G's-Spot

If You Can't Beat 'em, Make Fun of 'em

So I just ran some errands: pharmacy, Walgreen's, sandwiches, allergy shot, etc.  As I headed up Fremont towards Walgreen's, a city utilities truck blocked my lane trimming trees.  The couple of cars ahead of me went into the opposing lane since it was clear but by the time I got there, there were three cars waiting so I stopped in my lane to wait until it was clear. Oh. Well.  What an idiot I am.  The junior leaguer witch in a Cadillac Escalade behind me honked and pulled into the lane with oncoming traffic and went around the CU truck. Lovely.  Of course the opposing traffic stopped and allowed her through.  It would have been a head-on.

By the way, the witch was on the phone. Surprised? Me neither.

Well, as fate would have it, I pulled into a parking space at Walgreen's and looked up and it was the same lady, still on the phone, just getting out of her truck.  Hmmm...you know, I don't really like confrontation but I'm really tired of resenting people behind their backs too.  I'm also tired of taking crap.  So when she hung up the silly phone I took that three second pause and said nicely "Was my driving a problem for you back there?"

She looked at me and then my truck and said "Well...no...it's just that they would have let us all through. You didn't have to stop. " 

I said "Of course they stopped. They had the right of way but they wanted to avoid a wreck."

"Whatever."

Yeah. Whatever.

So after getting the stuff on my list, I stood in line with a few people ahead of me and she was behind me. Again.  I turned back, smiled sweetly, and said "Do you need to get in front of me?  Your time is so much more valuable than mine."

Everybody in line is looking now.

She said, "Uh. No. I'm fine."

"No, really. I insist. Your time is obviously much more valuable than the rest of ours.  You can go ahead of me again."

And it went on like that. By the time we left she was practically running away from me and I was laughing out loud. 

Sometimes it's much more fun to be mean to people by being overly nice to them.  It works out better, even, because they can't say you were being hateful. 

Oh so Politically Correct

Is your child having a birthday party?  QUICK! Run to this web site: Eco Friend and get tons of politically correct ideas on how to host a "green" themed birthday party.  While you're cutting organic vegan cake you can take the opportunity to "teach" your six-year-old's friends all about rare plants and animals, eco-friendly housing construction, and alternative fuel sources.

OR... you could stop being an asshole and go rent Chuck E. Cheese so the tyke can have a real birthday party with a dinosaur cake to keep his classmates from kicking his ass on the playground.

My God in Heaven, if my mother baked me the organic vegetable garden cake as a child they would have had to pull in a priest in to exorcise me. My head would have spun with projectile vomiting so fast the world would be off its axes now.  What kind of nerdy retard came up with that one? Even Al Gore gave his kids real birthday parties. 

Give me a break.

One Last Thanksgiving Moment...

The Thanksgiving food post is up along with a few stories from the trenches of my crazy family. All in all it was a good year.  The wacks were adorably annoying rather than being a Jerry Springer throwdown like in some years past.  I feel blessed and am looking forward to Christmas.  Hope all of you are too.

Seriously, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I wish you all a wonderful day of blessings and family and love.

I will spend the day with Gene and then go in to the hospital to work overnight and I'm happy to do that. Last year, I spent quite a bit of time with a dying woman and her son who both have no one but each other on the holidays and you know what? I was happy to be there.  Not everything in the hospital is great but even the depressing things are only depressing if you let them be.  I like being with people who HAVE to be there.  For the most part, they're making the best of it too and we're all looking forward to spending a little "nice" time together and eating dry turkey and bad pumpkin pie from the crapeteria. 

I know. It sounds weird but it's actually a very positive experience.  There are also always "frequent flyers" in-house, the folks we've come to think of as family that I like stopping by to say "Hello" to even if they're not officially on my patient list.

Saturday is my family's shindig and I'm really looking forward to that too.  I feel so blessed to have two families in my life: my blood family and my patients/coworkers.

I hope you all feel blessed today too. Good thoughts today. And as a dear friend of mine always says "no worries."

This is me...

...and to all those who relate...give a shout.

Thanksgiving Eve: Let the Cooking Begin

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Wow. Last night was a killer. And yet, it was oddly satisfying. Or maybe it's the unisom and Southern Comfort kicking in. Don't know; don't care.

Last night was the busiest night I've had so far on nights. I was only Assess & Treat but I'm feeling really good about last night. I kicked A&T ass, quite frankly.  I started out with SIX full initial assessments but Tom took the O2 rounds from me, thank God.  Cleaned up all of that and the new ones throught out the 7pm-10pm but between 10pm and 11pm something went haywire in the ER and the OR and I ended up starting the 11pm hour with TWELVE assemssments, most of them trauma and post ops which is all about setting up continuous pulse ox's and Q4 reassessments which, of course, I had to do my own reassessments...but you know what? The whole hospital was like that. Every wing took tons of admits, and the units, ohmygawed, the poor units, were full to overflowing and there were CAT calls on patients who got intubated.  Personally, I tried to get back to the dept once an hour and every time there would be three or four more assessments waiting for me.  Holy hell! Saw Brian and the end and told him I felt bad that they got hit so hard upstairs..... Maaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn....he looked tired.  I really felt for him. Have no idea how bad downstairs was but in the middle we were hauling butt on BiPaps and A&T and PRN treatments and de-sats.

Crazy stuff, BUT, the good news is that when it's all said and done I always walk away thinking "that was a good day's work" and being more in love with my co-workers.  Every time I was about to go under, someone jumped in to set up a pulse ox or do a treatment or run some O2's.  I know I've said it a million times but I really like the people I work with. They're like family to me. There's not a one I wouldn't go to bat for because they're good people and they've always been there for me.

And now I'm off to sleepytown. I'm exhausted.  Oh, but one more thing. No matter how bad it got tonight I didn't even cuss.  Impressed? I was. 

What Would it Take to Kill Me?

For those folks, including my husband, who've been concerned about the two Rock Stars I drink on nights I work overnights, you can MAYBE lay your fears for my death-defying drinking habits aside. 

Here's the scoop on just how many energy drinks (since 2003 when ephedra was outlawed and therefore removed) I would have to shotgun to kill me:

Rock Star, Full Throttle, Jolt:  100+ cans

Coffee:  170+ cups

Mountain Dew, Pibb Xtra, Wild Cherry Pepsi, Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper: 400+ cans

Everybody feeling safer for me?  I know I am.

To calculate your own death-by-caffeine levels, click here:  Energy Drinks

Long Week

On the bright side, had another good night at work. We were busy (Brian was in HELL!) but we did okay.  Plenty of work for everyone, that's for sure. BUT.  It did bring home yet another reason why I like nights so much. Before, on evenings, I left work at the busiest time of the day and would be wired for sound until the early hours but now I go in at that busy time and get if over with first thing and then the rest of the shift gradually winds down.  I like leaving work as the night is going out instead of leaving right as the night shift is gearing up.

SoonerFan gave me a hard time :-) the other night about how I've said I'm always sooooooo busy but that's what made me realize the difference.  Evenings is like a race from beginning to end. Nights, even when it's busy, does tend to lighten up towards the end.  Thank God.

On the not bright side, this week is the 19th anniversary of my mom's death.  19 years is so long but in ways it doesn't feel long at all.  We didn't have the best of relationships but she was still my mom and I wish she could have been around to meet her grandkids. She would have been a kickass grandmother and I think as adults we could have been good friends.

Yesterday was Tough

Saw my grandmother, "Nannie", yesterday for the first time since we put her in the nursing home.  We went to have Thanksgiving (a week early) lunch with her.  The good news is she's happy and settled and doesn't know who we are so she can't miss us. She even has regressed so that even though she'll tell you that she's 93 (95) she thinks she's a young woman living in a boarding house so she can go to school.  Personally, I love that. She had told me several times that one of her biggest regrets in life was that she wasn't able to go to high school. Her family were rural farmers so the boys were sent into town to live with family to go to high school but the girls weren't. So now she's getting her ultimate goal accomplished...okay, so it's only in her head but I like it.

The bad news is that I had a bit of a hard time seeing her. I am thankful that she's well and happy but it was hard to sit and look at her, hear her voice, watch the way she held her coffee cup in one hand while tracing the rim with the other in a manner that I've been so familiar with my whole life.  Looking into her eyes and not seeing the woman I love so much devastated me.  It was like finally looking at the reality square on and realizing that the biggest truly secure, happy, unconditionally loving part of my life doesn't exist anymore.

I cried all the way home. Not because I'm sad for her. She's happy.  I'm grateful.  But I cried for me anyway.