last of the random posts

I'm still in short attention span mode, so here are just a few things I've pondered lately:


Did you know that if you want to buy a haunted house there's an actual website (I'm sure there are more) that advertises haunted houses to buy and sell? Did you know that if your paranormal obsessed twelve year old finds out about this he all of a sudden becomes very interested in the inner workings of the real estate market? And that even though he's afraid to go to the upstairs bathroom by himself, thinks the idea of living in a house inhabited by a poltergeist named Big Bruno sounds like a great idea?


I had a slow moment at work Tuesday and logged onto Yahoo! only to find a list of Low Stress Careers for a more holistic lifestyle. Naturally, I clicked the link and almost spewed coffee onto the keyboard when I noticed that nursing was on the list. I would have shot them off a blistering email, but all the cops dragging in the bleeding from the head (and fighting like a maniac) suspected rapist kept me busy for a while. Who puts these lists together anyway?


On the agenda for Wednesday: Sleep. Sleep some more. Eat something really yummy and dreadfully bad for me. Do lovely indulgent things to make me feel more like a human and less like roadkill. (If I can stop looking like roadkill, so much the better).


Also on the agenda for Wednesday: Make some lists. Typical RC lists, to tell the truth. I'm mapping out my life. One list at a time. Why? Because I'm starting to look at the clean slate that is my future...and actually look forward to it.

deluded ramblings

I've started two different posts and when I read them back neither one of them makes sense. I've gone for poignant and funny and missed the mark both times. Maybe the list format is really my best friend right now. No pressure to be coherent for more than a couple of lines.


Some random thoughts:


When you come home exhausted but wired right before midnight, is it better to go straight to bed and toss and turn all night or stay up for hours until you feel like you could sleep?


Is a barrel full of caffeine to stay awake after 6pm really such a good idea in hindsight?


Will you go to hell for stealing someone else's wireless?


Cinco de Mayo is not for gringos. Especially frat boy gringos driving daddy's Beemer.


I'm off Wednesday.


The Webster's dictionary definition of "on call" is: Hell, yeah, we're calling you in.


I can't breathe. It hurts like a big dog.


Ninety percent of my patients today were PITAs. Pains In The Ass.


I'm sure they felt the same about me.


Why would someone tell you they couldn't possibly be pregnant because a) they'd just had their period and b) they hadn't had sex in months and then, when you tell them their test is positive, scream and cry hysterically because they've been "trying forever" to have their third child in four years?


I'm a big whiny biatch.


Why do people who become romantically involved in the workplace always think no one notices? I'm here to tell you that they do notice. Every single one of them. And they talk, too.


I think I'm done. Damn caffeine.

why ask why?

Why do most of our patients who are my age look so much older than I do? Or do they?


Why do I have the awful suspicion that the only reason my wireless has started working again in the last 24 hours is that we're hitching onto someone else's service? And why has my wireless server completely disappeared off of my computer?


Why was it so hard to keep a straight face when one of our older male frequent fliers came in today in a hot pink negligee and crotchless panties, clutching a bottle of tequila and a cordless drill?


Why do I think that my body is going to take matters into its own hands by making me sick? All day long I've felt like someone is sitting on my chest and it hurts like a mofo to breath. I never get anything respiratory and I don't feel like starting now.


Why did I pick up shifts every day this week except one? Am I nuts? If so, why?


Why did I get almost no lilacs this year off of my lilac bushes? Is there some gardening trick to make them lush that I've missed?


Why am I still up writing this when I just want to sleep?


Why ask why?

sunday slacker

Hmmm...

Your Personality at 35,000 Says...

Deep down, you prefer spending time alone to spending time with others. You enjoy thinking more than talking. You are good with your place in the world. You are confident and comfortable with who you are. Your gift is having a way with words. You know how to express yourself well. You are inspired by what is unknown. You are drawn to the exotic. It's very easy for you to feel happy. You can find peace with any situation.

The Personality Test at 35,000 Feet

turning pro

Oh, you poor misguided people. While I thank you all for your generous spirits (most of you anyway, willowtree) in telling me that my whining isn't as bad as it could be, I had to laugh at those of you who inferred that I'm an amateur. So - because the stars have aligned in both blogville and real world-ville - stick around. I'm turning pro.


Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.


I'm so damn tired I can't see straight. I've worked nine out of the last ten days. I have Saturday off and then I go back for two more days. I'm on call virtually every day I'm not already scheduled for the next three weeks and I just found out that there's a music program at school that no one told me about that takes place smack in the middle of a shift I picked up. I'm tired of drug seekers and charting and coming home with my feet throbbing so bad that I can feel my pulse in my toes for hours after work. Does anyone have a primary care doctor anymore? Because I'm sick to death of running like a dog all day to take care of people who have colds or need a prescription refill or think it's cheaper to go to the ER than to pay their clinic co-pay. It's called an EMERGENCY Department. I believe you when you say it hurts, but a hangnail is not an emergency. For every person that comes in I have to do a full body assessment (and chart it) and a full list of all of the medications they take ( and chart them) plus an entire medical and surgical history (and chart it). And if you come in and we tell you not to drink or smoke or keep shooting up or to make sure you take your meds and then you do none of the things we say, do not call me foul names and snap your fingers at me when you ask me for something to "take the edge off". I got your damned edge right here.


I slept so hard last night that I completely missed a severe storm that whipped through in the middle of the night. I didn't even know about it until my mom emailed me at work to make sure we were okay. I mean I knew there was a storm. I woke up in the middle of it.(It's hard to sleep with three quaking dogs on your bed). I just kind of missed the part that a lot of people seem to think was a tornado. The trees in the road driving to work should have tipped me off. Although in hindsight, the eighty mile an hour winds should have also been a clue. How can I take the kids to the Silence of the Lambs basement if I don't even wake up?


I' m tired of coming home and seeing dishes and trash and dirty laundry everywhere. Why am I the only person in the damned house who ever empties the trash cans? And which kid is it who unrolls a bunch of toilet paper every time he sits on the pot, so that when he gets up there is a pile of TP coiled up in front of (certainly not in) the trash can? Have they priced toilet paper lately? Not that it matters, since Trixie loves nothing more than to chew TP, leaving big gloppy clumps of it everywhere. Why do all of my children confuse the bathroom with the library? I wouldn't really care except that when they're done they leave their reading material laying on the floor in front of the toilet and apparently think the magazine or book is clever enough to put itself away. And how old will they be when they flush? Or turn off the light? Or the TV when they leave the room? And why does every TV in the damned house have to be on at all times?


I walked in the door tonight and within fifteen seconds Gumby was hitting me up for a sleepover and SD was wanting to go out running around the neighborhood with a kid who I think has some issues. It didn't take ten minutes before they were fighting and squalling over something stupid that involved a hidden soccer ball and a head lock. Sasquatch is out at a movie but I have no idea how he got there or when he's coming home. I would just call him on the kid's cell phone but it's broken and Verizon won't give me a new phone unless I pay them a hundred and something dollars because I still have a year on my contract and you can't get a cheap phone without a new contract. So I've been giving the kids my cell phone but I couldn't do that today because I was on call and I needed my phone in case I got called in, which of course I did.


It's not like I don't need the money. We found out there are foundation issues in the house, which will set us back thousands. The FG is moving out June 1st and there will certainly be money involved in that. We still have to have the roof looked at, although if these storms keep up it's anyone's guess what will happen to the roof. Maybe a big tree will come through in a part no one is sleeping in and we can just collect the insurance money. We have ants in the downstairs bathroom and I frickin' hate ants. With a passion. We have wasps on the sunporch and I frickin' hate wasps. With a passion. We may still have mice in the laundry room but I'm not sure. They've either gotten sneakier or they've moved up to our bedrooms. I frickin' hate mice. With a...never mind.


SD has an 8 am soccer game, which means we have to be up at practically the crack of dawn, or maybe it just feels that way since I want to sleep until noon. Gumby has a play in a class where I've already paid a boatload for him to be in it, but now have to pay for the performance tickets to boot. And the two of them tried out for a local summer production that is costing an arm and a leg, and even though everyone had to "audition", anyone who tried out got a part, because god forbid they'd turn anyone away at those prices. So for the equivalent of all the household utilities for the month (or a tank of gas), I'm the proud parent of two Oompah Loompahs.


I have a few friends who are totally pissed off at me because they're tired of my hiding out and not returning their phone calls. Some of them have taken to just hunting me down like a rat and dragging me out of the house kicking and screaming. Now that word has gotten around work about what's going on with me, I've started getting invitations to do things after work, which, being me, I totally blow off, which makes people either pissed or more determined. I've even heard the dreaded words "I have a friend who would be perfect for you." Cool. A blind date at some point in the distant future. That sounds great. As soon as I finish chewing my own foot off I'll get back to you.


Well, that's a start. Damn. That felt good.

broken promises

One of the things I promised myself when I started doing this blog was that I wasn't going to whine. Oh, I might complain a little or grumble a time or two, but I drew the line at whining. It's not a personality trait I do well with, so it made sense that I would try to avoid it myself. For the most part I think I've dodged it pretty well - maybe a closer shave from time to time, but in the end I've stayed a (relatively) low whine zone.


Until recently. I feel like all I do lately is whine. And bitch. And moan. I spiff it up a little and clean it up some, but when I send it down the runway it's still whining. It's just well dressed whining. And even though I hate it (because it simply isn't me), I'm still doing it. I'm afraid I'm becoming a downer - and who wants to read a downer day after day?


I'm really tired. When I walk in the door all the kids want my attention right away. The dogs put their tails between their legs every time they see my scrubs, doubtless imagining bladders full to bursting in their futures. I dance the computer dance every night - with so much competition for my time I feel guilty getting on-line. The wireless is still jacked up, which means I'm tethered to an ethernet cord. Some days it's a lot of trouble to blog. Some days it's a lot of trouble just to turn the computer on. But I've come to rely on this a lot - for moral support, for friendship, for places to check in on during the day. In so many ways this has become my social circle. I can't give it up. I don't want to.


But lately I'm also a terrible blog buddy. I don't get around as much as I used to. (Now there's a straight line for you). Even when I do read "my regulars" I don't always leave comments, which makes me feel rotten. I'm amazed that people still comment here, considering how I'm not holding up my bloggy end of the bargain. (I am well aware with how the game works. I just can't pull it off right now).


See? There I go. I'm whining again.


Hang in there with me, okay? I promise I'll get my mojo back. And I'll be a better blog buddy in the bargain.

list break

If you're looking for The Thursday Three
This week it's just not going to be
A sweet little boy
My baby, my joy
Said Mom would you snuggle with me?


And that's exactly what I've been doing.