It's a daunting task as most wetsuits are designed for women who still have to wear training bras...even into their middle age. The world is not kind to women with large sweater kittens, unless you are a porn star. From what I understand, they prefer to spend most of their time writhing around on a beach naked, rather than going underwater to look at brightly colored fish.

Now, we are almost halfway done with our classes. Stewie and I are already talking about open-water dives, possible adventures we can go on. I'm trying to talk my mother into taking classes, and I think she wants to. I'm trying to talk all my other friends into taking classes. More than one dive buddy is never a bad thing.

Come dive with me! I promise I won't eat any baked beans before we go.

Recycling is Not Part of the Foreplay, But It's Still Important

Thanks to Keith for the link!!

Nurse Follies: FYI

Just because a friend is missing out on a hum-dinger of a party because they are in the hospital, DOES NOT MEAN you take the party to them.

If you feel the need to visit, a small group is fine...maybe bring some flowers or balloons. IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE to bring your party's alcoholic trough and set it up in the CONFERENCE ROOM. If someone else had seen that spread, and assumed it belonged to the staff, we would have CNN camped out in the hospital lobby.

I can see it now, Nurses Getting Sloshed While Caring for Your Sick Mother....details at 10.

And when we tell you that you can't have your party in our hospital, don't act all surprised like this is news to you. WHAT HOSPITAL ALLOWS YOU TO HAVE DRUNKEN FRAT PARTIES ON SITE?????

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!?!?1!?

The shallow end of the gene pool...I work there.

Spring Cleaning Arrives Late

With the moving out of Brother & Co, I have decided that now is as good a time as any to get my house in order. My family has set aside a date for a garage sale, so I now have a deadline to work towards.

I started with the garage.

After going through the boxes of crap that came from my old storage shed, I set aside a bunch of stuff earmarked for the garage sale. Lots of stuff from my younger days that I no longer need. I also pitched a bunch of stuff as well.

The sad part, is that after toiling all afternoon, I'm not even close to being done. Four days off from work (including a rare weekend), and all I have to show for it is a pile of old clothes, costume jewelry, and ugly picture frames.

So if you need me, I will be in the garage.

The Empty Nest

So Brother and Co. moved out Friday. I woke up this afternoon to a quiet house, Brother already having cleaned out the guest room, the nephew's temporary crib, and a few other items. The family had designs on staying in their new house Friday night, with or without their furniture. I think everyone was ready for this. Even the one-year old nephew was getting cranky from having to share a room with an avid Warcraft player and a shedding American Eskimo.

After I woke up, the house was quiet, seemed bigger, and a lot more empty.

All this means is that I can go back to sleeping naked again. Woo hoo!

On a more somber note, some of you may have read about the recent developments at the Harley Davidson plant. The Boomers are aging, and it appears they are the main driving force behind Harley's success. Everyone else (i.e. younger people) are buying less expensive bikes. So, unless Harley comes out with a line of motorized scooters, I doubt their sales will return to the pinnacle of their glory days.

At any rate, Brother was one of the many, many employees who were given their notices. Laid off...permanently. On the cusp of moving into a new house with a pregnant girlfriend. As worried as I am, they are unconcerned. They have a better idea of their finances than I do, so I will try to take a page from their book and not worry about it so much. Old habits are hard to break, I've been worrying about that boy since forever.

Also this afternoon, I woke up to an empty driveway. Meaning...Oprah was gone! Brother finally found a buyer for the truck. Finally! I did a celebratory dance in the vacated spot where the truck used to sit. Tomorrow, I shall lay down in the same spot and make dirt angels in the runoff that has accumulated in the year it sat there. My neighbors, who have had to look at that ugly thing as well, convinced I was single-handedly making their property values plummet, probably had a small stroke when they noticed the truck was gone.

Of course, with the eyesore of the truck being gone, you can't help but notice that my lawn looks really, really sad.

If grass were hair, my yard would look like Donald Trump's head.

The beautification projects around here are without end.

Dear Lord...

A new resident just told me that I look like her mother.

I have wine at home.

I think I will drink some in the morning.

You can come drink with me if you like.

Hey Stranger!

Yup, still breathing.

Things have been crazy lately. Brother and Co. moved in at the beginning of this month, along with Hank (who now tops the scales at 150lbs), and Vick (a terrier). Combined with my four-legged brood, there is dog hair everywhere, and the chorus of barks is enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

George is stressed out and losing clumps of fuzz.

Having the nephew around is handy. He started walking, in my house. He toddles around with his arms in the air, mouth open to a big toothy smile. He's cute, that kid. And he appears to like me. I kinda like him, too. His crib is in my office, and when he sleeps, I can't be in there because it distracts from his sleep. And he sleeps a lot. So, my computer time has been drastically reduced. I suspect to be homesteading more frequently next week as Brother and Co will be moving to their new and improved humble abode this weekend. Woohoo!!

I also like the baby momma. We've hung out, and I've discovered that she and I are a lot a like in temperment and attitude. Poor Brother!

I just observed my 5-year anniversary at work. Today, the Bosshole made a big production out of presenting me with my gift, which was a watch...to add to the 20 or so watches I already own. I can't complain...it was that or tools.

Nothing new in the personal life department. I still carry a torch for a certain someone, and we still talk periodically...sometimes on an intimate level. I get the feeling he is depressed, and it depresses me that he feels this way and I wish I could help. I don't like it when people I care about are unhappy...because I'm powerless to do anything. On a more amusing note, I became jealous when there was some flirting going on from a colleague, directed at him. (She, who so nonchalantly admits to cheating on every boyfriend she's ever had. Dating a girl like that is the emotional equivalent of putting your peener in a meat grinder...but it's not my peener.) I was amused that only a couple small words would illicit such a strong response from me. I generally don't get jealous. I just try not to give a shit. But I will admit to a powerful urge to reach over and punch her square in the cake-hole.

I may be an asshole, but I am still a woman, after all.

I did manage to book another cruise for 2011. Yes, it is very far from now, but I have all year next year to pay for it. Besides, I have a tentative trip to Vegas planned for next spring (No, I'm not getting married!), plus something else that I can't remember off the top of my head.

So, life is kind of a in a holding pattern for now. But I'm still breathing. Just so you know.

The Day Pop Music Died

Yeah, this is going to be another Michael Jackson post. You can add it to the million Michael Jackson posts you have probably read. I was, and still am, a huge fan of his music, so suck it.

When I was a kid, I loved Michael Jackson. LOVED him. I remember when I brought the Thriller album home. I would spend hours listening to that album, gazing at the album cover. In fact, I even had the Michael Jackson doll.

That's how far back I go.

For my generation, also known as Generation X, Michael Jackson's music was the sound track to our lives. He was the King of Pop long before the genre of pop became a punchline.

So, imagine my shock when I flipped on CNN last week to hear them talk about him being rushed to the hospital with cardiac arrest. My tingly nurse-sense told me that the outcome wasn't going to be good...but it was still stunning when it was announced that he died.

I never did buy into the molestation stories. So many things just didn't add up. But this post isn't about whether he did or didn't. Hell, I'm not even going to get into his apparent self-loathing, he inability to emotionally evolve into a mature adult, or even go into the fact that I think Joe Jackson ought to do humanity a favor and drive himself off a cliff.

This post is about the fact that so much of my young life was woven with his music that had nothing to do with how much money he made, what he drove, the bling he wore, and how many bitches he had. His music usually had a good message, and he didn't come off like a complete douche bag when he sang it.

To this day, his songs take me back to those days where I holed myself up in my room, reading books, writing stories, and daydreaming...all the while Thriller played on an old record player my parents gave me for Christmas.

To say that when he died my childhood died, would be a disservice because I left my childhood behind me a long time ago, and am painfully reminded of my adulthood every time I make my mortgage payment. But his death, to me, does make me remember the innocent girl I used to be, before horrible things happened...and when those horrible things did happen, I was always able to seek the safe confines of music for comfort. Michael Jackson was one of those safe outlets.
So yeah, I'm a fan of his music for a lot of reasons. And for those reasons, I do mourn his passing. Yes, he may have died a drug addict, but most celebs are shooting up something anyway, and no celebrity should be looked upon as something to aspire to. At least this guy actually contributed something other than beaver shots and bad reality television. It is possible to admire the music, yet pity the man who created it.

He died as strangely as he lived. His death proving to be every bit a circus that his life was, and it makes me glad I live in relative obscurity.

Hopefully he can find in death, what he could not find in life.

Tit For Tat

Yes, I read the response on Al Sharpton Lite's blog. To call it a blog is a bit of a stretch because it's on MySpace. Really? Does anyone of relevance even use MySpace anymore? Sure, I have one, and I may log in once every quarter for no particular reason.

But I digress...

Anyway, here is his ridiculous response to my tirade yesterday (I didn't edit for spelling and grammar...sorry):

I let the public hear what reporters & cops do unguarded.
Never did I mention race. Only those caught up in the tape and people from the
suburbs mentions race. They try to defend the people on the tape by saying that
people cope with bad thing with humor. I never said anyone did anything wrong.
However, if those murder victims were my relatives I would not have liked the
tone of the way these two professionals were acting. I hear about crimes &
get letters from killers who tell me in great detail how they kill people. I
don't joke about it. I blog about all crimes in the KC area. I have even solved
some crimes of people of various races. I just want to stop the violence.
Although, it is clear to me that this city cares less about the victims of from
certain areas. I can't imagine the tone of the cop & the repoter being this
way during the Kelsey Smith case. In fact I would put money on it. All the
people making judgements are defending their point of view. I never sad anything
about race. Listen to this blogger here. She attackes me for letting the public
hear the truth. I would not want cops & reporters flirting with each other
at anyone's crime scene. They should be doing their damn jobs only. This blogger
has never stepped out into to any community to make a difference. I bet you this
tape will change somethings. You see, I have the power to do that. People get
jealous of me for that reason. Say, what you will. When I am on TV things
happen. I don't just show up march, pray & leave. People hate that. People
can't handle the truth like this blogger.

~Sigh~

And therefore, I'm not going to argue the finer points of Al Sharpton Lite's humble post, because at the end of the day, I still feel good about what I do and that I don't need letters and accolades to know that I make a difference, his neighbors will still be laughing at him, and Alonzo Washington is still a giant douche.

I guess I should thank him. I got a whole five more hits today on my blog!!

Meanwhile, I will just hole myself up on my house, stewing in my big vat of jealousy...and laughing my ass off.

Nurse Follies: Our Defense Mechanisms

Tony of TKC posted a video of local activist and KC's very own fame whore, Alonzo "Al Sharpton Lite" Washington doing what he likes to do best...incite racism where there is none.

In a nutshell, he plays an audio recording between a police officer and a reporter at a homicide scene. The tone is jovial, light, one could say there are flirtatious undertones between the officer and the reporter.

I can't speculate on the reporter because she was more than likely trying to fish a hot angle for her story by acting more news model than news reporter. Instead, I'm going to offer defense to the officer for being so light about the situation. Alonzo speculates that the tone would be more somber had the crime been committed in a more affluent (i.e. white) neighborhood.

I'm here to say with authority, that it would have made zero difference.

Police came upon a scene with three dead adults, and one dead child. All were murdered. Now, I've never had to come into a murder scene, but I have been engaged in situations with dying patients that evolved in such a matter that doesn't constitute a "normal death process". To be more specific, exsanguination. I've also had the misfortune of seeing a child die during my nursing school rotation. I'm here to tell you, both things can leave someone scarred forever if they have no good way of coping with it.

A lot of times, we use humor to do it. Okay, so it's not your average David Letterman humor. Hell, it's not even humor no comic would dare touch. It's dark. It's dry. It puts our minds in a safe place so we don't go insane with the reality that screams, "OH MY GOD, AM I REALLY SEEING THIS! IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?? JESUS, HOW CAN I STOP IT? I CAN'T STOP IT!!"

From the outside looking in, an observer may think people like us as cold, callous, uncaring, but the truth is that we need our tools for coping so we don't go home and put a gun to our heads later. Sadly, not everyone who works in health care, law enforcement, first responders has developed these defense mechanisms. They either hit burnout and suffer a breakdown, harm themselves, or adopt a nasty addiction.

So, this cops flirts. Big deal. I'm sure it was a much welcome distraction from the fact that he had just seen a murdered 3 year old and 3 murdered adults. These are the things that stay with you, much like the face of that dead child from my nursing school days stays with me so many years after the fact.

We need to disassociate or we go insane.

In conclusion, Alonzo can just shut his pie hole about something he clearly knows nothing about and go back to what he does best: looking like a cheesey douche nozzle in front of a camera.

Gosh, It's Hot

I don't know how you mens deal with it. You're junk all on the outside of your body, getting sweaty and smelly and sticking to your taint. I bet it smells so bad, paint peels off the bathroom walls everytime you have to go.

That must suck.

Neda

I've been watching and reading everything on what's going on in Iran.

This...I just can't wrap my mind around it.

Very few things haunt me. This video is one of them.



My heart...

This just doesn't make sense...

I just can't...

She was sixteen...

Her father by her side...

Helpless...

The New Face of Shysters

Brother & Co have resumed their search for a home. They moved into a house this spring, with the intent to buy. The house was cheap, needed some work done, but otherwise appeared to be a good deal. The old bat who owned the home, was asking one price, and Brother was fine with it. Until the house was appraised for 30K less than the asking price. Brother & Co. told the owner that they would not pay what she was asking, as no bank would finance a house for 30K more than it was worth, and they resubmitted an offer that was more in accordance with the house's value.

The old bat blanched, stated she was not going to come down on the price. However, she was magnanimous enough to offer to finance whatever the bank would not on a ten year note.

Brother & Co politely declined and said they would find a different house, to which the old coont said she would just sell the house to someone who couldn't get financing through a bank, so she could get what she wanted for the house.

It's always heartwarming to know that there are people out there who will fuck over the less fortunate the first chance they get. I can only hope that people like this die a slow painful death at the hands of the most incompetent medical staff on the planet.

Anyway, Brother & Co. resume their search, and look at a couple foreclosures. In doing so, they have become well versed in the shark-infested waters that is known as Foreclosure Real Estate.

There are reputable Realtors out there. Like the one I used. Then, there are those Realtors who only deal in foreclosures. Reputable agents refer to these people as "bone collectors" or as I like to refer to them as "the ambulance chasers of the real estate market". They collect foreclosures like Paris Hilton collects STDs, then they play buyers, in hopes of squeezing every last dime out of them. Brother & Co. have had one bad experience with a foreclosure, and one with a short-listing, which is five seconds from becoming a foreclosure. These agents are nice, until they know you have a brain and can do you own homework. In fact, any of the offers they get, I'm fairly confident they don't submit to the bank until they get the offer that will garner them the most money. Brother's agent contacted one bank after not hearing anything from the other agent for an extended period of time, only to have that agent finally call and angrily berate them for "going over my head."

Some people, like the nasty old coont that owns the house Brother currently lives in, is still under the impression that they can get old market prices for their homes. The housing market is an entirely different animal. In fact, my house was just assessed at 30K less than it was 3 years ago...for a grand savings of $89 on my taxes. Bastards.

So, while Brother & Co. continue their search for their dream home, pre-certified letter for financing in hand, they are learning that this isn't a buyers market like they were told, but are at the hands of unscrupulous agents who are only out for themselves.

Meanwhile, they have to be out of their house by the end of June. At that point, they will be guests at Casa de Blather for a short spell until they do find a house that they won't get hung out to dry on. Three adults (one pregnant), 1 toddler, 1 cat and 4 dogs. I don't mind them staying. It beats having them being bled dry by the Wicked Witch of Raytown i.e. their current landlady.

Good thing I have a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

Taking One for the Team

This year, I signed up to do Corporate Challenge. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a two month event where companies compete in various events for points. I think the winner gets bragging rights, but who really gives a shit when you're standing around the water cooler with the guy who won the ping pong event?

Anyway, I signed up to do shot put. It was a new event, added this year. I used to do shot in high school. I used to be good at it. Besides, how many women would want to do this?

Hah! Only about every other employed person with a vagina who works in Kansas City, that's who!

Funny enough, my mom's company volunteered her to do shot put for her company. She, having never thrown one in her life, would be participating.

The day of the event, we drive to BFE Johnson County, where it seems like there is a hundred women who are going to do the same event. Just from overhearing conversations, I was able to surmise that most of these women threw in high school as well.

Ahhh, a chance to relive our glory days!!

They provided shot puts for us to use, but one woman brought her own. It left me to wonder, who the hell owns their own shot put????

Before I throw, the guy with the clipboard asks me what company I work for. I'm speechless for a moment because my company has decided the use the largest emblem possible on the front of my t-shirt, as showcased by my generous mammary endowment.

My knee was killing me, so I threw like shit, not able to do a proper approach. It didn't matter, because this Amazon woman shows up and lobs the damn thing halfway across the field.

Game over.

I overheard her tell someone that she was 35, and had been throwing since she was 9. Some girls play with dolls, others play with 8.5lb balls. Seriously. Maybe she should have been the one to show up with her own shot put.

Next year, I'm not going to throw. I've decided to try pool. Mom's got a pool table, and I have all year to hone in my skillz. Maybe by then, corporate challenge with add a crochet event. I'd totally clean house with that.

New Roomie!

I'm still breathing. I haven't fallen off the planet. Just so you know and in case you were wondering.

Since the exodus of Brother and Hank, Sam has been rather bored. I always knew I was going to get a second dog, but I waited for the situation to fall in my lap. I looked on Petfinder and nothing seemed to compel me. A coworker was going to give me her boxer, but her sons found out and quickly organized a protest, which was successful. I figured that would happen...there's something about boys and their dogs.

So, it was the circular at work that an ad caught my eye. Free puppies. Mom was a golden retriever. Dad was, who knows. I sent an email to the owner, and a week later, she got back to me. One five month old puppy left.

The next day, I met the owner halfway (she came from the west). In her truck, there was a shivering black puppy. Her first car ride ever, she was scared shitless. Having brought Sam, we introduced the two, and there was no bloodshed. So, I took her home.

Mom named her Lucy.

Because she was from a farm, and had basically been an outdoor dog since birth, she was covered in ticks, smelled like a cow turd, and extremely shy to people. I immediately bathed her, pulled most of the seed ticks off, and she spent the night in a new kennel.

I didn't bother her for the first couple days. She mostly followed Sam around, but ran away from me. With time, she figured out what her name was. Understood that I was friendly. The housebreaking and the crate training are coming along slowly. One night, she managed to take a big crap in her kennel and roll around in it. The smell permeated the house when I got home from work. That morning, I sprayed her off with the garden hose and used a whole can of Febreeze on the house.

Lucy apparently doesn't like my decorating, because she moves things around the house. I'll find things from the living room moved to the bathroom. Stuff from my bedroom moved to my office. Food and water bowl moved to the bathroom. She particularly loves to scatter my dirty laundry all over the house.

She also likes to sneak on the couch and make herself at home when I'm not looking..

I took her to the vet yesterday, and she weighs 2lbs less than Sam. I told the vet that I didn't know what the breed of the father was. Judging by some of her characteristics (like dual dewclaws in the back), the vet figured her dad to be a Newfoundland. As in LARGE-ASSED DOG!!

Great.

After a week of having her, she has warmed up to me. She doesn't run from me, unless she has something in her mouth that she knows she shouldn't have. Sam is now playing with her. She's a sweet girl, and will fit into the family just fine.

Pulling One Off In May!!

Did you know that May is National Masturbation Month? I'm sure I did in my subconscious somewhere, but somehow forgot. I know, I'm a terrible person.

But we do have a week left, so not all is completely lost.

I know what you are thinking: masturbation is bad. It will cause hair to grow in your palms. It will cause you to go blind. It will keep you in your mother's basement and reduce you to maintaining a blog featuring scantily clad women.

All myths! Okay, maybe except that last one.

All the taboos aside, masturbation is not bad for you, and will not land you in hell. It has many benefits:

For men:
— Strengthens the immune system
— Building his resistance to prostate gland infection
— Makes for a healthier prostate
— It cleans the plumbing.

For women:
— Building her resistance to yeast infections.
— Combating pre-menstrual tension and other physical conditions associated with their menstrual cycles, like cramps.
— Relieving painful menstruation by increasing blood flow to the pelvic region. This will also reduce pelvic cramping and related backaches.
— Relieving chronic back pain and increasing her threshold for pain.

For Both:
— The safest kind of sex, keeping you free of sexually transmitted infections.
— A great form of stress relief.
— A mood booster in releasing endorphins.
— A natural sleep sedative.
— A mechanism for building stronger pelvic floor muscles, which can lead to better sex.
— A natural energetic pick-me-up.
— Decreases blood pressure.
— It increases self-knowledge. If you don't know how to get yourself off, how can you expect your partner to always know how to do it?

Because it is a National Month, it is your patriotic duty to do yourself a big favor.

Hop to it!! Your nurse and Passion Parties Consultant says so!!!

Surviving Nursing School: Your First Patient

After mountains of prerequisites and enduring a waiting period of two-years because every other Tom, Dick, and Harry want to be nurses, you finally got into nursing school.

Hooray. For. You.

You get your list of crap you need for school...books, charts, other books to tell you how to read the nursing books that are written in some dead language, but you really get excited about the list of stuff you will need for clinicals. Clinicals!! It is the opportunity to get out there and get your feet wet. You get to show off those new skills you learned in skills lab on a practice dummy that can't tell you what an idiot you are for putting it in the wrong hole. This is your time to shine! You'll be so good at it, the nursing instructors will have no choice but to pass you after your first day, and recommend that you take your boards immediately!

Usually, you start out slow. You get one patient to take care of for a clinical day, which generally lasts 8 hours, but actually breaks down into 4 hours when you subtract lunch...and conference with your instructor before and after your "clinical day" where you dissect everything you managed to fuck up without actually killing the patient. The day before "clinical day", you go to the "clinical site"...which is just a fancy way of saying hospital or nursing home, to get information on that one patient that will be your charge for a total of 4 hours.

So, you get dressed up in your smart business wear, because you have to look professional when you go to piss off the nurses by stealing their charts to pour over for 3 straight hours, writing down all the information that is pertinent: diagnosis, past medical history, current orders, old orders, procedures, medications. If you're patient is relatively new, you struck gold. If your patient has been there since the invention of the foley catheter, you probably pissed off your instructor at some point, and this is their retribution.

Armed with your mountains of notes, you go home and spend the remainder of the evening writing up care plans, and small essays defining the diagnosis of your patient, and researching every little medication the patient takes, right down to the medicated pad they use for their hemorrhoids. And when you are done, you have just enough time for a 2 hour nap, get up, get dressed in your snappy nursing school uniform, and report for clinicals...usually stopping at Starbucks on the way to pick up the strongest drink they make.

(I blame nursing school for my caffeine addiction.)

Most nursing programs start their students out in nursing homes before exposing them to the cutthroat world of hospitals. You go, get your standard little, blue-haired lady. You give her scheduled medications. You give her a bath. You do an assessment. You chart about the whole experience. You spend the day talking to her and have her brag to you about her grandchildren, (or sometimes you get to hear them complain about their horrible children who put them in the home and never come to visit). You go home feeling good about the new career you have chosen for yourself because you get to help people. A relatively easy and positive experience.

Yeah, too bad that didn't happen to me.

I got my patient assignment, and made a beeline for the facility after class because I was an excited, young nursing student. I asked the nurse for the chart of my patient, and I could have swore she smirked at me. Whatever! I sequestered myself to the staff break room and furiously wrote down everything, right down to the last time the patient pooped. As I wrote down the history, I gave pause to the phrase "morbid obesity".

Webster's Dictionary defines morbid as "grisly" or "gruesome". Apparently, there's Garden Variety Fat, and there's Stephen King Fat. My patient being the latter.

After my copious note-taking, I went to my patient's room. It was customary to introduce yourself to your patient, as the student nurse who would be taking care of them the following day. Maybe this served as a warning to the patient that they had approximately 12 hours to try to hurl themselves down a stairwell, or find some other means to get themselves transferred to another facility, hospital, or mortuary.

I knocked softly and entered the room. All the doctor's notes in the world could not have prepared me for what waited on the other side fo the door.

If Jabba the Hut and a troll doll were to make mad, passionate, love and out of that forbidden love created a child, that child would have been my very first patient in nursing school. For there, in a bed that could have easily supported the weight of a Chevy Silverado, lay my patient. All 700lbs of her. And crowning the top of her head was the hair in an eye-catching shade of hot pink. It was standing straight up, just like a troll doll.

After an internal struggle to keep my shocked and mortified expression in check, I talked with her for ten minutes. As I drove home, I tried to figure out just what I did that curried the anger of my clinical instructor. Not even two weeks in, and I was already pissing people off.

The next day, I show up, Starbucks in hand. I'm told I need to give my patient a bath, as in get her out of bed and into the shower. I blanch. This requires the work of ten nursing students, using a hoyer lift. We wheel my patient into the shower and proceed to hose her down, all coming out equally drenched. We find out later that the patient hadn't seen the shower room since the previous semester when nursing students invaded the facility, and that this patient had just been getting bed baths up until now.

But on a positive note, I found the remote control she had been missing for a few days.

Somehow, I managed to survive the day. While I never had to have Jabba the Troll back, my other classmates did get their turns...and clinical days were much of the same: hoyer lift, shower, the twist being the item we would find nestled in her, ahem, folds. Sometimes it was food. Sometimes it was a comb. Other times it was something we couldn't readily identify.

The charming, blue haired lady with delightful tales of her grandchildren? I never got to take care of her. Instead, I get the frosty old bat who complained about her hemorrhoids all the time. The mentally retarded patient that ate his boogers. The senile old man that pinched my boob and left a big, bruise. And the lady with Alzheimer's that pulled me into the bathtub with her during that fleeting minute I turned my attention away.

And such was my first semester of clinicals in nursing school.

Nursing 101...welcome to it.