Mom's Day 2011

I think about you Mom but it hurts less than it did. That doesn't mean that I don't think about you often, because I do. What I mean is that the pain of your passing is less acute. I still catch myself thinking that I need to call you and tell you something and it catches me up short when I realize that I will not hear your voice at least in this life. I have friends that I talk to and I keep up with my sisters but it's not the same. I think that there is nothing that takes the place of the MOM connection. Joshua is getting married and since he doesn't have a grandmother from my side he has elected to bump Barbara into the Grandma role. She says that she is thrilled but you know what... I wish you were still here to see your "toad frog" get married. I remember at one of Barbara's kids wedding.... Joshua was withdrawn and really sad. He finally told me that he was upset because he knew that you would never see him get married. You will have missed both my children's weddings. When Becky got married I carried a baby picture of her and one of the both of you in my purse, it just didn't seem fair that you weren't there. I miss not being able to share my children's important milestones with you. I hope that as I age I do so with the grace and acceptance that you did. I miss you mom. You gave me so much love and I miss that more than anything else.

Potty Etiquette or Being 59 in a Public Bathroom

I remember the days when my mom would make me stand up on the toilet lids of a public bathroom and squat over the john. I was 3. I am now nearly 60 and I haven't squatted over anything in more years than I can count. Arthritis, weight and bad knees have made me adjust to the lessons my mama taught me. For years I carried a small spritz bottle of Clorox and water and I would just spritz the seat to clean it and sit down to meditate. I had to stop that habit when a year or so back after I had cleaned the seat, sat down, took care of business and two hours later had the worse butt rash. I, being slow on the uptake, didn't immediately equate the rash with the Clorox solution. It took a second round and me waking up in the middle of the night with the worse burning butt you can imagine. I still didn't realize what was wrong with me till I used a mirror to view my backside and low and behold there was a red rashy imprint of a toilet seat on my butt and the back of my legs. I am only so tall and my backside is of a size that when I squat over the toilet, I still come in contact with the seat so I figure I might as well be comfortable and I sit. Now I wipe the seat down use the paper thingy over the back of the toilet and hope for the best. Now to the women who think nothing of peeing all over the seat and leaving the mess: you are classless, tasteless, and taught manners by zoo keepers. When you flush(that's assuming you do... and often you don't) take a glance at the seat and WIPE YOUR MESS. I happened to use a public bathroom the other day and they were out of paper thingies and I swiped without checking closely as I was already at the cross-the-legs point and I sat down and hit the only spot I missed. Man I just hate that. I was already feeling pee cooties scurry up my nether regions. The woman who just left that john was still out side washing her hands(go figure... she will pee on the seat but washes her hands) when I loudly said "I wish to hell people would LEARN not to pee on the seats or else clean up their mess" followed up by " I sure hope the woman who was here last doesn't have any DISEASES." She left in a huff and when I got out another witness laughed and said "Well you told her". My solution is to never use a public bathroom but with age and lack of control(I am just sure I have had a Kegal stroke... but that is for another blog) I have to go when I have to go.+

The Growing and Saving of Food by a Dummy and Ho-Ho's

I hope that in years to come my grandchildren will be reading my blogs and I hope that they enjoy what is written and don't ask their parents why I wasn't committed. I am not paranoid, I just watch the news and realize that we are facing some hard times and that food may be scarce or so expensive that choice may be limited. I filled up at the gas station the other day and paid over 3.60 a gallon. Today the price is up to 3.87 at the same station. I have seen grocery prices rise as well and it scares me. I want to be able to buy all the Ho-Ho's I want so something has to give financially. Thus I decided that I will grow some of my own food and since Ho-Ho's don't grow on bushes I figured I would have to grow fruits and vegetables to save money for a Ho-Ho emergency. There is a lot of things you need to do and know to grow vegetables and fruits. I don't know any of it so I enlisted my friend Faye who has great experience in such things. My son put in two 5ft by 15ft raised beds for me. Faye came over and we went shopping for seeds, plants, trees, fertilizer, and garden tools. I had no clue how to hoe. I know now and have the sore muscles to prove it. I learned that you have to have multiple pepper plants because some are male and some are female.. and you can't tell by looking so you plant a few and hope for the best. I learned that you have to have two of most fruit trees for the same reason. You have to water, feed and weed said beds to nurture your plants. In preparation for my (I'm sure)bountiful harvest I needed a plan to save everything. I plan to to dehydrate, can and freeze and of course I don't know how to do any of those things. I ordered a dehydrator and then realized I needed a Seal-a-Meal. I have time to order the pressure caner, water caner, the jars and the lids. I now have about 6 books on canning, freezing, and dehydrating. I have planting guides and print outs on the making of compost. The plants are in the ground and Demi the Wonder Dog and I visit at least once a day. So far all are still alive but the smallest pepper plant doesn't look good. I know that you aren't supposed to name the things you eat but the petite pitiful pepper plant is named Pedro. We have wildlife around here and I was worried that my plants would get eaten so Stan put a small fence around the beds. I am digging a hole for my compost both brown and green, in layers according to my papers. I am using store bought food stuff now but next year I will have my own, homegrown fertilizer. When I started this I just figured dig a hole, bury a plant, watch it grow and eat it or save it for later. This living off the land is just a tad more complicated. Everyone that has had experience in dehydrating is just so very, very enthusiastic so I figured if I can read a knitting pattern and make a sweater just how hard could this be. You cut up food, stick it on the pans, put it in the dehydrator and 12 hours later you have dried food. I was up the whole fricking night. I started at noon yesterday with 2 fresh pineapples and 6 bananas. I soaked the little banana circles that I cut in fresh lemon juice so they wouldn't get brown and put them on the trays. I cut up the pineapple and put those on the trays. I had 4 trays of food and visions of just bags and bags of dried fruit. At midnight I was still watching over the dehydrator. I was afraid to go to sleep for fear of a electrical fire or over drying. Finally after 12 hours and still sticky bananas I went to bed and set my alarm for a hour. Then another hour and another hour. At 4 am I finally was able to remove the product and seal it up in my new seal-a-meal bags. First I had to figure out how to use the Seal-a- Meal so I practiced on chicken legs. Easy peasy. I took my fruit(which was very tasty if I do say so myself) bagged and sealed it and went back to bed. All in all it has been a learning experience and I have learned a)not to anticipate how much I will have,( to avoid crushing disappointment) b) I need practice, and c) the return on my investment may take a while. The following pictures will take you thru my journey thus far:

Compost prior to going into the ground. Food for the veggies until next year.

Two of my fruit trees. I have lemon, peach, lime and satsumas

My little plants. Note the fence that Stan gave me.

I started with six bananas and two pineapples (okay... i know the yellow things are lemons. I used my pineapples)

put them in this lovely dehydrator Sealed the produce in my new Seal-a-Meal

and ended up with 2 bags of fruit that I could eat at one sitting.

COST:

Equipment and supplies for Josh putting the beds in 250.00

Plants, Trees, gardening supplies, and tools 150.00

Fence and hose 125.00

Dehydrator 140.00 Seal-a-Meal(and extra bags) 100.0o

My expression at 4 am in the morning when I realized all I had was two little bags PRICELESS

Stan did casually mention to me that we could have bought a hell of a lot of food for what I spent so far. Start up in any new endeavor is always expensive. I am not daunted in the least. I am asking for the caners for my anniversary present so I didn't list them. All joking aside I really believe that in the near future we will need to be able to grow and preserve our own food. I just hope I have a few years to work out the kinks!!

April 8, 1977 Happy Birthday Josh

I am amazed at you this year. You have learned life skills that I never thought you would even be interested in learning. Shows what a mom knows. When I saw you yesterday with your (as Becky calls it) "man belt" on with all the tools around, it it struck me as how much you have learned. I have always said you could do or be anything you want and you are proving me right with your multi-talented livelihoods. You are such a study of opposites. During the day you are wielding a hammer, nails, screwdriver and all sorts of "man" tools and during the evening you are gracefully demonstrating dance to children. You are impacting the life of your students at night and you are learning construction during the day. You remain driven by your faith and hold to the fact that Jesus is your King. I am proud of you. I love you unconditionally. Happy Birthday Joshua this year and many more.

Going to Hell in a Handbasket and Playing Golf, Unions and the Dayton Police

Lots of things have been happening in our world in the last few weeks. My prayers and donations have gone to Japan for the devastation that has happened in their world. It just wasn't enough that an earthquake hit because what it didn't ruin the resultant tsunami took care of. The Japanese are tough, resilient and will overcome this but to add insult to injury the quake and tsunami did a number on their nuclear power plants and they are damaged, on fire and spewing radioactive material. The Japanese government states that all is okay but as we know here, governments lie. It just depends on who has the most money to lose. The Middle East is in a state of chaos the likes that I have never seen in my lifetime. Israel is hunkering down and waiting. The biggest terrorist this side of bin Laden, Libya's own Muamar Gadaffi is murdering people in his own country to control a rebellion set to dethrone this monstrous dictator. What are we doing? WE(that would be the royal we) are playing golf. I really don't begrudge Obama a game of golf but come on, the world is falling apart and he is on the green. Someone, maybe his wife, since his advisers don't have the sense that God gave a goose, needs to tell him that there is a time and a place to play. NOW IS NOT THE TIME. I did not vote for this idiot. It's your fault.

On the home front Scott Walker, Republican Governor from Wisconsin, took on the unions and won. They will now have to pay slightly more for their health care and pensions and they also have their collective bargaining rights restrained. This affects ALL public employees except the police and fire departments. The teachers have been up in arms and have involved their students in the demonstrations as evidenced on the news today when on a class trip the little kids were chanting and holding signs. What a crock of shit. If I lived up there and my child were involved in this I would be scalping their teacher. Talk about indoctrination. I have union issues. I understand about workers rights. But unions by and large protect substandard employees. I applauded the firing of 13 of the 15 Chysler auto workers who were caught on tape during their lunch break using drugs and drinking. Two were suspended without pay but then reinstated. Don't know why.. maybe they tested negative for the alcohol and drugs but THEY WERE THERE. They knew what was going on and by their passive participation, they felt that it was okay. Fire them too. We have teachers who lie, cheat(fake MD excuses.. and the doctors that wrote those notes should lose their licence's) and demonstrate on days that they should be in the classrooms. I wouldn't want that kind of influence on my children. In Dayton, Ohio the police entrance exam now has to have a passing rate of a 60 to allow minority races who have been "educationally deprived"(where were the teachers?) to pass so that they can carry guns, protect the public and write tickets and fill out reports... good luck with that.. you can't even pass the entrance test. The excuse is that they didn't receive the same education that their classmates had and that the exam is geared more towards Caucasians. Could it be that those same individuals didn't a)attend class b) were socially promoted, c)played football, baseball etc. and were given grades(which is the administrations fault and not the teachers)d)had parents that didn't participate in their education, or e) God forbid, just plain stupid? If all the above things don't apply then they had a rotten teacher.. and just to show you I am not prejudiced.. there are rotten nurses out there practicing as well. If the teacher is rotten then thanks to the unions she can keep on under-educating students till she retires. So follow me here, if those individuals in Dayton, Ohio who can't pass the police entrance exam... attended class, didn't play sports, studied 4 hours a day, had parents who attended each teacher conference and made sure their homework was done, then they had a rotten teacher and thus a union problem.

I have many friends who are teachers and love what they do. They express the ongoing concern that the kids are disconnected from school and, that friends is traced back to the parents. If the home is single parent and said parent is gone working or playing instead of keeping track of what junior is doing then the fault is partially theirs( if they haven't instilled the fear of God in their little angels to study), the rest lies with the individual person. My mom was a single parent and worked 2 jobs. I did my homework, I studied(not as much as I should have) and I was able to go to college. You want to get ahead apply your lazy ass to the seat of a chair and study. Self motivation can even beat the worst teacher. It is ridiculous to dumb down a test to accommodate a person who lacked the self motivation to help themselves.

Wow... end of my rant.

Kansas, Missouri, Flying, Constipation, and Cerner

I went on a trip from February 27th through March 4th. My director asked me to take her place and go to Kansas to spend the week at Cerner Corp. I hate to fly. This is a vast understatement. It took me hours to give her an answer but I had decided to take her place. My hospital is part of Lafayette General Medical Center and the whole computer system is being overhauled to accommodate the changes in the health care system. We are still pushing paper at my little hospital and I really have been looking forward to computerized charting not only because it will streamline the work that we do but, because of the design, patient care will be positively affected. I still stand firmly against our government having ANYTHING to do with my medical records but recognize the local need for rapid transfer of information. That being said I went to Kansas for classes.

The Flight Coming and Going
I flew with several co-workers from each hospital. Denise and I were roommates and managed to sit beside each other on the flight going. We had two 1 and 1/2 hour legs, the first to Dallas then on to Kansas. Dear God in heaven. The SEATS. Okay I am not stupid and I realize that my butt has increased over the years but I don't need a seat belt. I just have to cram my ass into the chair and the overflow that squeezes though the armrest more that amply secures me to the seat. I sat on my seat belt when I first got on board and like to NEVER found it. As soon as we got in the air I raised the arm rest between Denise and me and sort of flowed over onto her side. She was very gracious about the whole thing. Coming back on the last leg of the trip I sat in the single seats on the left side of the plane( I prefer to call them "seatlettes" sort of junior seats for junior size butts)Prior to getting on they announced that our bathroom didn't work and apparently they didn't have another plane in the whole fleet of American Airlines that they could substitute. That's okay. What they did though was announce repeatedly that the bathroom did not work and that we would have to go to the john prior to leaving. What happens when you know that you can't go to the bathroom for a period of time... like in a traffic jam, on a stuck elevator, first in line at the Wallmart Black Friday Sale OR in an airplane without a toilet. YOU HAVE TO PEE. It doesn't matter that 5 minutes before the flight you have urinated, the minute the doors slam shut you just got to GO. To make matters worse my seat beltlette cut into my bladder the the ride was a little rough.

The Hotel and Being Roommates
As stated before I roomed with Denise. Similar to me she doesn't like anyone to come in the room while we were gone so we opted out each day for housekeeping. We were just a little messy(paaaahaaaaa). I didn't realize just how messy we were till we saw Kathleen's room. It was spotless, nothing out of place.. looked like she had just come in. She was by herself for 2 days... if that had been me I would have been all over that room like a bad rash..... I would have pillows, clothes, computer, books etc all over the place. I have known Denise for 10 years but I have never pooped in her vicinity. And since my poop doesn't smell like roses I had a problem. I would bet that anyone reading this who had to room with someone other than a relative had the same issues. To make it worse when I travel I tend towards constipation so I take ducolax with me to handle the issue. To poo or not to poo. A way to deal with this is the "garlic" method. You know when you go out to eat with a boyfriend and you want to eat garlic?? You make him eat garlic too so that he won't gag when he kisses you goodnight. What you have to do is convince the person you are rooming with that they are constipated as well!!!! Then you can bond over ducolax pill. It really worked... by the end of the trip we were farting in front of each other!!!!(Denise is just going to kill me for telling that)

Eating and the Per Diem
30 bucks a day really is plenty to eat on. You cannot go to beer gardens, Jack Stax BBQ for ribs, Houston's Steak House and the Cheese Cake Factory, order room service every day for breakfast and stay within the budget. I went over my per diem by about 130 bucks. I just had an AHA moment. There is a definite correlation between the way I eat and the size of the plane seatlettes. Anyway, we ate well and often. To those of you that have a Cheese Cake Factory in your town let me HIGHLY recommend the Shepard's Pie. OMG!OMG!OMG!. I have never been in a Cheesecake Factory restaurant so I don't know if they are are constructed the same but in Kansas City the bathroom is on the second floor. You can walk up the stairs in the middle of the restaurant or you can take the elevator. Just a suggestion: Get rid of the mirrors in the elevator or cut them off at waist level. I got on and was assaulted by different views of my butt. Even closing one eye didn't make it smaller. I still ate the cheese cake.

Cerner
All I can say is WOW. Cerner rocks. I am a technotard and was lost the first 2 days but claim victory because on the third day I started to understand. This is an amazing facility that included several buildings over some of the prettiest acreage I have seen. The people are dedicated to helping you understand and working on a solution that best meets your company's needs. Just a little suggestion. Chair lift to the cafeteria. From our building you have to walk up a hill to the cafeteria or you can take the outdoor stairs. I made it the first day... my heart rate was 148(not kidding) when I got to the top. I should have done it every day. I really did enjoy myself and I am looking forward to seeing this huge project take shape.

I so enjoyed meeting people that I had only talked with on the phone. There are some funny people at the main hospital and I laughed more this week than I had in a long time. My big concern was my clothes but I held up my end of the business casual dress code. Thanks to everyone for answering questions when I asked, and thanks to whoever put this together.. the logistics must have been a nightmare. Big thanks to Denise. You are an awesome roommate!!!!!!

My Day In Court as Described by My Bad Angel

I had to go to court the other day and no I was not in trouble. One of the other nurses and I had come prepared to testify in a case that we were involved in. I had just gotten off work and was in scrubs and my hair was a mess. I have a habit of running my fingers thru my hair when I am charting. I honestly don't care what my hair looks like at work. I am there to work, not to cause jealousy among other staff at my beautiful locks. Besides, in a previous blog "Bad Hair Day" I noted that every time I do my hair and it looks good it seems to attract nasty body fluids. I have digressed...sorry. Anyway Jamie and I were waiting for the doors to open up and we were entertained by the mode of dress that the general population deems appropriate for court day. I had my phone but my good angel let me know that it might be in poor taste and possibly illegal to take pictures of people and post it without their permission and besides you can't bring a phone into court. My bad angel however is writing this blog. There is a dress code in court. No sleeveless shirts, no underwear showing, no body parts(belly buttons, breasts, butts) are allowed to be displayed. You are not allowed to bring phones or purses or for that matter weapons past the front gate. The following suggestions are for those individuals that will be appearing in court in the future:
1) If you like blond hair, make it natural and cover the 4 inch black roots. Washing it would be appropriate as well. Combing, I guess can be optional as that tousled look is somewhat in fashion.
2) Bathing might be something you might want to do at least within a week of your court day. Deodorant is important as well because of the close quarters. Let me add that brushing teeth should be mandatory or don't smile.
3)If you weigh more than a tractor DO NOT wear stretch pants. I had nightmares after seeing my share of visible butt cracks thru skin tight pants. Shirts should fit and not like a glove. If you have to keep tugging it down over your butt it's too tight. You should also avoid wearing patterns that undulate over the bulges.. its almost hypnotic and not in a good way. If you have tattoos on your arms bless your little heart, cover them up. The rule is NO SLEEVELESS SHIRTS. Covering up your fashion mistake with a cammo jacket so that you could keep your court date defies words. The contrasting patterns nearly gave me a seizure.
4)Men, unless you are Brad Pitt, shave. That 5 o'clock shadow you are sporting is not exactly presenting your best face forward. Stop the spitting on the sidewalk. If you chew, go across the street and spit behind a tree. Oh and wipe your chin.
5) It probably isn't a good idea to come to court smelling like a bar and sporting bloodshot eyes...just saying.
6) Fingernails: if you have to money to get those 1 inch iridescent blue sparkly nails on your hands you can afford to get your roots done.

I have gained a new respect for the court system. Justice is indeed blind, she can't smell either. A shout out to all the judges, ADAs. clerks and court reporters, you guys have seen it all and still come back every day to see that everyone has their chance in court. To the defending attorneys... you should be held liable for not mandating that your clients and family members dress appropriately to go before 'his or her Honor". Every law enforcement representative was "spit polished" and looked so professional.

I truly am in awe of what people think is appropriate. My hair, straight as it was, ceased to concern me after what I saw.