new brooklyn

wedding

2010-10-06T18:59:00.001-04:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

First Anniversary Trip 2010

2010-10-06T18:58:00.001-04:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

knitting and nails

2009-05-27T00:39:00.005-04:00

lots of adventure lately. i went to michigan, which was nice and awful. i got a lot of wedding things done (dj, tried on my dress, bought jewelry and bridesmaids gifts, hired a decorator and a planner, emailed a florist, met with the church, confirmed the photobooth, hired a photographer... yikes!). i got to see a couple of friends, but my dad managed to get pretty sick during my trip, and had to have some urgent surgery. in a way, i think it was good i was there. he's doing fine now, thankfully. i got to spend a couple days with both my brothers, the first time we've spent a night under the same roof since the late '90s! it was quite nice- i miss them, and even a couple days like we had makes me feel more like we are a family.

with all that stress, i haven't been perfectly nice to my nails. but i have made some improvements, and i think they look pretty good. like this:

lucy, the saint and all around master knitter that she is, agreed to create a pattern for an afghan based on a photo of an aran sweater from andy's family. i just got the yarn and the pattern a few days ago, so i started knitting. the idea is to give an afghan each to my father and to andy's parents as gifts at our wedding, like joining our families. i hope i can finish in time! the pattern looks awesome so far- and i really love the yarn. hopefully i can do it all justice. so far, it looks like this:

Swine Flu Triggers Outbreak of Finger-Pointing on Capitol Hill Over Stimulus Funds - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.com

2009-04-28T15:08:00.002-04:00

LOVING how Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called funding for pandemic flu preparation a "little, porky thing." way to foreshadow...

Swine Flu Triggers Outbreak of Finger-Pointing on Capitol Hill Over Stimulus Funds - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.com

Posted using ShareThis

Classy flip flop

2009-04-28T15:05:00.001-04:00

funny... someone figured out that if you're a republican with legitimate social, economic, and legal ideals, you're really just a democrat:

Specter defection a sharp blow to Republicans
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Arlen Specter's abrupt move to switch allegiance to President Barack Obama's Democratic Party was a sharp blow to Republicans and will likely generate more soul-searching for the minority party.

His decision to seek re-election as a Democrat next year was a nakedly political move to hang on to power.

* If he had remained a Republican, he faced a tough challenge for the party's nomination in Pennsylvania's 2010 Senate race from conservative Pat Toomey. The moderate Specter beat Toomey in a tight primary in 2004 but faced an even tougher battle this time.

* As far as the Republican base was concerned, his biggest Achilles' heel was his support for Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus bill. That bill passed the U.S. Congress in February with support from only three Republicans -- Specter and Maine senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

* Specter's announcement sharply criticized Republicans, who lost control of the U.S. Congress in 2006, and lost the White House and more seats in Congress in 2008. "I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," his statement said.

* Republicans have been trying to figure out how to rebuild as a party. Some leading figures, such as strategist Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain's presidential campaign last year, have said the party needs to have a more open-arms policy, and be more welcoming of gays and immigrants.

* Republican strategist John Feehery said Republican leaders in the Senate did all they could to hang on to Specter. More broadly, however, he said: "What it says about the party is they have to make a determination on whether they want to be in the majority or whether they want to be intellectually pure."

* The new chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, has his work cut out for him. He has his share of critics. Steele said after Specter, Collins and Snowe voted for the stimulus plan that perhaps the Republican Party should not provide funds to help them win their re-election bids. "Oh, yes, I'm always open to everything, baby, absolutely," Steele told the Fox News Channel in February.

* Republican strategist Scott Reed said: "I always thought Specter would consider switching to become an independent to get re-elected, and it's too bad that Michael Steele pushed him into the Democrat Party."

Top Ten Reasons Gay Marriage is Wrong...

2009-04-25T18:36:00.002-04:00

Submitted anonymously, as seen on FaceBook.

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in the world.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

2009-04-04T13:35:00.000-04:00

"Be afraid of skydiving. Be afraid of wild boar. Be fearless with knitting."
- Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants."
-A. Whitney Brown

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
Socrates

“Put silk on a goat and it is still a goat”

"Love is not love, without a violin playing goat."

"G stands for goat and also for genius . . ."

“A goose, a woman, and a goat, are bad things lean.”

"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

"One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine."
Sir William Osler

"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them."
Dr. Martin Henry Fischer

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
The Dalai Lama

"Half of what you are taught as medical students will in ten years have been shown to be wrong, and the trouble is, none of your teachers knows which half."
C. Sidney Burwell

"I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox."
Woody Allen

"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit."
Oscar Wilde

making it public

2009-03-26T13:15:00.006-04:00

not pubic. just public. no one will care about my hands- for good reason. i hate girls who talk about their nails and their hair and their makeup. however, for the sake of humiliating myself into being better, i'm going to post photos of my hands. i have chewed on my fingers my whole life. it's extra gross, and totally not cute. one doc told me if i didn't quit it, my nails would fall off and never grow back (totally false, but still...). usually i hide my hands or sit on them... but here we go, this is what they look like.
this pic is from one of our cool engagement photos- i had been trying really hard to keep my hands nice, since i knew they would be on display.

you can totally see where i chew them, and even on the ones that are totally intact, the skin is wrinkly and gross from being assaulted for many years.
i took this pic myself to send my dad a photo of my ring.

same problems...
so i've read that some people have a better time cutting this crap out if they get fake nails. yuck. they look awful and trashy, and it seems like it could be even worse than just biting them. i read about gel nails, and was excited, because they supposedly look a little nicer, and are better for your real nails- if i hate them, i can have them off (they have to file the bastards off- ouch), and my nails might still be ok underneath. but... they are like $120, and you have to get them touched up every few weeks. student budget does not support that crap! i was walking home the other day, and this nail place up the street had a sign for 50% off gels on certain days of the week... the lady that does them there, turns out has lots of experience and wants to grow the gel business for this nail place in this neighborhood. she said my nails were long enough to not need tips, so she'd just charge me $50- still a lot, but less than once a week manicures... so i did it. crazy but true. my skin still looks bad, like this:

but the nails don't look too jersey shore (i don't think). they look like this:

i'm going to be boring and update how they look as i try not to bite them. the one thing i've found so far is that it's harder to pick at them- the nails are a little thicker than natural nails, so you really can't get to the little parts so easy. maybe victory #1.

gel nails...

2009-03-24T21:24:00.003-04:00

i got a uv gel manicure today. they actually bake this weird gel to your nails, and it's sort of like having permanent polish. i've read that these nails help some people stop biting their cuticles, which is my most persistent and disgusting habit. i'll post pics- this is the most expensive thing i've tried, and i really want to do it. nice hands by october- big goal. i guess the amount you spend on gels should encourage upkeep. we'll see. i'm not entirely sure they don't make me look like i'm from jersey. you will all have to vote on the photos.

my new favorite website

2009-02-08T23:46:00.001-05:00

cake wrecks

andy rules!

2009-02-05T14:14:00.000-05:00

andy biotic

can i get a what, what?

2009-01-24T13:20:00.002-05:00

some guy in the village thought this was ok:
bad cookies
i guess he's trying to be funny, but why drunken? i think his sense of humor is more offensive than the sentiment- if it was funny fine... but wow.

the news

2009-01-22T16:48:00.003-05:00

i have waited to write about this, sure that the story about it would change, and i wouldn't want to write about it. now that the amazement has died down a little, and the story still holds for me what it originally did, i'll tell you what i think about it.

i usually HATE the news. i hate it. i hate reading it, hearing it, seeing it. it's all about who got arrested, who killed who, what terrible accidents have gone on. it rarely allows me to feel safe and happy, because it seems to make a point of all the things that are wrong in the world. the plane crashed in the hudson last week, and that's what we initially saw on tv- plane crash. i steeled myself for the next part of what i knew i would hear: "all 200 people on board are dead," or "50 people on board are known to be dead, 50 are missing, and 50 are being rushed to local area burn units with no skin left." or whatever. insert worst possible thing, because that's how the news is... or maybe i'm a pessimist. then i saw pictures like the one i'm posting- people getting out on the wings. people helping each other out of the plane. i expected that dirty little secrets would come out: the airline hadn't properly maintained the fleet, and a farm had irresponsibly released a hundred geese that day because they couldn't afford to keep them anymore, and the pilot cheats on his wife and owes back taxes and beats his kids, and in the plane, big people ran over little people and mothers left their babies and it was every man for himself. but as the story developed, we found out all the cool parts: the pilot made split-second fateful decisions, exactly like he had to, but he made them the right way. he didn't misjudge or second guess. he's an older guy, his flight crew was older- they all had over 20 years on- and they stood as examples of the value of experience, which americans often overlook in favor of youth. i just like looking at this guy:

what a badass. a lot of people have been talking about how he's not so much a "hero," and maybe that's true. indeed, he was just doing his job, and he didn't do anything more or less than what he was supposed to. to me, though, in the midst of economic crisis, in the last days of a presidency that has really beaten us up as a nation and made us feel bad, in a time when we see people go to jail for consistently not doing what they should, this guy did the most awesome thing i can think of: exactly what he was supposed to. more than that, the crew did what they should. most of the passengers did what they should. this event may not be a "miracle," it may be more of what we should expect, but maybe it shows us that the outcomes we want are possible when most of us work to do what we should, that it's ok to expect the good ending. it speaks to something we all fear- the things in life we cannot control. no passenger on that plane could do anything about what was happening. they literally put their life in the pilot's hands, as we all do when we get on a plane. or a bus. it's the same when we stand on a street corner- we assume that drivers won't fly up onto the sidewalk and kill us. but we fear that they will, because it can happen, and we can't control it. more than a miracle, this good-news story can serve as an example for us in our now-hopeful place in history- we can make things better, our efforts can result in good, and everything in the news doesn't have to be disaster, even when it's out of our control.

possibly my new favorite thing

2009-01-15T23:41:00.002-05:00

real website:
bridesmaidcontract.com
it goes like this...

it makes a special contract, customized for you, and sends this email to all your bridesmaids:

Hello my beautiful bridesmaids! Melissa here! Let me just say again how happy I am that you are going to be a part of my special day - which I'm calling Melissa-Day! Below are just a few guidelines for the wedding that I'd like you to review. Please initial by each point, sign at the end and send back to me asap. Just want to make sure there aren't any surprises! The planning bride is a happy bride.!

Thanks a bunch! Love ya!
Melissa
xoxoxoxoxo

holy shit, right? i would beat bloody any person who would send me that email, just on principle. but there's more! the contract goes like this:

My hair will remain at the length it is now or longer.

I will not change my hair color without first gaining approval from Melissa by providing a sample photo or hair swatch for consideration.

I will use Sally Hansen's "Maximum Growth-Daily Nail Growth program" every day for the 4 months before the wedding day.

I will not be sarcastic, engage in any eye-rolling, dramatic sighs or other negative energy as it relates to any wedding plans, activities or the wedding itself.

I will not gain more than 3.3 lbs from the weight I was when I was asked to be a bridesmaid.

If applicable, I will join a well-known weight loss program and through whatever means necessary will lose the desired amount of weight as previously discussed at the time when asked to be a bridesmaid in Melissa's wedding.

I swear to attend all showers, (lingerie, kitchen, bridal & bachelorette) to arrive in a timely manner and do everything in my power to support and "be there" for the bride.

I will purchase the Mori Lee style # 495 dress below in Ivory within 3 weeks of today.

I will NOT knowingly get pregnant without notifying Melissa least 6 months prior to the wedding so a suitable alternate can be found. I will also give (at no cost) my purchased bridesmaid dress to said alternate.

I do hereby swear that I will adhere to all of the above & other understood bridesmaid duties for the wedding on 3/10/2009.

____________________ Signature _____________________ Date

hahahahaha. because really, 3.4lbs would be totally unacceptable. and everyone's nails should be long. and there has NEVER been a pregnant bridesmaid- who would be so inconsiderate? who gets a kitchen shower? what is that? the first person to call me bridezilla has to sign some sort of legally binding document.
there are more of these things! i love it.

BRIDESMAID CONTRACT
I, ___________________ bridesmaid for ____________, hereby swear that I
will adhere to all of the following and all other unspoken duties as a bridesmaid
on and leading up to the wedding day, __________________:
• I will not gain more than 7lbs between now and the wedding
• I will not change my hair dramatically in colour, length or style without prior
consultation with the bride
• I will take extra care of my hair, skin and nails in the run-up to the wedding
• I will attend all pre-wedding events including bridal shower, hen night, dress fittings
and make-up appointments
• I will agree to wear a dress of the bride’s choosing, regardless of my own opinions
about style or colour
• I will not wear any extra accessories, items of clothing or jewellery at the wedding
unless pre-approved by the bride
• I will not intentionally fall pregnant before the wedding
• I will do my best to support the bride in any eventuality
• I will not consume more than 10 units of alcohol during the reception
• I will not bring an inappropriate date to the wedding or reception
• I will not make advances towards any inappropriate male guests attending the
reception
• I will not remove any item of my Bridesmaid outfit during the reception
• I will keep my hair and make up fresh at all times
• I will be happy and positive at all times during the wedding and reception
• I will not attempt to out-do the bride in any way
____________________________(Bridesmaid)
(sign, print and date)
____________________________(Bride)
(sign, print and date)

to my friends, bridesmaids and otherwise, flirt with anyone you want- every male guest at my wedding will be an "inappropriate" guest. wear something that's comfortable, that you think looks good. remove all your clothes during the reception, if the urge strikes. drink til you puke, if that's how you roll (try to puke somewhere cleanable, please don't drive after you get obliterated, and take lots of photos of your debauchery). please, attempt to out- do the bride at every juncture, that's just plain fun.

the proud new owner

2009-01-14T17:53:00.002-05:00

of buying the cow, a hack website devoted to our awesome nuptials. i have also been spelling "nuptials" wrong my whole life. nice. i hope everyone thinks our lil site is funny, not crass. i'm sure i will hear about it from somewhere (not naming any names...).

another reason

2009-01-07T17:07:00.002-05:00

that i really love andy.

he saw a picture of anne hathaway the other day. instead of saying what a few people have said to me- something like, "oh, you kind of look like her-" he said...

"she kind of looks like your less attractive older sister or something."

file under

2008-12-03T02:29:00.002-05:00

worst wedding ideas EVER... no really. this lady takes the... oh, well, you'll see.

silly us

2008-11-25T15:24:00.001-05:00

to see some more photos, go here and click blog. they're pretty sweet.... and wicked goofy.

random stuff

2008-11-25T11:17:00.005-05:00

i actually got andy to have engagement photos taken by a real photographer. pretty funny. he went to meet with a priest with me too, even though he's not entirely fired up about the getting married in the church business. the photographer sent us a couple preliminary photos:

here's one of the old photos i got recently- it's otis at knitting group:

he really liked hanging out with kimberly:

if we don't use the professional photos for stuff like engagement announcements, we will use this one, from andy's birthday:

another flashback

2008-11-21T17:17:00.004-05:00

stef and meret came to my place once long ago to hang out with otis and paint flower pots with me. we stuck paint and beads and stickers all over the pots, and put herbs from the flower show in the small pots. meret also chowed some just the clusters from trader joes, and fed otis in his "cave." like this:

ps- i just got almost 800 negatives scanned onto cds, so get ready for a few old photos....

yes we can

2008-11-08T16:21:00.003-05:00

i've never felt particularly involved with politics, though i have strong feelings about it. i've never felt excited about government, though plenty of it makes me angry. and i've never felt nervous, at the edge of being able to be disappointed if things don't go as wonderfully as they may. all that changed last week, when i actually cheered the results of our election like one of those people in far away lands that get to vote for the first time. i got up at 4:30 to go vote with andy- he had to work 24 hours, so we had to get him there before he went in, or there was no going. we thought polls opened at 6, so getting there at 5 would give us a shorter line. we were first in line, and i was the first person in our district to vote. it was actually thrilling this year- full of hope and feeling that things can improve. the feeling that people in this country might get it, at least a little bit. two things about it were weird- first, i voted on a machine that must have existed long before i ever did. you move some lever, click little knobs for what you want, then move the lever back. that's it. then your check marks disappear, and you go away. if i was going to run a scam election, i would have a big, noisy, complicated looking machine like that where you have to do a bunch of fussy stuff, then nothing happens and you never actually see your vote. anyway, the other thing that took away from the total experience is that i didn't get a sticker. what kind of communist country have i moved to where there are no "i voted" stickers? it's like not getting a sucker when you get a shot. bunch of crap. wednesday morning, my uncle called. my uncle is 59 years old- not that old, but certainly set in his ways, and i would think, unlikely to make startling discoveries about his life's philosophy. he's been a republican all his life. he's a marine. he thinks if he makes money, he should keep it. he owns guns and lives on a dirt road. he called to tell me he was excited about the election results. i expected him to say, "so congrats, i guess you crazy socialist lefties win this one." instead, he thought i would be interested to know that for the first time in his life, he voted for a democrat. that he likes obama, and just can't afford to follow the republican line anymore. this from the guy who told me that, when he went to see rod stewart in concert, there were "the coolest negro girls singing back up." i just can't believe this change, and as much as the whole election makes me hopeful for what can be, my uncle's dedication to seeing things get better inspires me.

the other most amazing thing is the shift in congress. the last time major health reform went through was in the lyndon johnson administration- when a similar balance existed. yes, i know about clinton, and good for SCHIP, but really, medicare and medicaid, while riddled with problems, were revolutionary, and shaped the beliefs and policies over the last 40 years. hopefully we can update our dedication to ourselves and one another, we can forge better relationships with other countries of the world, we can recognize that middle class working people are the backbone of our country, that the things that seem so different about each of us are really superficial, and there are a lot more things about us that are similar. i had prepared myself to be horribly disillusioned with my country and its people when mccain won, prepared to accept that women's rights, everyone's health, and regular people just aren't important. i worried that people could be scared into voting for fear again, they could be fooled about taxes and the economy, and they wouldn't see through the charade presented to them. good job, america. we finally can make our hopes more than just hopes, and create the world we wish we had.

found: awesome pics of meret

2008-10-27T17:38:00.003-04:00

one of the coolest people i know happens to be like 20 yrs younger than me. well, a few of the coolest people i know are that way. one of them is ms. meret, who i simply adore. one day, long ago at lucy's, yarn arrived in a big box. lucy was sort of sitting for meret and me, so we decided to play in said big box once the yarn was out. meret's imagination amazes me, and she made a boat, which she rowed with a large stick of unknown origin. she sang boating songs while this went on. when we tired of that game, we put on the meret and melissa show, as we do. this involves meret dancing and singing at the top of her voice, and me making silly dances to support the antics. our boat and our show look like this:

yup, i like that kid.

i love....

2008-10-22T18:58:00.002-04:00

that john mccain thinks that women's "health" is extreme.

these are the people in my neighborhood

2008-10-17T12:16:00.006-04:00

i will likely have to do more than one of these, since i haven't taken all the photos of stuff i would like to show on here. but, to start, i was thinking how much i love where i live (except for the undead mousies), and that everyone should see what makes it neat around here. without further ado, the people (and other stuff) in my neighborhood.
this is george:

george runs the laundry in my neighborhood. he tells us all about how people try to rip him off, how they do their laundry wrong, how sometimes he has to tell people, "you wash somewhere else!" he always says hi when we walk by, and gives me kisses on the cheek. one time, andy went down to wash when i wasn't there, and there was an attractive woman washing as well. george told me the story later. he said that he went up to andy and said something like, she's pretty hot, right? andy told him, ah, only one girl for me. george pulled me aside on the street to tell me this story, and tell me i have a "very good man, very good." we love george.
how do i eat in the city? the best thing i make for dinner is reservations. i try to cook sometimes, but we pretty much eat out all the time. so here's some of the nourishment in our neighborhood. i definitely need more pics for this section. behold, the spicy pickle:

this place is new- i really like it, andy isn't sure it lives up to the hype. i'm not sure what hype. they have sandwiches, salads, soup, and personal pizzas. all very good. and, for $7, you can get a half sandwich and soup, which is my usual- mozzerella and tomato panini with corn and green chili bisque. pretty sweet. looks like this:

this is venus dog and her person, carlos:

venus rules. she is a total fixture in our neighborhood. she eats at all the restaurants we do- thai, eastern european, diner... she's everywhere. venus is older- she has some skin problems, and doesn't really hurry going anywhere. the best part about her though is her story. i guess a million years ago, someone tied her up behind carlos's building and left her there. carlos and his neighbors found her, and tried to figure out where she belonged, but it became clear that she'd been abandon. well, not quite. she'd been delivered to carlos, who has taken good care of her for years now. when i asked if i could have their photo, he told me sure, that venus is very photogenic, although she's only been in two movies. she's wonderful, and truly found her person in the world.
more on my neighborhood later...

happy coming out day!

2008-10-13T22:30:00.002-04:00

i guess it's national coming out day! i know this because the nursing school has a queer awareness group, and they staged a huge queer awareness, well, thing on the steps of my classroom building today. there were ribbons and stickers and cupcakes. and they gave me one. i'll tell you, just about any cause that comes with cupcakes, hey, i'm in. they also gave me a sticker that says "ally." i wore it and ate my delicious cupcake.

conversation with andy

2008-10-12T22:49:00.003-04:00

looking at wedding invitation catalog:
andy: what the hell? this one says, "today i marry my friend?" ugh.
me: what, that's gay?
andy: um, it's so awful.
me: you're not my friend?
andy: shut up. and i can only say that because you're my friend. wanna be my friend? watch tv with me in silence, like me and matt a do.

mike, the headless chicken

2008-10-12T14:17:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure whether i think this is funny or horrifying.
meet mike, the headless chicken, who lived 18 months with no head. weird.

the best/worst part of mike's site could be the jokes. they must have let just anyone submit them, perhaps the most clever and accurately spelled is this:
Why wasn't the chicken wearing pants?
Because chickens don't where pants.

my awesome uncle

2008-10-11T12:44:00.011-04:00

lee is my mom's brother, and i don't see him very often. this summer, i went camping with my mom's family, and got to talk with him a lot.
(aside: i realized i never posted the photo that my cousins are calling "the all-time camping photo," me riding an inflatable alligator rodeo style on 4 ft lake michigan waves:

it is much harder to stay on that thing than you might imagine!)
so anyway, i had my computer so i could look up my test scores, and i have taken all these old photos and made them digital, so we sat around in the woods and looked at digital photos a few different times. i'm the loser with 5,500 photos.... yikes. however, my family thought they were really cool, and a few volunteered to send photos they have to me. uncle lee actually followed thru. for reference, this is lee:

he sent me these incredible pictures that i had never seen. this is my grandfather, joseph campbell:

nice flat top, right? he's a veteran of WWII and i think also of korea. he was 19 years older than my grandmother. i wrote about them before, since the story of their love is like a movie. a weird movie, but a movie. here's my grandma, alice campbell, sent by lee:

it's really odd to see her look like that- i remember her as very old (which is funny, she didn't live to be THAT old), very small, very sweet. she looks young and hip and french there. and not tired. i remember her seeming very tired. probably as a result of her 11 kids. but we may never know the truth. i remember her more like this:

here's the two of them- nice socks!

what's really odd, is that's approximately what i look like standing next to my brother.

i guess you sort of have to know that the height difference is the same- i couldn't find a good pic that showed that.
and then the total gems: the kids, arranged by sex, looking spiffy-

that's Joyce, Linda, Nelly, Joann, and Lillian in the back row, and Martha (my mom), and Lucy up front.
and the boys:

Bob, Lee, Paul, and Joe
how's that for cool? i guessed right on all their identities except i mixed up two of the girls, one of whom i never met. so i thought that was pretty good. i find it weird and awful that three of those kids are dead now, and not the older ones. the youngest, paul, died a few months before my grandmother, after years (though he was very young) of drinking. joann died about a year before i was born- supposedly she overdosed, but i've certainly heard more than one explanation of that. and my mom died almost 11 years ago now, the youngest girl in her family.
i'm really psyched to have those photos. crazy to think that my mom and aunts and uncles had regular lives, like any other kids, and my grandparents were real people.

Horror, Horror

2008-10-07T15:30:00.002-04:00

SERIOUSLY- SAREET- don't read this post....

in fact, maybe no one read this. ew. ew. ew.

so about a week ago, i swore i saw a mouse in our kitchen. i thought i saw a little brown running thing go across the sink area to the stove, and disappear. i told andy. he said i probably didn't see it, and that even if i did, nature would take its course- we have a cat. i pointed out that we have a giant, fat, lazy cat who gets a can of food everyday and who does not live on top of the stove, but i let it go. a few days later, there was no question. i saw a small brown mouse make the same run- sink to under the cover of the stove. i flipped out, opened the stovetop to see if the little bastard was just hanging out in there or something, but he was gone. now i was pissed. i suppose it's no big deal, i thought, we can just move. or seal off the kitchen and never go there again. andy conceded and bought traps. i wouldn't let him get glue traps, and he wouldn't let me get peta ones. fair compromise. we got up the next morning, and one was in a trap. andy took care of it, and wouldn't let me see it. he thought there was only one, so the problem was solved. i made him put the traps back. we were sitting around the next day when we heard the SNAP, and another little guy met his maker. at this point, i not only wanted to move, but to burn our building on the way out, just to be sure the scourge was over. we baited more traps, and didn't catch anything the next day. andy went to work last night, and i was here alone.

that's when it all went terribly wrong. i had him tell me what the mousies looked like once they got trapped, so that if i had to clean one up, i would be prepared. he said it wasn't gross, just dead. dead i can handle. and you can put a paper towel over the whole thing, scoop the trap in and throw the whole thing away, so no touching. ok. i can handle that. he'd been gone about 10 minutes when i heard it. SNAP. shit, i thought, i really did not want that to happen. my worst fear was that it would be stuck but still alive, so i waited a few minutes to check it out, to give it time and to steel myself against the whole thing. i put on gloves and a shirt i didn't care about. i got a cardboard box, a dustpan, put on gloves, got a paper towel, took a deep breath and went into the kitchen. we had put the traps under the cover of the stove, so i lifted it up. i hoped that maybe the trap just got tripped- that had happened before, and there was no mousie inside... a girl can hope, right? lo and behold, when i opened the cover, there were two traps, one sprung and empty, the other untouched. SWEET- oh wait. there it was, over in the corner, under the pipes that lead to the burners, bloody and nasty. i dropped the cover, and just about passed out. wtf!?!?! i thought it would be stuck if it was stuck, and it would be easy to pick up. now i'm supposed to wend it's crushed little body out of the maze of pipes? shitshitshit. so i called andy. he said to relax, no big deal, try to scoop it with the box, and it would be fine. i got my supplies back together, and tried to go back to re-survey the situation.

i opened the cover, and emt mode kicked in. the little fucker was breathing. double frick. now what? i decided to scoop it into the box, then decide what to do. it was hard to see it, since i was crying and blubbering, and probably my neighbors could hear. i went to scoop with the box and the fucking thing GOT UP and started meandering away! ugh. i couldn't react fast enough, even though it was going pretty slow. one of these traps had gone off on andy's thumb and made a huge black and blue mark- this little dude got it right in his mousie noodle. he was bleeding. but he got away before i could figure out what to do. so i'm now this guilty bad person who couldn't suck it up in time to prevent suffering. sucks. i still haven't found it- andy's going to pull the stove out when he gets home to see if he can find it. so we're moving as soon as i can convince andy to. and i'm calling the landlord, even though andy doesn't think i should. and i'm firing the cat.

Remembering Fraser

2008-10-05T20:17:00.007-04:00

Fraser Sullivan seems to be related to andy only distantly, but he was always very close to our hearts. fraser was married to barbara, who is bob (andy's dad)'s cousin. however, he was our ambassador to canada, and together with barbara, served as our welcome wagon every time we came to visit. he died last night of a sudden aortic aneurysm, and the world is worse off for losing him.

during my first trip to meet andy's family in canada, barbara and fraser made sure there was plenty of vegetarian food around for me. they arranged a boat ride on the river for us, and ate ice cream cones during the trip like teenagers. they were adorable, and it was immediately apparent how close they were. they treated me like i was already in the family.

fraser was always up for going out, showing us the sights and the fun of the miramichi. he danced with his wife, sang along to all the songs, and i think he could have made a good time out of an insurance seminar.
this year, fraser had a bad time of getting gout. he was tired and had a little trouble getting around, but never complained, and was still really happy to be around the family. he spent a lot of time discussing canadian health care with me, explaining how it works, and how it really is a great system. few people are so patient with me in talking about things i really care about. he spent a little more time this year sitting, since his joints weren't good to him.

he wasn't up for walking the whole parade this year, so we watched it from the sidelines, but here, he got up and showed the gout who's the boss- twirling his cane and walking the last bit of the parade into the rink.

he couldn't have a whole guinness, but he had a sip. he made sure i knew the words to all the songs, even the bawdy, somewhat off-color shouting in between verses (no- nay- never- RIGHT UP HIS KILT!). Here, he and barbara sing the black velvet band (you'd swear she was queen of the land- AND I AM!).

he always hugged and kissed me when we arrived and again when we left, reminding me of my own family. he was quick to say "i love you," and was one of the sweetest people i've met. he was a loving father, husband, and grandfather, and was a veteran of the canadian air force. i will miss him dearly, and i hope he is ushered in to the next world with Céad Míle Failte, a hundred thousand welcomes, a reflection of the open arms he received me with in this world.

procrastination from jonathan

2008-09-28T15:48:00.002-04:00

anyone with random time to futter away, please feel free to answer all these fun questions, courtesy of jonathan:

Post your answers, if you care to. If not, that’s cool too. I tweaked a few of the questions.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you? Do you care that astrology is wrong?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride? If I were in the street, would you brake?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you. Or more if you want.
16) Do you have any pets? What are their names?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary? If cute, do you know how scary that is?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place at which to hang out?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time? (With you clothes on)
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favorite and least favorite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

flashback

2008-09-24T14:18:00.001-04:00

makin barley thing. feelin the flow.

sign that hell has frozen over

2008-09-22T21:22:00.004-04:00

random fun

2008-09-21T18:19:00.002-04:00

i have a couple of bridesmaids! i'm considering who else i need to get in on this gig, but to start with, lucy agreed to be my maid of honor, and erin agreed to be a bridesmaid, and the bridesmaid in charge of michigan disasters. speaking of which, i think andy has agreed to have the wedding in michigan, maybe around next september. it's starting to all seem very real. my aunt offered to fund some of it, which makes it seem like it might actually happen. it's very scary and very fun. i'm not really uptight about the details or having some "dream day" or whatever, but i've never tried to plan anything on this scale before. everyone else is excited, and i don't want to disappoint them. i've started to look at dresses in magazines and online- they seem ridiculous. or, more accurately, they seem like i would look ridiculous in them. charles says that's just because wedding dresses do look stupid anywhere but a wedding. we'll see. they don't seem to make dresses for short girls with big boobs. maybe the models in the photos just aren't short with big boobs. i just don't want to look like cinderella got her legs amputated below the knees and drown in her froufrou. in other news, i decided to see what all the hype was about and read the first book in the twilight series. holy crap do i want those few hours back. i don't know if i've ever read worse writing. it was seriously awful. if i have to read the words "smouldering" or "greek god" one more time, i might barf. go die, stephanie meyer, or go take a writing seminar....

yearbooks

2008-09-19T21:16:00.010-04:00

the fire at my father's house led to some interesting things- he's getting a new kitchen, i found my high school yearbooks in the attic. well, two of the four anyway. the other two were at andy's parents, so when we were there last, i looked at those two, and brought them back here to the ol apartment. i thought i would share some 14 or 16 yr old wisdom, or at least what the kids thought of me. first:

i'll translate the good parts: melissa, denny's is a great classroom.
yup. i skipped 3 full months of my senior year of high school. i went to school every morning, sat in front of my locker until it was time for everyone else to go to class, and then gathered whoever decided not to go that day and went to denny's for breakfast. the "whoever"s rotated, i went everyday. poor planning if you want to do well in school.

p.s. my hair will miss you.
what? i don't know what that's about. i'm not sure i knew then.

this was from one of my best friends. the interesting parts are: "hi liss... remember the first time we met in 6th grade, i thought you were a stuck up little bitch.... ps. after all, your taking baths at my house next year."
it's true, he had a real apt with a tub near campus. the bitch thing, probably also true.

so, weirdest complement ever... it says:
melissa- we don't no (sic) each other so well so i'm going to tell my deepest secrets with you. to begin you've got a really cool jaw. seriously i love your jaw line. i also like the way you think you've got cool ideas. your a great looking girl. if you ever get bored and want to talk call me.
so, multiple amusing things there. first of all, the guy who wrote that was older than me, semi-popular, and pretty cute. obviously didn't sit next to me in ap english, but it's legible, mostly. why did i never call cute boys who wrote blatantly interesting things about me? i guess i'm shy. i know. i don't believe it either.
one of the guys i worked with on the yearbook always pretended to be very annoyed with me. he wrote this:

"...and last but not least, i'd give you my phone #, but then you might call me or something (page 238)."
a quick turn to page 238 showed me this:

"ugh... (phone number) i lied!"
i don't think i ever called him either. i wonder why i didn't have many friends...
maybe i was just afraid the guys i might call would turn out like these next couple, who don't seem ashamed of anything. there were a surprising number that followed this format for some reason (i never took my pants off in school- i swear!):

that one says:
"melissa, show me your panties. you know i like that. i will probably never see you again, so wanna have a one-nighter? i didn't think so." (phone number... just in case)

this one says:
this is my head with x-ray vision I SEE YOU NAKED not like i couldn't anyways since you gave me all those pictures have a NAKED summer see ya next year NAKED

so that's a little taste of my school. still not sure how i got out, and how i got out without killing a large number of people.

2008-09-17T15:20:00.001-04:00

another of my favorite things

2008-09-16T11:38:00.002-04:00

Let's celebrate! International Talk Like a Pirate Day is nearly upon us! In honor, the following, blatantly pirated from the TLAPD website (I feel they would approve of me plunder):

Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day

(We came up with these in an effort to interest The Other Dave (Letterman) in TLAPD. His staff liked 'em, but alas, his show was"dark" the week of Sept. 19.)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Bonus pickup lines (when the ones above don't work, as they often won't)

They don’t call me Long John because my head is so big.

You’re drinking a Salty Dog? How’d you like to try the real thing?

Wanna shiver me timbers?

I’ve sailed the seven seas, and you’re the sleekest schooner I’ve ever sighted.

Brwaack! Polly want a cracker? … Oh, wait. That’s for Talk Like a PARROT Day.

That’s the finest pirate booty I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Let's get together and haul some keel.

That’s some treasure chest you’ve got there.

Top Ten Pickup Lines for the Lady Pirates

By popular demand ...

10. What are YOU doing here?

9. Is that a belayin' pin in yer britches, or are ye ... (this one is never completed)

8. Come show me how ye bury yer treasure, lad!

7. So, tell me, why do they call ye, "Cap'n Feathersword?"

6. That's quite a cutlass ye got thar, what ye need is a good scabbard!

5. Aye, I guarantee ye, I've had a twenty percent decrease in me "lice ratio!"

4. I've crushed seventeen men's skulls between me thighs!

3. C'mon, lad, shiver me timbers!

2. RAMMING SPEED!

...and the number one Female Pirate Pick-up Line:

1. You. Pants Off. Now!

i'm immature

2008-09-14T21:04:00.003-04:00

totally true. but this is real. and real funny, as far as i can tell. in austria, some guy named focko settled an area a million years ago. in whatever language, -ing is a suffix that means "people of" or something like that. so focko's people live here:

View Larger Map
click on the map part- apparently all roads lead to fucking. even wolfing, and oberfranking. i hate when i get oberfranked. apparently the sign announcing one's arrival to fucking is popular with american tourists. so much so that the town council got tired of paying to replace the sign each time it was stolen (they probably shouted something like, "fucking americans!!"). so they set it in concrete, and now, you can't fucking steal it. you can still take photos. like this:

now, i don't speak, well, whatever, but apparently the bottom sign requests that people drive slowly, to spare the poor fucking children. it translates as, "Please, not so fast."

ugh- i just threw up a little in my mouth

2008-09-12T16:36:00.002-04:00

again. yeah, you sure wouldn't want tax payers to pay for anything. poor, burdened alaska tax payers. oh wait. they don't PAY TAXES!!!

Palin's town used to bill victims for rape kits

By Ken Dilanian and Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
WASILLA, Alaska — In 2000, Alaska lawmakers learned that rural police agencies had been billing rape victims or their insurance companies $500 to $1,200 for the costs of the forensic medical examinations used to gather evidence. They quickly passed a law prohibiting the practice.

According to the sponsor, Democrat Eric Croft, the law was aimed in part at Wasilla, where now-Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor. When it was signed, Wasilla's police chief expressed displeasure.
"In the past, we've charged the cost of exams to the victims' insurance company when possible," then-chief Charlie Fannon told the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, the local newspaper. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

Now that Palin is the Republican nominee for vice president, Democrats such as former Alaska governor Tony Knowles — who signed the rape-kit bill into law and was defeated by Palin in 2006 — are raising the issue to question Palin's commitment to women's issues and crime victims. Palin appointed Fannon after firing his predecessor shortly after she took office in 1996.
"In retrospect, I would have asked the female working-mother mayor of that town why her police chief was against this," said Croft, the former Anchorage state representative.

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said in an e-mail that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."

"Gov. Palin's position could not be more clear," she said. "To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice."

Comella would not answer other questions, including when Palin learned of Wasilla's policy or whether she tried to change it. The campaign cited the governor's record on domestic violence, including increasing funding for shelters.

Knowles criticized Palin to USA TODAY, and again Wednesday in a teleconference organized by Democrats. "It seems like one of those pieces of legislation that you can't imagine it would ever have to be written," he said.

Until the 2000 legislation, local law enforcement agencies in Alaska could pass along the cost of the exams, which are needed to obtain an attacker's DNA evidence. Rape victims in several areas of Alaska, including the Matanuska-Susitna Valley where Wasilla is, complained about being charged for the tests, victims' advocate Lauree Hugonin, of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, told state House committees, records show.

In cases when insurance companies are billed, the victims pay a deductible.

Fannon told the Frontiersman that the tests would cost the department up to $14,000 per year. He said he would rather force rapists to pay for the tests, not taxpayers. Fannon, who is no longer police chief, could not be reached for comment Wednesday; his home phone number has been disconnected.

It is not known how many rape victims in Wasilla were required to pay for some or all of the medical exams, but a legislative staffer who worked on the bill for Croft said it happened. "It was more than a couple of cases, and it was standard practice in Wasilla," Peggy Wilcox said, who now works for the Alaska Public Employees Association. "If you were raped in Wasilla, this was going to happen to you."

After calling Wasilla Mayor Dianne Keller for comment Tuesday, USA TODAY was instructed to submit a public records request, under which the city has 10 days to respond. As of Wednesday, the city had not responded to a request for records reflecting Wasilla's prior policy, including when it took effect and the cost to sexual assault victims.

In 2000, there were 497 rapes reported in Alaska, FBI statistics show. That's a rate of 79.3 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation.

Nationally, victims' advocates have for years reported scattered instances of rape victims being required to pay for their forensic tests, says Ilse Knecht of the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington. Those complaints have subsided somewhat after Congress in 2005 passed a law requiring states to provide rape exams free of charge or reimburse victims for the costs, says Knecht, whose group supported the provision.

"The reason we passed the legislation was that we saw it was prevalent enough to be a pretty considerable problem," Knecht says. "There are no other victims of crime that end up being billed for evidence collection."

The Senate version of the legislation that included the rape-exam provision was sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was one of 58 co-sponsors; Republican presidential nominee John McCain was not.

HOLY DISGUSTING batman. why isn't our whole country outraged? she shouldn't just not get elected, she should be burned at the stake. ugh. ugh. ugh. maybe palin's town should pay for the rape kits so that victimized women can save their money for the babies that sarah palin would force them to have if they became pregnant after being raped. vote palin- because being raped isn't enough- you should be charged money and saddled with an unwanted child too. told you you shouldn't have worn that slutty skirt. way to ask for it. for all of it.

um, awesome....

2008-09-11T15:29:00.001-04:00

the guy next to me at starbucks is eating a plate of cheese and crackers and drinking a mini bottle of merlot.

why am i still mad?

2008-09-11T13:22:00.002-04:00

On sept 11, i always think a little about how things have changed for everyone. this year is especially emotional for me, since it's the first year andy is a full-fledged firefighter, and the first year we're engaged. i've committed to spend my life with someone who does this for a living. someone who would have responded the same way 343 of his brothers did that morning. someone who, two nights ago, when someone outside our window yelled "call 911- there's a fire," went dashing out our door at midnight, carrying his shoes and his phone, looking for the fire to make sure everyone was ok. it's not about running to the danger, it's about understanding the risk you take to do your job. one reason 9/11 was so awful for firefighters here is that they knew the risk of dying in the building. they went to help anyway. they came in when it wasn't their shift, they stayed over when they were supposed to go home. they did it to help the public, but they also did it to help each other. they understood the possibilities of going into a building with the damage the towers had. 343 of them ended up on the shit side of that risk. i understand that risk every day. it's sad, but it's the job they do. what drives me insane is that workers were told they were protected in the days, weeks, years after the buildings fell. they were told that their protective equipment would keep them safe. they had respirators and PPE, masks and radiation detectors, health check ups and debriefings. and we have seen young non-smokers die of lung cancer in a matter of a few years later. skin problems. ms. people without risk factors have been getting sick. it's terrifying that some are unable to work, unable to pay their bills, scared to have kids. nyc has changed its tune a bit- they don't say the workers were safe, and they are "studying" what happens to them as time goes on. as we keep people in our minds on this anniversary, keep in mind that not everyone affected died. that sometimes there are effects we don't see right away. that people still need our support and our resources years later. that not all scars will fade quickly.

i can't promise...

2008-09-04T15:33:00.002-04:00

to stay totally away from political topics. i thought i would, but i'm just getting amazingly upset about the whole campaigning business. it makes me throw up a little in my mouth at least 3 times a day. sarah palin is the worst ever... i just can't believe she exists, and that people don't stone her to death when she goes outdoors. i feel differently since i visited walden pond, but thoreau was an author i respected quite a lot, largely because he didn't talk so much that he made himself look dumb, he quoted people until they did it for themselves. in that vein...

happy birthday to my mom

2008-09-04T02:23:00.007-04:00

my mom's birthday was the 2nd, and usually i do something nice for myself to celebrate. this year i kept it quiet with dessert at home. i have been thinking about her a lot though, and i genuinely hope she would be pleased with my life. she would be 53 this year, and i really miss her a lot. here's what she looked like when her parents brought her home from the hospital:

and a little older, the first pic i have of her that looks like her:

she looked like this when she got engaged the first time, twelve years younger than i am now!

and here's a silly pic of what she looked like with me and my youngest brother:

happy birthday!

cutest family

2008-08-30T00:29:00.000-04:00

my brother wrote on his myspace page:

"I was looking around thinking things aren't too bad. I have a decent job, a small nice apartment, MSU football tickets laying on my coffee table, my bills are paid (for the moment), my sister just got engaged to an awesome guy, one I definately wouldn't mind having for a brother. Just then for that split second., life was good."

mr. ellie pooh and the "crappy" gift

2008-08-29T15:44:00.007-04:00

whaahahahaha! there are gifts, and then there are gifts. my friends do it up. i got an email the other day telling me to expect an engagement gift from jonathan, stefanie, and meret, since it was ordered and didn't have a method for enclosing a card. you know, so i didn't think i was getting anthrax in the mail. pretty awesome, since engagement gifts are way above and beyond the call of duty (i said doody). when i got home last night, we found a package at our doorstep with the return address "mr. ellie pooh." hmm... maybe we were getting anthrax. curiosity killed the balissa, so i bust open this package, and see this first:

ooh- conservation! how socially responsible. next i saw two beautiful paper boxes. like this:

also featuring elephants. which is sweet- i love elephants. they are wrinkley and make good noises. the boxes contained the most beautiful stationary- it looked handmade and thick and lovely. the heart shaped box had heart shaped papers in a few different colors, and the rectangle had paper and envelopes. then, the enclosed card caught my eye. the best part of this stationary is this:

yup- that says "75% elephant dung paper"!!!!! looking back at the paper, you can see bits of grasses and organic bits scattered around. there's a note inside explaining the ellie pooh. in sri lanka, elephants need lots of space, and farmers need lots of space. and there's not that much space. elephants wind up stepping on farms and causing damage. no one kills elephants for meat, and the ivory thing is sort of over, so they only reason people are now killing elephants in sri lanka is because they are pests. so someone came up with the idea that if the elephants could generate compensation for the destruction they tend to cause, the farmers could quit killing them. so they started collecting elephant poo, sterilizing it, adding rice paddy, and making "clean, odorless, eco-friendly, acid-free paper." so it was the best crappy gift ever! there's even a graphic on the explanation. it shows an elephant silhouette and says "eat," elephant on toilet silhouette, "poop," kettle "boil and sanitize," kitchen mixer "pulp," and then a stack of paper. LOVE it. i showed andy. he goes, "wow, that's really beautiful paper." i told him about the poo. he goes, "huh. ok. wash your hands."

edit: i finally got a good photo of the graphic. this is better than telling about it.

the second one is my fave- an elephant on a pachyderm potty. LOVE it!

a few of my favorite things

2008-08-26T17:27:00.008-04:00

of late, stuff that's struck my fancy:
1) willie nelson ice cream

i could write a whole post of stuff i like about willie nelson. combine that stuff with country peach cobbler in frozen form... holy crap. it's sort of against my theory that i shouldn't eat anymore until after we actually get married, since i would like to fit in a dress, but wow... there might not be a better ice cream. and made by the guys who brought you the fabulous cherry garcia. can you get sainted for making confections? well, they should.

2) cats on their backs

this is clark, of lewis and clark, one of the kittens we got for andy's parents for christmas. when we brought them home, both of them could fit in your palm. now look at this beast. he's fuzzy and warm and smells good.

3) getting my nails done

well, another excuse to show my ring, which makes me crazy happy lately. i'm trying not to bite my nails, which is challenging. i think getting my nails done helps me think they are pretty, and want to lay off them a little.

4) Andy's parents

because who else makes sure there are flowers in your room when you get back from getting engaged. and then of course tells you the flowers are from the rabbit and cats.

5) Andy

seriously, what's funnier than a guy who gets genuinely disappointed when he realizes that he can't look in the mirror at a restaurant and see what he looks like with his eyes closed? i said, well, if you really want to know, we can just take a photo... so that's the result of that conversation.

6) zenmeat

umm, wow! this not eating thing is going to be much harder than i initially anticipated. especially in nyc, where you occasionally just walk past stuff like this lil gem in midtown: zenburger, 465 Lexington... uh, hello? did the sign really say i could get hot dogs? chickie nuggets? zenbaconcheeseburger???? holy crap. count my fat ass in! illustrating the difference between healthy and good for you. mmm.

classy broad

2008-08-22T10:23:00.007-04:00

i've read that it's tacky to send people pics of your ring, and that if it must be done, the ring should always be on your hand. i guess the point is that you don't want people to think you care about the ring more than the engagement. well, here it is, i care about the engagement much more. however, for me, most of the people i care to share our excitement with are far away, and well, i'm a tacky girl. plus, some people have asked to see it, and for me, the ring is very special. it was made in the jewelry store where i grew up, where my father has worked for over 30 years. it was designed especially for me, by andy and stewart, the jeweler whose bench has literally been next to my dad's my whole life. so there, miss manners... the caveat is that it turns out it's really hard to take pics of this thing. not to toot its horn, but no matter how i put it, there's glare and you can't see the pretty details. here's one of the better photos- caution! i love andy, but the ring is not on my finger!

the side view is the most impressive. i'll tell you what i know about it- andy would only tell me, "it fits, right?" from the side you can see the really pretty scroll engravings. it has small stylized infinity scrolls over most of the band, which is white gold. the stones you can see from the side- 4 at a time, i guess. there are 17 stones in the whole ring (holy crap), with three main stones. the center stone has a thing called a partial bezel setting- the stone is round, but sets into the metal along each side, and has four prongs on the spots where the corners would be, giving it sort of a squared appearance. lucy pointed out that it doesn't stick up a lot- i talked to the jeweler yesterday, and he said that was one of andy's requests, so that i could wear it at work if i want to. it had to be durable and not in the way. the side stones are also partial bezel set, which makes them sort of float- you can see the bottoms of all three center stones. below the main stone are two more stones, one on front and one on back, full bezel set (like a collar around the stone). in this photo, you can see the sides a little- on the side of the three center stones, there are 6 smaller full cut stones on each side, like this:

see, my hand is in that pic... here's my attempt at a photo of the side of the ring with it on my hand, like you're supposed to do:

i'm glad people like our engagement story too! i thought it was really cute. for like hours afterward, he kept saying, "oh crap! i should have said..." but he's wrong- it was perfect.
and of course, the real reason i'm excited to be engaged:

engaged!

2008-08-21T16:12:00.007-04:00

i'm over the moon excited to let everyone know that andy and i got engaged on tuesday! i can't quit staring at this amazing ring. i'm glad school is out for a few more days, since i really wouldn't be able to pay attention.

apparently, a few months ago when i graduated, andy took the opportunity to speak with my dad about the possibility of us getting married. andy was very secret and wonderful about it, and of course my father was thrilled. in the intervening months, andy had my dad's jewelery store custom make the most fabulous ring ever. i couldn't be more impressed with it. it's funny that i love it so much- andy is wonderful, and the ring is just icing on the cake. andy told me that he wanted to go to boston to talk with his mom about something. i couldn't figure out what in the world couldn't be done over the phone and necessitated 8hrs in the car in two days. but he said get in the car... so i did. we spent the evening with his parents, and he said he was thinking about going to this restaurant we both like in portsmouth, NH the next day. i like the place a lot, but wow, another two hours in the car for veggie BLTs? he was up for it, and seemed enthusiastic, so i agreed to go. we ate a lovely lunch, and he said he wanted to go to this pub he used to like, and take a little walk. we looked in some shops- they have the cutest stuff in portsmouth- and wound up down by the water. i said- you know, this is right where you first told me you love me?

he said- oh yeah? let's sit, enjoy the water for a minute, then we'll go find the pub. so we sat. he said- do you still love me? do you think you want to love me forever? and he produced this ring magically from nowhere that was so sparkley i couldn't really believe it. i got all teary, because i'm a sap, and was totally overwhelmed. i said of course i loved him, and must have blubbered some other stuff, because after about five minutes, with the ring on my finger, he said, umm, you know you still haven't said yes?

so of course i said yes. and i couldn't be happier. we have received the most wonderful outpouring of support and well-wishes from our family and friends. i've been trying to contact everyone personally, but whoa! what a job. everyone keeps asking when and where we'll get married... we aren't sure yet, but will let everyone know when we've made any decisions. it's all very new and wonderful right now. he keeps calling me his fiancee... in front of people! it's amazing and wonderful. here are some pictures, since we won't be able to share with everyone right away in person.
right after we got engaged, just after i had wiped some tears away, i grabbed these women on the street and said- would you take a picture for us please? we just GOT ENGAGED!! i was a little too excited, and i'm lucky they didn't run away. instead, they took this, right near the scene of the crime:

this is my incredible ring. i can't believe what a great job andy did choosing what he wanted. it's white gold with 17 diamonds (!!!), and it is so sparkley i can't see straight. it looks like this:

on the way back from portsmouth, we celebrated at the batting cages. i even hit a few! like this:

andy is much more talented. more like this:

i realized that this means that i will get a bob-and-carol in law eventually! they were so happy. they took us to dinner near where andy's mom works. andy's dad kept making like he was blinded by the bling. i adore them.

so anyway, thank you to all our friends and family for sharing this really exciting time with us!

wonder, disaster, and more wonder in the midwest

2008-08-17T12:44:00.009-04:00

i went to visit my family, since i have a little time off from school. i think home is always a blessing and a curse, and somehow my family and their lives always live up to that. the bad news, i suppose i'll just spit it out, since there's no nice way to tell the story, is that while i was on a plane flying home, there was a fire at my father's house. it will wind up being ok, since the damage isn't terrible, and no one was hurt. amazingly, my father was at work, and his neighbor heard the fire alarm going off (my father thanked andy and me for gifting him a good quality fire/carbon monoxide combo). my dad is a little reclusive, so i was amazed that his neighbor felt he knew my dad well enough to really try to help. he ran into my dad's house to make sure no one was home, and to see if there was anything he could do. apparently, he couldn't find the fire, but the house was full of smoke, so once he determined that there weren't people inside, he went out safely and called 911. then, perhaps more amazingly, he figured out how to get in touch with my dad at work, so he could come home. my dad said the situation hadn't really hit him until he drove by the delhi township fire department, just a few blocks from his home, and the garage doors were all open, and no trucks were inside. just about that time, he could see the police cars blocking his street, and he said, "i knew then the party was at my place..."
the fire chief apparently went to high school with my dad, so at least there was someone vaguely familiar. i can only imagine what my dad thought of having strangers in his house, let alone tearing it apart. they did a great job- the damage could have been much worse, and they were very considerate about only trashing what they had to. turns out the hot water heater had shorted and started the fire, burning most of the laundry room, and causing the firefighters to pull down a portion of the kitchen wall. amazingly, my father has fire insurance, so they are taking care of things. they offered to pay for a hotel until they can replace the hot water heater, but my father wants to be home. so he's heating water on the stove for baths- doesn't seem safe, and i want that to end as soon as possible. ultimately, his house can use the attention it will get now that a contractor needs to come out and take a good look at things. he's overwhelmed, but doing ok. the laundry room looks like this:

disasterous, but i was thrilled with the way everyone helped out and came together. ultimately, it will get fixed, and it's just stuff.
my dad wouldn't hear of me putting off the plans i had for my trip because of the fire, so i left the first day i was home for muskegon, to camp with my mom's family. i'll post photos, but anyone who looks has to promise not to make fun of me in a bathing suit. i try not to be self conscious, but this is the first bathing suit i've purchased in years. i don't like to wear them. however, i was reminded that michigan really does have the most amazing beaches in all the world, so i indulged. the sand is incredible. clean, soft, warm. the water is cold, but refreshing, also clean, and has great waves this time of year. they were 4-6 feet while we were there. here's some camping with my mom's fam:
these are all of my cousins that were at the beach that day. 2 were on the trip, but not at the beach, lots of those in the pic had their kids there, and there are many more that couldn't come on the trip. but here's us.

this is me with my cousins tracy and tammy. i don't get to see them as much as i would like. they are both relatively newly married, and lovely people, really. i'm amazed at how well things turn out. tammy is an rn also (more on that later). she said there were cute picture frames that say cousins on them, so she wanted lots of cousin pics.

my brother matt soaks it all in:

not a very good photo, but for any of you who have spent time in MI, here's some euchre with tracy (my partner), and my mom's sister lucy and brother lee.

and here is me with both my bros, jay and matt.

more wonder... last week i took the nclex, which is the national licensing exam for RNs. i left for MI the next day, and you can't get your results for two days. my brother graciously drove with me into town while we were camping to get my results- we stole internet from pizza hut, and found that i passed. i am officially an RN. it was quite exciting. my cousin tammy is an RN in pediatric oncology- here's us RNing together, just after i got my results:

campfire action: my uncle lee and aunt linda, more of mom's siblings.

warning: lots of photos ahead. i have friends, and they have kids. it's weird, i know. however, by some coincidence of amazingness, all my friends have the best, most adorable kids in the world. unbiased, seriously. and my friends don't post pics of their kids nearly as often as they should. so let me help.
Leif is the son of one of my best high school friends, eric, and his beautiful wife kim. yup, you get it... erikson... the kid is so cool. i had only met him once before in his brief year upon this earth. he warmed right up to me, and we had a blast. eric is a stay at home dad, and they have the best relationship. leif actually blew his first kiss during my visit. to me. whoo! he doesn't say much yet- he's just over 1 yr- but he says "whassthis... whassthis..." and points a lot. at one point he grabbed the top of my shirt and said whassthis? i said "first base."

eric laughed and said i count as a NARM (not a role model). here's the amazing leif:

first base

my friend elliott also has a baby, named babypants. he's more like a young-man-pants now, since he's nearly two. i had never met him, and finally had the pleasure this trip. babypants took a little longer to warm up than leif did, but once he realized he needed my help to climb to the top of the play tent, we were fast friends. he's beautiful. here he is:

i don't get to see my mom's family a lot, so it was really amazing to be able to hang out with them. it seems like they would feel estranged or something, since i'm not around a lot, but they were wonderful- they told me how glad they were that i was there, they indulged me being obnoxious, and even said i was the life of the party (ha!). so it was really nice. i got some work done at my dad's place, only a little, but a start, and got the contractors in to do bids. my dad called the insurance, and the adjuster visited also, so i think the ball is rolling. i'm glad to be back, but i had a fabulous time!

montague st adventures in scrabble

2008-08-06T21:53:00.003-04:00

of course i put "coitus" and "reefer." andy asked what coitus means. then he responded with this winner:

more spinning... in the city

2008-08-03T22:47:00.003-04:00

this is where i live. i love it here. the day was nice, so i walked the block to the promenade with my spinning wheel. apparently i'm always a freak, which is ok with me. it's like i have paparazzi down there- whether i bring otis or the wheel, people actually photograph me. another phenomenon that i haven't experienced before today, but that i've heard lucy report is having conversations about yarn with people who don't speak the same language you do. i had a full spinning conversation with three women who spoke ONLY some asian language. they didn't even speak enough english (or i suppose i didn't speak enough, well, whatever) to tell me what language they spoke. but they touched my wool, and looked at completed yarn, and stood in front of me to watch for almost an hour. it was weird and wonderful, and felt like some "woman" thing, where the process of making fabric seemed universal, regardless of the fact that we couldn't actually understand each other. they talked, and i didn't get it, i talked and they didn't get it. and it was nice. other people stared or took photos, and a few asked what i was doing, where i got wool, how i kept my wheel in my apartment. i didn't realize until i was just looking at photos that i was wearing my "ask me about my yarn shop" tee shirt. so there, nyc. how relaxing and fun. makes me not even mind studying for the nclex, or the clux as andy calls it. spinning looked like this:

also, it turns out maggie cat likes ice cream. i'm pretty sure it's not good for her, so we don't let her eat much. she's also fat, so it's obviously a bad idea. but it's cute. like this:

SPINNING!

2008-08-01T17:06:00.004-04:00

thanks to lucy and to school being over, the spinning wheel is in full swing again. i picked up this old project:

which is a beautiful marino/ tussah silk blend that i think is made by ashland bay, and is, of course, from mind's eye yarns. i'm part of the mind's eye shameless promotion department. everyone should be. it turns out i forgot a lot of things about spinning, but it's coming back as i work. it's so relaxing and wonderful- i was remembering how before i knew how to spin, lucy would let me treadle a wheel when i was feeling stressed or sad. thanks to zoloft and treadling, i'm feeling great. i actually cleaned my apartment yesterday, which never happens. so that's good. it's not clean by anyone's standards, but i threw out 6 bags of garbage, vacuumed the carpet, the floorboards, the furniture, filed all my bills and papers, and feel very content about the whole thing. here's me spinning a few minutes ago:

i also just bought a new pair of jeans. they are 4 sizes smaller than what i wore this time last year. sort of feels nice. i have my RN board exams- nclex- next week, so i'm practicing for that. the day after that's done, i'm headed for michigan to see my family. i get to go camping in muskegon with my mom's fam, then get to spend almost a week with my dad's fam. i can't wait!

Heros

2008-07-26T22:10:00.004-04:00

Andy's job tonight
I still don't know all the details, but andy was in the water for an hour, and a 10 year old girl is still missing. I haven't talked to andy yet, and i hope he's doing ok.

A 10-year-old girl was lost in the choppy waters off Coney Island Saturday even as her young cousin narrowly escaped the same tragic fate, authorities said.

The girl was one of at least five presumed drownings at beaches across the city and Long Island in the past two days.

Akira Johnson and her cousin Tyriek, also 10, were swimming about 5:30 p.m. Saturday when they were pulled under by the currents. Lifeguards responded, but were able to rescue only the boy, who did not suffer any serious injuries.

"She's 10 years old. She's a bright child," teary-eyed Charles German said of his granddaughter, a student at Public School 188 in Bayside, Queens. "I can hardly think of anything to say. I'm praying."

Relatives of the children held a beachside vigil as NYPD, FDNY and Coast Guard units combed the Atlantic Ocean with boats and helicopters for the little girl.

"I saw the little girl's hand go up once, then it went down, and then she disappeared," said sobbing Mark Vega of Coney Island, who was on the beach when lifeguards raced into the surf in search of the children.

and an older story, but one close to my heart:

This is our good friend Ellis, who always laughs about people calling him a hero (he has a medal for pulling a baby out of a fire when he was an EMT and didn't have any fire gear). He says it's just his job. We know Matt O'Sullivan also- they are both such great guys.

Firefighter Ellis Williams Bravely Battles Brooklyn Fire
There’s no doubt, firefighting is a dangerous job.

But on June 25, Firefighter Ellis Williams of Engine 202 proved it to be true as he battled an intense fire in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

“It was a punishing fire, but everyone working there did a great job,” said Firefighter Williams, who became a firefighter in 2006 after serving as an FDNY EMT for five years.

Dispatchers received a call at 3:42 a.m. reporting smoke in a fourth floor apartment on 774 Henry St. Within minutes, multiple calls were received for smoke conditions, fire and people trapped at the address.

As they responded, Firefighter Williams said he could smell the smoke from two blocks away.

“My adrenaline started pumping at that point,” he said. “Your training starts to kick in and you rely on what you’ve learned at the firehouse.”

Engine 202 was the first fire company to arrive on the scene, finding fire blowing out the fourth-floor windows of a six-story, multiple dwelling.

Firefighter Williams was assigned the front nozzle position, meaning he would be in charge of operating the front of the hose line and getting water on the fire, and Firefighter Matthew O’Sullivan (assigned to Ladder 101) backed him up.

As they began hooking up the hoseline, Lt. Peter Traut located the fire inside the building and directed firefighters to the fourth floor.

Before opening the door, Firefighter Williams said, “you could see there was heavy fire in the apartment.”

The steel frame around the door was bending and buckling, and they could see the flames starting to come through into the hallway.

After opening the door and moving about three or four feet into the apartment, Firefighter Williams said, “I could feel my ear burning through the [protective] hood. We couldn’t move because it was so hot.”

He said his knees and shins also were burning through his protective gear. He reached a point where he did not think he could go any further, but he said he thought, “I’m in pain but I have to keep going because there’s nobody to help these [trapped] people but us.”

After a short time, members of Ladder 131 were able to move in to a back room, where they found an unconscious victim. She was found in a protected spot just below the window out of which fire had been blowing.

“The members of Ladder 131 took risks to get there, but they refused to give up,” said Firefighter Williams. “They did a great job.”

Yet instead of patting himself on the back for helping to successfully get the fire under control by 4:17 a.m., Firefighter Williams continually praised the work of his fellow firefighters.

“Everybody there kept their head and did an outstanding job,” he said. “We all did it together and that’s what made it go so well.”

Firefighter Williams received second degree burns to his shins, knees and ears while battling the fire. Six other firefighters were treated for minor injuries, including burns. Four civilians were treated for serious injuries and one for minor injuries. The cause of the fire is under investigation by fire marshals.

Running for president of the procrasti- nation

2008-07-26T15:18:00.012-04:00

yeah, i've been not good at nose to the grindstone studying this term. it shows. i'm in a huge crunch now, with three big projects and two exams monday, followed by the nclex- the nursing licensing exam- on the 6th. ugh. i feel like i need a break, even though that's probably not true. we just got back from canada, where we visited andy's family for the irish festival. it was a great time. there is always some stress involved with travel, though. i sort of feel like i need one of these goofy new things you read about- because gas is so expensive, people are taking "stay-cations." i can relate, though gas has little to do with it.
anyway, in procrastinating all the work i have, i thought i'd put up some of the recent activities. i mentioned we went to canada. here's what that's like.
this is me, andy, and his cousin amy, who is sweet as pie. she's the only one our age there, so she makes sure we have fun. here, we're at a dinner at the Wing, which is sort of like the VFW or something.

this is andy and his dad in frankie and della's yard, where they used to play catch when andy was a kid.

return of the silly hats: amy and me at the pub the festival runs in the rink. andy enjoys oversized novelty hats of any sort, especially on other people.

barbara and fraser, possibly some of the most wonderful people that exist. barbara's mother and bob (andy's dad)'s mother were sisters. That makes her andy's second cousin, or so.

petting zoo. you knew if there were goats in canada, i would find them. and pat them.

amy ponders the utility of a high chair in a bar. we sat our drinks on it all night.

andy's amazingly lovely family

the exhibition is like a county fair. they had barns with animals, so i was psyched. they had one barn with babies, called the baby barn. another barn had adult animals, and was called the adult barn. i'll let you decide where i saw this

washer toss is like horseshoes, but canadian, and probably less dangerous. i beat everyone, and am now the miramichi washer toss champion. like this

Frankie and Della, our hosts. Frankie is bob's cousin... barbara's brother. you get it. Frankie is closing in on his 8th decade, and last year, got married for the first time. Della is lovely, and very accepting of having her house overrun with family at least once a year

we got back from canada- what a long drive! i've been trying to study and keep my school work together. but i couldn't pass up a surprise from andy the other night. he took me to empire ferry state park, under the brooklyn bridge, in front of the waterfall at sunset... to see wallace and grommit, curse of the were rabbit!! he just thought i would like it because it had rabbit in the name (true...), but also, i happen to love wallace and grommit, grommit knits, and the movie is all about people obsessed with vegetables and animal humane-ness. LOVED it. the huge outdoor movie screen was right in front of the waterfall that's under the brooklyn bridge. it looked like this

off to canada

2008-07-15T18:25:00.002-04:00

headed to the irish festival tomorrow in new brunswick. i love going, and i adore andy's family. the drive will be hellish though- 14 hrs, and we're leaving as soon as andy gets done working all night. once we are there it will be good.

victoria can suck her secret

2008-07-09T19:45:00.003-04:00

Before we get to that, tomorrow we're headed for boston for jeanette's funeral at douglas funeral place in lexington. everyone has been wonderful keeping andy and his family in their thoughts the last few days. i told his dad- i know you don't know them, but a lot of my knitting friends send their condolences, and have been thinking of you. he goes, well, i hope they think good stuff- that's pretty nice of them. he should know by now that my friends are the coolest ever...

speaking of which, i think i'm done bra shopping for awhile. patience celebrated my birthday in style with an incredibly generous gift card to intimacy- it was more than enough to add a beautiful bra to my now-reasonable collection. in fact, here's too much info:

you can't see the dark ones very well, but the brown one is the same style as the yellow one, but brown... and the black one is similar, but different style lace. oh, so pretty. i decided i'd stop short of posting pics of them on me... andy would die. and i don't feel that thin yet. BUT i feel pretty in these puppies- screw that victoria's secret lady who said they don't make pretty bras in my size. ha. shows her.

In Memory, post 2

2008-07-07T20:25:00.003-04:00

It was just february 07 that we said goodbye to uncle joe, one of andy's heros, and his father's only brother. today, we say goodbye to aunt jeanette, a sassy lady who was the only sister to bob (andy's dad) and joe.

she died in her sleep last night, after some illnesses that seemed serious but not terminal. it comes as a surprise. we were planning to go to the irish festival in canada next week, and were hoping she would feel up to going. andy's grandmother lived with jeanette before andy's mother died (at which point grandma went to live with bob and andy). in caring for her mother, jeanette came to have certain items, and was kind enough last year to pass a few things back to andy. she brought us a baby blanket that was made for him by his mother's mother, who he never knew. jeanette had kept the blanket in her hope chest all these years for him, recognizing what a treasure it is. i'm finding it difficult to navigate andy's family in these circumstances- jeanette had her differences with people over the years, but reconciled many relationships recently. i've certainly been glad to have known her- she loved to chat about jewelry and travel, and told me about her family and her life. she sent me emails regularly to keep us in the loop, and to congratulate our achievements, and she spoke with her brother every few days most of the time. We will all miss that contribution to our lives.

if procrastinating was a paying job...

2008-07-06T00:28:00.001-04:00

i probably wouldn't have applied yet.
evidence

2008-07-02T19:31:00.002-04:00

some random thing:
Type in the following and choose the first choice:

1: Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search:
"melissa needs to take a break"
tee hee.

2: Type in "[your name] looks like" in Google search:
"Melissa looks like Alicia Silverstone"
nice, dude.

3: Type in "[your name] does" in Google search:
"Melissa A. does 100 with lawyers!!!!!!!!!!"
hmm- i have no idea what that means. i thought it said "melissa does IT with 100 lawyers... i'm not sure what i think about that either.

4: Type in "[your name] hates" in Google search:
"melissa hates when i give her lapdances"
i don't know who told them that.

5: Type in "[your name] goes" or "has gone" in Google search:
"Apologies, something has gone wrong"

6: Type in "[your name] loves" in Google search:
"Melissa Loves Robot Jelly Shoes"
you bet your ass i do.

7: Type in "[your name] eats" in Google search:
"melissa eats the pubic hair"
seriously?

8: Type in "[your name] has" in Google search:
"Melissa has operation"
news to me. maybe like that old game that buzzes when you try to do a funny-bone-ectomy.

9: Type in "[your name] died" in Google search:
"My 37 year old cousin Melissa died yesterday, Leaving behind a husband and 3 children under the age of 13."
hmm- that's just sad. this one is better- it's a few down from first-
"Melissa died on Feb. 15, days after her boyfriend left her, unconscious and alone, at the emergency room entrance of the Weymouth hospital."
nice boyfriend! way to pick em.

10: Type in "[your name] won't" in Google Search:
"Sweet Melissa: Won'T You Be My Kissaroo?"
everyone needs a sweet kissaroo.

11: Type in "[your name] can't" in Google Search
"Melissa can't infect your computer."
from and article titled "how to protect yourself against melissa." remember there was that computer virus? i didn't.

12.Type in "[your name] will" in Google Search
"Melissa will teach you how to bake Black Bottom Brownies from scratch!"
melissa will also scratch your black bottom, if you prefer.

that was a lot more amusing than i thought it would be.

Galileo tells the church what he really thinks

2008-06-29T18:01:00.004-04:00

original article
i'm considering starting a series of short stories of lives of the saints. i have been reading some since it was brought to my attention that st agatha is the patron saint of nurses. she is most often depicted with her severed breasts on a plate she holds. i may go into her amusing story one of these days. in my reading (read: procrastinating in studying for my upcoming antepartum exam), i heard about this though, which may be my new favorite museum exhibit. and i love me some museum exhibits. here it is, from curious expeditions:

It is a remarkable bit of irony, that finger. Venerated, kept in reliquary, subjected to the same treatment as a Saint. But this finger belonged to no Saint. It is the long bony finger of an enemy of the church, a heretic. A man so dangerous to the religious institution he was made a prisoner in his own home. It sits in a small glass egg atop an inscribed marble base in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, or the History of Science Museum in Florence, Italy. On the shelf next to the middle finger of his right hand is something that the once five-fingered heretic would be much happier to see preserved. A small, cracked bit of glass that once glimpsed into the heavens.

The History of Science Museum holds numerous telescopes, from the original lens of Galileo to a charming “ladies model” to massive 2 feet wide, 15 foot long giants.

Designed by the Dutch, it would be Galileo who would make the magnification of telescopes 10 times stronger and turn the telescope to the heavens, calling into question the very order of the universe.

Galileo was in fact, a religious man. He felt that “the language of God is mathematics” and respected the church. He occasionally had troubles following the exact word of the Catholic establishment, as his three children born out of wedlock illustrate. But he saw no particular conflict between his Heliocentric (a galaxy revolving around the sun) view and the word of scripture, arguing that the bible shows us the way into heaven but not what’s in the heavens.

On good terms with the Pope for most of his life, when heliocentricity became a particularly hot button issue in 1616, the Pope gave Galileo a personal warning to stop advocating Heliocentrism. He would be allowed to publish a book, but he must present “both sides” evenly, including the Pope’s opinion and that of a Geocentric (a galaxy revolving around the earth) philosopher’s viewpoint. In 1632 he did just that, with both Papal and Inquisition permission.

It went terribly for Galileo. Due to poor arguing on the part of the Geocentric, the aptly named Simplicius, and the unintended attribution of the Pope’s words to the simple Simplicius, the book came across like an attack piece. The Pope was highly offended, and Galileo was tried and convicted of heresy. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest, dying in his home in 1642.

As with a fine wine, it took some years for Galileo’s finger to age into something worth snapping off his skeletal hand. The finger was removed by one Anton Francesco Gori on March 12, 1737, 95 years after Galileo’s death. Passed around for a couple hundred years it finally came to rest in the Florence History of Science Museum. Today is sits among lodestones and telescopes, the only human fragment in a museum devoted entirely to scientific instruments. It is hard to know how Galileo would have felt about the final resting place of his finger. Whether the finger points upwards to the sky, where Galileo glimpsed the glory of the universe and saw God in mathematics, or if it sits eternally defiant to the church that condemned him, is for the viewer to decide.

our new favorite

2008-06-28T16:08:00.002-04:00

i know i mentioned that otis wasn't feeling well... he got an infection on his chin from soaking in the ice i gave him when it was hot out. our vet couldn't fit him in before we had to leave for our weekend wedding excursion, so he saw a vet in porter square- she was really nice and helped us get the medicine he needed. andy's mom started all the medicines while we went to the wedding, and we picked up the schedule when we got back. then, the poor thing started wheezing- andy said it was like the tin man- "oil can, need oil can." so we made the recommended follow up appointment with our vet here for yesterday. our vet here is actually a more complex statement than it seems- the house rabbit society recommended dr. bierbriar when we first moved here, and she was the most wonderful doctor for otis. she did his surgery, converting a plain bunny to the one-eyed wonder. well, in december, she stopped seeing patients so she could concentrate on surgery only. and house rabbit society doesn't have any other close-to-our-place recommendations. plus, i loved the office we went to for dr. bierbriar. i called them, and they have a rabbit doc there- problem solved, as long as the new doc is wonderful and perfect. well, turns out she is wonderful and perfect. i remembered why i love that vet's office when we got there. the doctor was running way behind, but while we waited, the techs brought us hay and water and a litter box and let otis settle down under the bench in the exam room. like this.

he looks pretty mangy, since his fur has come out and clumped up because of the infection. but he was feeling ok, and acting normal, so seemed positive. the doctor came to us almost an hour after our scheduled appointment. i sort of know how medical offices work, so i get it, and tried to be patient. when the doctor came to us, any worry i had about being late was gone. she spent absolutely as long as we needed, and gave him a very thorough exam. the best part is that he let her do a thorough exam- all because she spent almost 10 minutes just patting him and talking to him, saying she wanted to make friends with him first. his breathing slowed down, and he let her do whatever she needed to, even letting her look at his teeth. this is him and Dr. Young, of Hope Veterinary Services:

she reassured me that his skin looked improved, and that it was dry and the infection was gone. she said the hair would grow back. and even that it wasn't really my fault- that he needed ice cubes to stay cool, and now that we have the a/c, he will feel better. she even asked questions like a nurse- like do we clean the filter in the a/c, since that can put stuff in the air that irritates his lungs. awesome. we love her. she said he didn't need anymore medicine, just observation to make sure he doesn't get worse respiratory problems, move the a/c to a window that isn't near him, and email her (she gave me her email!) if he has other issues. so awesome. he's feeling better, and i feel more confident taking care of him. thanks for everyone's well-wishes for him!!

"They have black friends, and would be voting for Barack Obama for president."

2008-06-27T13:50:00.004-04:00

original article
‘Black Guy’ booth livens up Corvallis Saturday market
By KYLE ODEGARD
Corvallis Gazette-Times

The booths at the Saturday Corvallis Farmers’ Market have a wild mix of fresh produce, tasty food, plants and flowers.

But this week, a table just outside the bazaar offered something more bizarre — “Meet a Black Guy.”

Those who participated in the free service could chat with 21-year-old Corvallis resident Jeff Oliver, and get pictures taken with him.

“It’s a statement about diversity in Corvallis. It’s not a very diverse place,” said Oliver, a lifelong Oregonian. He hoped to promote understanding, break stereotypes and perhaps even provide a comedic moment for hundreds of people strolling along the riverfront.

The booth drew a mixed reaction, however.

“I think this is hysterical. The entire market’s great,” said Jeremy Stand of the Bronx, who was in Corvallis to visit family. Oregon, in general, is a pretty Caucasian place, he said.

“It’s a clever way of engaging people with dialogue about the need for more diversity in the community. It kind of caught me by surprise,” said Annette Mills, who moved to Corvallis more than a year ago.

Sherry Littlefield of Corvallis said the booth was unnecessary. She and friend Ron Naasko said they have black friends, and would be voting for Barack Obama for president.

“I guess I don’t care what color people are. Either you’re a jerk or you’re not,” Littlefield said.

“I think it’s degrading. It’s a little bit low class,” Naasko said. He added that he wouldn’t set up a booth saying for people to meet someone in a wheelchair, like him.

The idea for “Meet a Black Guy” came from Sean Brown, a Linn-Benton Community College student and a co-worker of Oliver’s at the Darkside Cinema.

About 50 people signed up to receive e-mail from Oliver and Brown, including their free photos, and several others stopped by the booth, some asking pointed questions of the duo.

Brown didn’t know if he and Oliver would be back next week. But if they are, a sign also will say, “Meet a Jewish white guy,” Brown said.

“There’s a lot of churches here. Not a lot of temples.”

my friends rock!!

2008-06-27T11:09:00.010-04:00

andy was in his high school girlfriend's wedding last weekend- it was in new hampshire, so we had quite the travel in store for us. i packed my new bras, and we went to boston for the night, moving on to rindge, new hampshire (literally the middle of nowhere) the next day. poor otis got an infection on his chin. it's completely my fault- he got it from dipping his chin in the bowls of ice i gave him when it was 100 degrees. the other benefit to stopping in boston was getting our a/c out of storage. however, otis's vet here couldn't see him before we had to leave, so we made an appt with a vet in cambridge. andy got out of work and we hauled ass to the appt, where they confirmed that the one-eyed wonder has the infection i thought he had, and gave him antibiotics- a pill twice a day, a cream twice a day, and a soak twice a day. and we had to leave for at least two days. andy's mom saved the day and offered to do his 6 procedures every day, including washing his face, crushing pills, and feeding them to him in a syringe with carrot juice (which she specifically shopped for, and found one with only carrot juice). with otis cared for, we hurried off to meet my friends for dinner. lucy and doria agreed to meet us at 6, and lucy said she'd spread the word. lucky for me, kimberly and patience were available! we went to chang sho, where my friends were adorable, and brought me lovely birthday cards. oh, i turned 30- did i mention that? let's never talk about it again. patience apparently reads this ol blog- she brought me an amazing gift certificate to the bra store i went to! awesome. unfortunately, lucy gave us a little scare with her heart arrythmia, but she assured us she was ok, just needed to go home. bummer, but she was ok, and is feeling better. we certainly missed her. we had a great dinner, and my friend ariana (who just finished 2nd grade!) sat right next to me to give her perspective on the goings on. refreshing and wonderful. i almost forget how much i adore my friends when i'm so far from them. here's us:

after dinner, we cruised over to davis square for ice cream with jonathan, stefanie and meret. meret also just finished the second grade, and has more energy than anyone i know. being around her makes me remember to have fun. and her parents rule also. jonathan and stefanie are perfect together, and perfect to be around. they had just come from salem for the day, and brought me a beautiful barrette that they got there. it was really thoughtful- they said all nurses need a hair tie. very true! here's me and meret:

it was so fun. sometimes i feel like i don't keep a lot of friends around me, or like friends somehow aren't a priority for me. but i'm always wrong. my friends are seriously the best people ever. and now that i have an awesome boyfriend, his friends are awesome too.
speaking of which... we got up on friday and took the drive to NH for the rehearsal and dinner. the wedding was at a little inn in rindge. it was very cute, you could see the mountains, and there was nothing around for miles except cabins by the lake. oh, and mosquitos. i got eaten alive. but we had a great time- the bride and groom are vegetarian, and they invited me to the rehearsal and the dinner with andy, so we fully gorged ourselves on amazing food the night before the wedding. friends and family of the bride and groom were really fun. the morning of the wedding, we got up early-ish so we could make the only reasonable outing in the area: friendly farm, petting zoo extraordinaire. holy amazing, batman. i got to pet EVERYTHING! we were the only ones there without kids, but i completely didn't care. i got to pet sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, geese, ducks, baby cows, and GOATS. the goats loved people, and followed you everywhere on the farm. i sat down on the ground to love them more, like this:

they also let us pick them up and hold them, like this:

i also got to meet a 7 day old baby cow named george. we got to feed him a bottle, and when he was done, he wanted to suck on our fingers. the farmer said it's like a pacifier. but it was foamier and droolier. and more wonderful. like this:

andy had to chase one goat, who escaped from his pen while we were trying to go out. he caught it, and ran back up the hill to re-corral the little one, like this:

we held newborn chickens, baby ducks, saw just-born bunnies, piglets, got pecked by chickens, saw eggs get laid, and even andy had a good time- surprise. he agreed to go to humor me, but smiled the whole time, even when the goats jumped on us, and covered us with mud. i hope it was mud.
on to the wedding- it was beautiful. andy looked great. the whole reception was exclusively vegetarian, so i gorged myself again. here's some of it:

my boobs

2008-06-15T15:14:00.002-04:00

yup.
today, i got a holistic bra fitting. sounds like a bunch of hooey, but i guess it was pretty cool. i went to this place on madison ave- by the way, everything in nyc in the 80s-90s is pretty cool. i had made an appointment, but i still nearly laughed when the lady said, "ok, we do holistic fittings here... so take off your shirt." holistic? what can be holistic about deciding how big my boobs are? well, let me tell you. they don't use tape measures. she looked at the bra i had on, frowned, walked around me in circles a couple times, pinched fabric here and there, lifted elastic, pulled the straps, clasped and unclasped, shook the tops of the cups, and brushed her fingers across the tops of each tit. i felt a little violated, i won't lie. she perused the checklist they make you fill out before you come in, and said, "alright, you need to lose 4 inches and i think we'll go up a cup size." i thought she meant i needed to lose weight for a second. i prepared to get offended. she said, "yeah, i think 34DD." she meant i needed a bra FOUR INCHES smaller around than what they told me to get at the store in the mall. well, ok...
she brought all these pretty bras in- in the mall they told me that they didn't make pretty bras or bras with lace or designs or anything in my size. these had french lace and tulle ruffles and butterflies and scalloping and were pink and yellow and chocolaty brown and purple and green. they had matching panties. in my size. this woman stayed in the fitting room with me while i tried on like 20 bras, and was super honest- "oh, yeah, that is less flattering. try this." each one actually changed what the shape of my body looked like. my boobs were up on my chest, like they were when i was 17. and i could get pretty little (ok, not so little...) demi cups with lacy dragonflies if i wanted. i planned to maybe buy one bra- i knew they would be pricey at this joint- but not more. i don't really have the money, and it seems like kind of a waste when you can get bras at target.
then i discovered these bras. you cannot get these at target. and they will alter them for free- so since i'm not the exact same size on both sides, their sweet little seamstress in the basement will put a dart in the right cup so that both sides fit. it's more about my breasts than anyone wants to know- i realize. but what an experience... so i bought 3 bras, and one is being altered to fix the amazing chantilly lace on one side so it won't pucker. i spent more money than i want to talk about. but they lady said my bras will last longer also, because they are better quality, and they fit right, so they will wear better and not stretch all out funny. plus, she says never ever put them in the dryer and hand wash if you can. that's about the most holistic experience i can imagine in response to saying, "measure my boobies please." pretty sweet. i will try to feel slim and well-supported in time to get real old in a couple days.

and PS

2008-06-11T20:07:00.000-04:00

i'm going to be 30 in 6 days. that sucks a lot.

my new favorite movie lines

2008-06-11T18:25:00.003-04:00

Juno... cute flick.
"all i see is pork swords."
"Uh, i'm just calling to procure a hasty abortion. what? can you just hold on for a second? i'm on my hamburger phone."
"this cactus-gram stings even worse than your abandonment."
"your chest is gonna, like, milktate."
"somebody else is gonna find a precious blessing from jesus in this garbage dump of a situation."
"being pregnant makes me pee like seabiscuit."
"prom is for weenises anyway."
"the right person's still gonna think the sun shines out your ass."
"ow, ow, fuckity ow."
"honey, doctors are sadists who like to play god and watch lesser people scream."
"he is the cheese to my macaroni."

otis part II

2008-06-03T20:49:00.004-04:00

it's been hard to resist spending all my time at the promenade, since the weather has been so nice. and since otis loves it, we went again the other day. i'll quit subjecting everyone to how silly he is, i swear, but thought you should see this:

this little girl and her family came over and wanted to pet the furry one, so of course i let them. she pulled her stroller right up to me, and when she started patting him, he apparently liked her- he jumped right in the stroller on her lap and sat there for 5 minutes til i took him out. she wanted him to stay, and i think he probably would have. it was pretty cute. she was pretty little- she said, "no, my lap, my lap..." asking for him back. he went back for a few minutes before she had to go, so i think they were both happy.

PS- his head is on the left side of the picture- you can see his singular eye in this photo...

celebrity blogger?

2008-06-02T23:14:00.004-04:00

i don't usually care about much celebrity news. i'm sort of lying. i read star magazine. i had to cancel my subscription because i spent too much time reading it, and school was starting- i mean, that shit comes EVERY week... which rules, but wastes life. anyway, i was really entertained by this:

If you have not heard yet, Kathy (Griffin) and the gang have picked up the Emmy for best reality series during the 2007 Primetime Emmy Awards. Kathy didn't take long to slip into red carpet mode after the announcement with what will go down as one of the best quotes in Emmy history, beginning with "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award," but "no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." She also said "Can you believe this shit? Hell has frozen over. Suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now."

thus cometh my new favorite thing to say... suck it, jesus. does that make me a bad catholic?

denise richards

2008-05-29T18:25:00.002-04:00

i watch a lot of tv. i like a lot of bad tv. i try to keep a really open mind, since some stuff, like rock of love, is surprisingly entertaining. so i caught most of the first episode of denise richards: it's complicated. train wreck? yes. complicated? not so much.

otis's day at the promenade

2008-05-27T15:26:00.004-04:00

otis is always a big star when we go out. people stare. they want to touch him. i usually let them. they have all kinds of questions- usually they start with, "is that a dog?" and proceed to "does it act like a cat?" he seems to like the attention, though after a couple hours of being outside, he gets tired and shy. today we went and sat at the promenade, watched boats, played on the benches, and had our photo taken by tourists. it was nice. on the way back, we stopped at the pet store to get food. the pet store guy loves otis, special orders his food, and lets him sprawl wherever he likes in the store while we chat and exchange money stuff. here's our adventure.

trying to play in a puddle

a tourist thought we were very novel

playing on the benches

in my lap on his special towel

taking over the pet store

2008-05-22T18:50:00.003-04:00

5 night shifts

2008-05-05T12:33:00.001-04:00

left before graduation! yay may 19....

nights of the living dead

2008-04-14T08:59:00.002-04:00

and the not so living, i suppose. i've been meaning to write this post for a while, since i started my new rotation. it's the last rotation of my first year- 8 weeks of doing a real nursing job, and putting everything together that we learned- or were supposed to learn. i was really hoping for an ER job for this little bit, but no such luck. i got critical care medical-surgical... it's gross. it's the nursing people think about when you hear "floor nurse." i work in a nice hospital- it's a quality place that people recommend, that ranks well, all those things. of course, i see the side of it now that is pretty horrifying. i guess that even with the number of years i've worked in medicine, i've held some expectations that are just false. part of it is my shift- i work 7pm- 7am. those are the hours that you get when you have no seniority. you can usually get a resident if you need one, or an intern, but go ahead and try to find a real doctor. my first night, one of my patients was crashing slowly, and no one could decide what to do about it. my biggest job at this point is to tell other people when something isn't right. i guess i thought there would be a consensus answer from "them" about what to do for the something. in this case, the guy's heart rate was skyrocketing, his blood pressure was barely there, but he was still conscious. if he went unconscious, the decision was easy- shock him. if he stayed conscious, the decision was tougher, but was clearly to sedate him, then shock him. unfortunately, at 3 in the morning when all this was going on, you can't get the meds you need for sedation faster than 15 minutes from when you ask for them. they didn't wait for the sedation, and i got to watch them shock an awake person.

a few days later i was taking care of a guy who scared the crap out of me. granted, i'm easily scared of things. this guy had end stage HIV and was on "comfort care," which i always assumed meant that you had decided not to pursue aggressive treatment of a life-threatening condition, but that you provided any measures necessary to keep someone comfortable while they died. i thought the comfort part was in the name. i won't go into details, because every time i tell this story, someone asks me to stop. the short version is that "comfort" for this guy included no longer feeding him, discontinuing any of his medications that were by mouth (including methadone, so the guy will probably die in heroin withdrawal), and cleaning his cancer wounds with some pretty awful things a few times a day (cuz that probably didn't hurt at all). i won't tell the details of what he looked like either, but that's what scared me. he only responded to pain, which he had a lot of, but he could sort of open his eyes. at night, they turn the lights off in hospital rooms so the patients can get some sleep. however, they get medications and treatments all night long, so it's awkward, especially in rooms with more than one person. i try to turn on just the light i need, so everyone doesn't have to wake up. that means getting close to the patient's bed- the light switches are just above their heads. that startles the patients sometimes, but with this guy, it startled me. his oxygen hissed loudly in the dark, and his eyes were swollen so badly that they didn't close all the way. so when i went in to give him his breathing treatments, there he was, half staring at me in the dark, darth vader breathing, and i had to reach over him to get the light. i was sure that he would grab my arm, rasp awful government secret murder plot in my ear, then die. apparently, i watch way too much tv. i was also sure he was going to be following me around the whole night- when i turned around in the supply room, or when i had to take the creepy stairwell to the pharmacy in the middle of the night. i had to try to convince myself that there was way too much wrong with his legs for that to even be remotely possible.

i've gotten a little better about being in the hospital at night. it's such a creepy place, but someone has to stay. i've even started to do a couple of things right. it's hard to switch from school, where they teach you to know about things, to work, where you have to know how to do things. no one cares why or the theory behind or any of that. you have to be able to hook the tube to the thing and wipe the poop and set the rate and mix the solution... i'm getting there at best. my new skill for last night was learning how to prepare a dead body. a woman died about 3am, and i had to learn what happens after that. it was a lot less awful than i thought it would be. we take off all that awful stuff- the ivs and the tubes and the silly hospital gown. we wash the body head to toe, and yes, we put a little tag on the toe. the sort of weird part is that we tied her- you have to, i guess. you tie the jaw shut, the hands together, and the feet together. it seemed creepy, but once it was done, she looked like a person with ties, instead of a dead person. her mouth and eyes were closed, and she finally looked peaceful. we wrapped her in plastic, put more name tags on the outside, and covered her up like you see on tv. i was worried to do it, but it went well, and in a way, it felt good to do the things that needed to happen so that her family could see her in a presentable way. it was much more comfortable than "comfort care," which i don't ever want to be a part of again.

on a funny note- one of my patients a few nights ago. not everything in the hospital is totally serious. a younger guy was admitted because his heart failure was getting worse (he used too much cocaine, and his heart was crapping out because of it). he didn't want his medications, really, which was a little weird- why come to the hospital, and then decide you don't want medicine? well, we don't force people to do stuff, so we let the doctor know he wasn't taking them, and wrote a note. he had two suitcases full of things, that he had emptied all over his room, and he liked to keep the door closed, even though we kept telling him to leave it open. he had a heart monitor on, a thing called telemetry, where they can watch your EKG somewhere else in the hospital where people are just experts at doing that. there's a phone to our floor that they call if anything looks weird. well, the phone rang, and they asked me to check him- it was 2 am, and his heart rate was 130 for some reason. i had my hand raised to knock on the door, and i heard a shout from behind the door. seemed fishy, so i made one of the big guys, a nurse's aid, come with me just in case. we knocked, and when he opened, a big cloud of cigarette smoke floated into the hall. we told him he obviously couldn't smoke, it's a hospital, there's oxygen, etc, but also, what's going on? Your heart rate is really high. he looked straight at me, with all seriousness, and said, i was doing calisthenics. he wound up not liking the hospital much, and signing out against medical advice shortly after that. but it took him more than an hour to leave, since he had so much stuff. we almost had to call security to "help" him out... what an adventure.

Andy's first car fire

2008-03-28T19:36:00.003-04:00

it's not thrilling video, but sort of bizarre that someone happened to be on scene to video it. he's the 4th guy who comes in from the left side. adorable.

here he is also:

he still hasn't had a building fire, which i think ticks him off. i try to tell him he's got to be a fireman for about 17 more years at least, so i imagine he will see it before long. he's choosing the food for the house tonight and tomorrow day- we'll see how that goes for him!

r.i.p. wendy, and happy easter to everyone else

2008-03-23T13:40:00.002-04:00

Our good friend wendy finally took the big dirt nap a few days ago. Andy got a text message letting all of those who had so lovingly cared for her over the years know that they had found her as a "sudden," a dead person who had been dead too long to help, in the bathroom of one of her favorite haunts, the Wendy's she always got kicked out of. yes, that's where her fake name comes from. half the time i got called to her she was half dead, half seizing, and halfway between wendy's and burger king. i couldn't very well name her burger king, even for the sake of a story. anyway, she cashed it in the bathroom stall of one of the less savory wendy's i've ever been in. and they kicked her out routinely. you should really consider reevaluation of your life if you get kicked out of that kind of establishment, especially during daylight hours. a lot of the homeless people they find die hard- we found one guy who didn't quite make it to the shelter one night when it was really cold out (which probably helped him- in moderate weather, he would have died). He went into cardiac arrest before the medics got him to the hospital, but he got a heart rate back, and was alive-ish by the time he got to the hospital. he spent a long time on life support in the icu before he finally died. those are the miracles modern medicine can provide. i think hipaa rules still apply to dead people, so i can't say too much about any of the people we dealt with. it's unfortunate in a way. i understand that people need privacy, but largely, i also feel like people in general need to know about some of the crazier things that happen. wendy is one of those things. she was a miracle of nature, and of our political system. had she been of weaker physiology, she wouldn't have lived a year on the street. if she'd been of stronger physiology (like not being an alcoholic, or having whatever kind of mental illness she may have self- medicated), she might have actually been a part of society. amazingly though, she fell through every single crack. there was no place for her. as shocked as i am that she finally managed to die, which she's been flirting with for years, we knew every time we did anything for her that it was futile, and a matter of time for her. i suppose it's a matter of time for us all, and it shouldn't frustrate us to put effort in for people like her, but i won't lie- it made me a more bitter, angry, out of touch person every time i interacted with her. she allowed me to forget why i wanted to help people out. i had to take a step back each time, and try really hard to get back to caring about who i was supposed to help that day. i guess ultimately i have a larger range for knowing her- i know and accept that every patient doesn't want my help. i know that my "help" won't always lead to improvements in quality of life. i know that my best effort doesn't make all situations better. i know that i will be frustrated in my day to day life. and in a few ways, i know how to get past that and do a good job anyway. maybe that's the moral of her story.

i'm in brooklyn for easter. andy was supposed to work overnight but be home during the day- we were going to go to church, make a dinner, whatever. one of the older guys wanted the day off. so andy's working a 24 hr shift instead, and i'm alone. i was really upset about it, but it's not so bad. i actually got up and went to church by myself, which i've never done. i went to a church where one of the chaplains from the fire department is a priest, so felt some bond that way. it was sort of a phony bond- i was still totally there by myself. this giant black woman with one of the more fabulous wigs i've ever seen sat next to me, and sang in a really loud voice with a heavy haitian accent. she was by herself too, so that was sort of nice. not everyone was there with family and stuff.

i still don't know what my next position will be for school, even though it starts tomorrow. i've been calling like a crazy to try and get this preceptor lady to tell me, and can't reach her. the school is going to call her tomorrow. frustrating, but again, part of life. i'm on a regular med-surg floor, nights, so it will be interesting to see what in the world goes on at a hospital at night. i'm not sure i want to know, but by the end of next week i will, so i will convince myself to be excited about it. meanwhile, i will wait for my tax return, and dream of what i would do with it if i didn't have to be more responsible. Happy Easter!!

knitting geeks

2008-03-12T17:20:00.003-04:00

I love knitting. I love geeks. It makes sense that I love knitting geeks. perhaps what i don't love about this is the literal use of the word without any concept of the connotation. usually, connotation is not a big deal when it is only meaningful in science or medicine. but that shawl has the same name as these guys:

cervical dilators, used to gradually expand the cervix in preparation for second-trimester abortions. (which are made of seaweed, work well, are relatively painless, have a good record for being healthy, have few side effects, contain no drugs, and which i think are great.)
Yeah. I get the seaweed reference. now i'm going to design a shawl that feels nurturing, and call it "placenta," one that's really warm, and call it "heat stroke," maybe one that's green, and call it "bacterial snot." oh wait. maybe i'll name them after flowers and stuff like people usually do.

i'm almost thru my psych rotation, which is the last one. it has been very trying. not only am i crazy myself, which makes it tough, but our instructor is some kind of nazi stormtrooper with an awful bronx accent that makes me want to scrape my nails on a chalkboard to drown her out. She's supposed to be teaching us "therapeutic communication," but i guess you only use that with patients, and with colleagues and students it's ok to be a rancid bitch, and act confrontational about everything. oh well. i have to see her for 3 hours tomorrow, then never again. after this set of finals, we do an 8 week "integration" where we follow around some nurse and do her job, whatever and whenever it is, then we graduate from the first part. Second part starts right away, and i get a masters in another year and a half. crazy. the only sweet part of psych is the patients. they are wild. a heroin addict fell in love with me (but what else is new, really?), a bipolar/ schizophrenic told me to watch out for my smoke detectors, i asked another schizophrenic to let me know if he starts hearing the voices again, he said- oh, don't worry, you'll know... it's like as soon as i get worried that maybe i really am too crazy, i get to see what it's like for people who are really over the line. nice to leave that locked behind the door at the end of the day. Sad that some of the people really just need a break, and they get stuck in with all the scaries. when i take over the world, we will separate some of that stuff out.

who are the people in your neighborhood...?

2008-02-15T17:45:00.004-05:00

So I found out some famous folks have lived in my 'hood. Shouldn't surprise me, but it does a little. I live in a renowned spot, turns out.

Bob Dylan (who memorialized his stay on Montague Street in "Tangled up in Blue").
- i never noticed: "I lived with them on Montague Street; In a basement down the stairs; There was music in the cafes at night And revolution in the air.
Then he started into dealing with slaves And something inside of him died.
She had to sell everything she owned And froze up inside.
And when finally the bottom fell out I became withdrawn,
The only thing I knew how to do Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew, Tangled up in blue."
Arthur Miller
Marilyn Monroe
WH Auden
Henry Ward Beecher
Gabriel Byrne
Truman Capote
Jennifer Connelly
Norman Mailer
Mary Tyler Moore

and check out this... also pretty amusing mondegreens

lastly, check out these guys:

maybe next time i will try to figure out how much i can write about my new psych rotation. it's off the wall.

Congrats...

2008-02-04T00:15:00.000-05:00

Giants fans. and the giants. at least it was the less-annoying Manning. my poor boyfriend tom brady will need a big hug when he gets home to me. (giselle who??)

from the files of

2008-02-02T20:37:00.000-05:00

"wow i didn't know they sold that:"
wacky valentine's roses
weird.

as valentine's day approaches, i realize that we still have so little money that i might have to make a gift. ugh. i can't wait to have a real job, that i like, that pays legit money. speaking of which, i'm supposed to start applying for jobs now, since i can work during the master's part of school. if you can believe it, i will have a new BS in May, and could be an RN as soon as the end of may. weird again, since i can't believe they expect me to be able to take care of people already. i've sort of lucked out this rotation. i'm supposed to be on an infectious disease floor, and i am, but i haven't had any infectious patients so far. mostly old demented people, which is sad, but doesn't actually hurt me. i was explaining to a lady for the fifth time why she was in the hospital the other day (she kept forgetting and not being able to figure it out), when all of a sudden, another patient went actually running past the door. wait... patient... running... something not right. as the situation began to register to me, i realized she was also bleeding... a lot... out of her arm. we're in a hospital. and not the e.r.. most people's bleeding is pretty under control. so i ran into the hall, and shouted at her, hey- where are you going? she turned, but kept running toward the nurse's station. she goes, well, i'm bleeding. i kept barking at her- i apologized later- like, sit down, stop, don't go anywhere. she was sliding around in her own blood, and the hallway looked like a crime scene. it is infectious disease- that blood could have ANYTHING in it. the last thing she should do is trail it down the hall. she sat, calmed down a little. i made her press on her own arm- her old iv site had started bleeding out of nowhere- while i grabbed gloves. no big deal, a little pressure, and the scene was over. it was the most excitement so far in the hospital that didn't involve a birth or poop.

anyway... that's all for now. happy valentine's, and GO PATS tomorrow. good luck to my boyfriend tom brady.

Academy is Over!!

2008-01-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

graduation was the other day, as you know if you checked the "famous" link below. it was a grueling 6 months- for him more, but ultimately for both of us. we're both cycling through bouts of excitement and depression now- obviously we're excited, but i keep getting scared- he got assigned to a ladder company instead of an engine like we expected. it's more dangerous... and i'm just a worrier. he's a little depressed, and who really knows why. i think part is that he had hoped to go to manhattan, and he's headed for a nice little neighborhood in brooklyn, and part is that feeling you get starting something new. i think once he starts he will love it and be good at it, then we can both feel better. at graduation, they sit in alphabetical order, and the kid next to him had a brother killed in the line of duty last year. which is very sad. but which also meant that all the news cameras took photos of this kid that my new fireman happened to be in. he was on the new york city news channels, on the newsday photo site, all kinds of excitement. i have to remember to concentrate on school with all this other new stuff going on. here are some fun photos from our day!
on the tv with the mayor, the commissioner, etc.

us, thrilled, nervous

famous

2008-01-17T16:29:00.001-05:00

Family Day

2008-01-10T15:06:00.000-05:00

I'm gonna put up two posts at once. watch me.

A (you all know his name anyway) tells me that guys get picked on horribly if instructors or fellow students at the academy find photos and stuff of them online. so i won't use his name, and will try to be a little generic. we got to go out to the academy, me, and A's mom and dad, where they showed us some of the stuff they've been doing for the last few months preparing for their real jobs. i was so impressed, and i'm pretty proud of him. he's really wicked strong now, and being able to go see that he actually can work on fires and swing out of windows on ropes and work big heavy hoses made me feel a lot better. we went out with some of the guys from his class a few nights ago, and they made me feel better too. they actually only let me take pics with the condition that they wouldn't be posted ANYWHERE. so true to that request, i won't show you their adorable bald heads. they were super nice and respectful to me, in a way you don't expect from young guys, and some of them, when A wasn't right there, told me that he does a good job, that he's safe, that they'd feel good about working with him. graduation is the 16th! it will be a nice schedule change to have A in a real job, but of course i'm worried about it. Here's his dad and me, enjoying the day (i know i look ridiculous.)

SO bad at keeping up

2008-01-10T14:45:00.000-05:00

i have let the blog slip while i've been under intense study pressure. i have to accept that i'm the type of person that didn't just decide to be a nurse, and didn't just decide to be an advanced practice nurse, i decided to go to some big-named school in a super accelerated program. so i'm catching the undertow as things progress whether i'm ready or not. ob concluded uneventfully- saw lots of deliveries and such. spent a lot of time in the nursery learning to examine new babies, give them their first vaccines, stuff like that. i spent a whole day trying to feed a crack baby.

in another class we had a group project that didn't go well. there was one person in my group who was just not making the effort. he also made crass jokes around the rest of us- i'm not one to be offended, but it was a little much. as time went on, it became clear that the rest of us were going to have to do his work if he didn't- we talked to him about it, and he asked to talk to me about it a couple times, having singled me out for some reason as the authority (it was a research class, i think he thought my experience was worthwhile). i talked to him about his section, tried to help a little, offered to edit, etc., but he still seemed to want something. i joked, "well, i can't do it for you, haha..." unfortunately i think i put the idea in his head. the next day he called and asked what my comfort level with projects like this was. i said i felt i could complete my work, but that i thought we should each be responsible for some of it- total understatement of what i felt like- i had already put in 12 hours on each of 2 separate occasions that he hadn't. he said, well, maybe we could work something out where you would finish up my part of the project, and i could take you to lunch for a week, or i could take you and your boyfriend to victoria's secret to get you something nice.

i had no idea what to say. i stumbled through something about that not being very appropriate, and how it was pretty important that we all contribute, and that if he needed help with it, we could help, as a group. he said he would try to turn his stuff in on time.... so disturbing- it was a project that was like 30% of our grade in a 4 credit class. ugh. mean ob teacher had lectured us, somewhat contradictorily on not being tattle tales and becoming comfortable resolving problems with coworkers as well as navigating the chain of command- how to tattle to higher-ups, i suppose for when that whole resolution thing doesn't work. i wrote an email to her for advice, since i was so disturbed by the whole thing- i couldn't believe it felt like such a big deal to me- and she sent me straight to the heads of our program. i had to go sit down and talk to them about it. i had heard scary things about them too- about students asking for things or going for help and leaving crying. again, i'm so not used to being uncomfortable or nervous around people... but i sucked it up, and it went fine. it turns out, other people in my class had complained about the same person, and they agreed to bring him in and talk with him. i've seen him since, and it seems like everything has blown over and he just won't be creepy again. we hope. they left me with strict instructions to go straight to them if i get uncomfortable again.

this week i started my med-surg rotation. it's where you learn the bulk of knowledge about diseases and hospital nursing. my assignment is on an infectious disease floor. i feel a little like sareet- everyone has HIV, hepatitis, TB, you name it. which means i don't want to touch ANYTHING. patients. floors. linens. call buttons. needles. sputum samples. blood pressure cuffs. yuck. we all know how much i love homeless people... well, i've got 40 of them, trying to escape the floor to score drugs, trying to cheek their meds and trade them for cigarettes in the cafeteria, trying to BLEED ON ME. ok. hyperbole. hopefully there will be interesting stories that are unlike the ones i've heard from other students. one student couldn't go in her patient's room all day because he wouldn't stop masturbating.

wild days

2007-11-15T17:03:00.000-05:00

so i started ob with a bang- apparently people usually have to kind of wait around to see deliveries, and i've seen three in my first 2 days. scary instructor is alright, but very stressful to be around. she cornered two other students and me on the first day and goes, "so you heard i'm scary, right?" my mouth had already formed the words, "well, yeah," when one of my colleagues graciously said something like, "i try not to place a lot of stock in rumors around here." dodged that bullet. i figured it was no good lying, might as well out with it, but apparently there are people who are more graceful than me (no!).

I saw two vaginal deliveries- the first was yesterday, and it was pretty standard. i'm not sure if this is making me more or less likely to ever have a kid, but i'll tell you, it looks like a lot of work just getting the thing out, let alone raising it and sending it to college. it's neat though to have one patient in the morning and two in the afternoon. The crazy thing about that delivery is that "mean" instructor told me that there were already too many people in the room, i would have to watch the next one, so i went back to the nurse's station. the nurse i was working with goes, "what the hell are you doing out here, i think that lady's about to deliver!"

She grabbed my wrist, and started literally dragging me down the hall, with me rambling, "no, my instructor said no, and she doesn't want me in, and i can't go, and there are too many people, and i'm not going!" she said, "are you scared," and i shook my head- "not of the birth or anything, but of my instructor!" she knows the instructor really well (which i didn't know). She rolled her eyes, and said, "am i teaching you today, or not? are you with me today?" and shoved me in the room. five people all looked over and went- "NO." there was a scuffle while they discussed, i thought my instructor was going to eat me for dinner, and then they said, stand there, don't move. so i did. til they started yelling at me to do stuff.... ladies, make up your minds! so i ended up seeing a birth, being sort of involved... it was nice. after, i tried to apologize. before i could say a word my instructor made the shut up motion over her mouth with her finger and she goes, "you owe iris (the nurse who shoved me in) a thank you- she did just what i always do to get more students in. it's always ok to do anything she says." if only i had known that 30 min before.

today we saw two epidurals to start with, then a c-section- messy. some lady came into triage screaming. literally. i wasn't particularly impressed, and most of these labors last hours, so i checked my patient, and since it was already way past lunch time, we talked to instructor, who said to go get lunch, and if anyone was about to deliver, she would come get us from the lounge room. i was debating cheese sandwich vs. lasagna in line in the cafeteria, when from across the room i hear, "MELISSA! MELISSA! come now if you want to see it. no! run!" i didn't really know what to do in a cafeteria full of people, so we bolted for the door, and i literally ran to labor and delivery- the lady in triage was fully dilated on exam, and had started to deliver. the whole thing was over so quickly that she didn't have an iv, no pain meds, nothing. they gave me pitocin in a syringe and had me inject her leg instead of putting it in an iv like usual. they also had the baby nurse, which gets your body to make oxytocin- the natural version. i thought that was pretty cool. of the messy things, that one topped it. the midwife had to throw away her socks. crazy. as we were leaving, one of the other nurses said, "if you want to see a delivery, this lady's about to go!" we politely declined, and got the hell out of there. it was a long day with no food.

i can see this being a really neat rotation, and i can see crazy instructor being cool- she does teach you a ton- but wow is she stressful to be around. a couple of kids in our group have already cried. she puts people on the spot, which i think gets hard to handle really fast. i have a reasonably thick skin for it, so hopefully i'll do ok. for example, she gave me the pitocin needle today, helped me draw it up, quizzed me a little about pitocin, the dosing, the administration- all fair. then she was like, "are you sure you think you can do it? do you know where the muscle is?" i tried to reassure her. she looked me in the eyes and said, "are you nervous?" i said no, which was a bit of a lie- again, i wasn't at all nervous about the shot, i was nervous about her. god forbid i do it a little wrong, or i don't get the needle guard up fast enough or i don't aspirate before injection or seriously- that i stick myself... it happens. well, i didn't put the guard up fast enough, but that's a minor issue, and everything was fine. i can see getting totally psyched out though.

The really good news is that i have one exam, one meeting with the reference librarian, and one meeting with my project group, then i get a week off. whoo hoo!!

happy thanksgiving everyone- save a turkey!

last day

2007-11-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

at the clinic today. next week it's back to the hospital for ob, which should be a healthy and joyous occasion most of the time. i learned a lot at the clinic, and got to see some stuff that even i of the "i've seen the most weird stuff" will likely never see again. lots of chlamydia. let me just say, if you've ever missed a gynecology appointment, don't, because women who were really sure they were in the "not-a-chance" category quite often had it, and didn't have symptoms. i think everyone who reads this is over 26, but if not, get the hpv vaccine too. anyway, i also saw a tummy tuck, genital warts, girls who had to pay for heath care in cash, a nose job, a boob job, more pregnancy terminations than i can count, a girl stop breathing, a girl who wouldn't wake up from anesthesia, boils (people still get those?), and all kinds of infections. overall it was super interesting, and i'm sorry to leave, though there is some weird stress associated with the whole thing.

i have exams for this five weeks starting tomorrow, then ob starts. i have this instructor that everyone fears. we'll see- so far i have one instructor everyone is scared of, who i think is kind of cool.

andy is more than halfway done with his academy. he fell on a roof last week- gave me a huge scare, but he apparently wasn't hurt at all. they wanted him to go get checked out and all, but he thinks he's fine, and there's no telling a boy. i still don't know what my thanksgiving plans are, given that andy has only the day of thanksgiving off- he has classes weds and fri. i have more than a week off, during which i would like to see my family, but i can't bring myself to leave andy alone. i'm not sure if his parents would come here from boston, and i'm not sure if they did, if that would be better or worse. me spending a week off school and alone in the city doesn't seem too promising either. we'll see- maybe i'll stay and do a lot of ice skating.

new placement

2007-10-11T15:21:00.000-04:00

you guessed it. maybe should have guessed it. i got placed at an abortion clinic.

i parted ways with my last rotation with sort of bittersweet feelings- i liked working with those kids a lot, but it was certainly tough at the end of the day. we got to do a lot of things- over the summer, our preceptors seemed like they were scared to let us touch anyone. luckily that changed this term, i think because we are now insured to give medications. i took the little girl with the no hair some nail polish- i thought it would help her feel a little pretty even if she's bald. she is pretty even bald.

this week was the first week at the clinic. it's not near school, so it's a whole different neighborhood to get used to. i won't say too much about where it is, because i legitimately don't want to get killed. i walk to work through protesters, literally. kind of weird. it's like i have these beliefs about women's health and what the health care system should be like, i've just never had them so outwardly challenged. and i can't say anything to the protesters about it (i wouldn't anyway)- we have to come in in street clothes, all our equipment put away, and change upstairs. we can only have scrubs and stethoscopes inside, so we look like anyone else going in. outside, there are posters of chopped up fetuses (products of conception!), and people very quietly standing by them. i almost wish they would say something so i could be more assured they weren't contemplating opening fire. sometimes the craziest people are the quietest.

their posters aren't exactly like what i've been seeing, but not far off. i could really write a lot about what i've seen, even though i've only been there 2 days now, but i'll try and be clean and brief about it. i think there are few people who legitimately believe abortion should be totally illegal, but i also think it's like killing bugs in your house. Everyone agrees they've got to go, no one wants to deal with the squished bug.

when i came in the first morning they gave us a brief tour. there are three students and one instructor, and the instructor was telling us what goes on and where things are, sort of the flow of the place. she mentioned one procedure and a drug they use, and i made the mistake of asking why they use that drug one i know is more common (and i thought safer). she explained, but when it was time for assignments, she had discovered that i had a little ob/ prenatal experience and would be bored in ultrasound. so i got sent directly to the operating room, where i quickly became glad i ate a croissant before i got there. i introduced myself, the girl on the table was already under anesthesia, the doc said hi and started working. it was a 19 week pregnancy, and my first view of any procedure in the joint started with, "oh look, a foot," from the doc. it was mostly like that all day. i didn't mind it though, honestly, in the sense that i would have felt bad being the doctor, but in my role, i was really doing what i believe in. the things that were going on sucked, but if they had to go on, i got to try to make them a little better for the women who were there. a lot of them were just scared, which seemed pretty reasonable. everything went pretty well until the last patient of the day. she was screaming in pain- they said that it wasn't actually pain, it was reflex, and that she had enough anesthesia that she wouldn't remember. i told them yeah, but i would. i was totally traumatized. they had a second anesthesiologist come in, and eventually she was conscious enough to stop screaming, but whoa.

today was a little easier, if only because we got to leave early. i did gyn care instead of OR, so that was ok too. i got to do less (i did like 10 bimanual exams yesterday, like what you get for your pap- gross!), but the interactions were more interesting- the patients were conscious, so almost inevitably more interesting. we got to tell a really young girl who recently had her 2nd abortion that she had chlamydia. her response was wicked interesting- she was worried about whether it was really a "disease," whether she would have it forever, and whether it would affect her "titties." really interesting to try and follow her thought process. they also gave her birth control, which i thought was great, then sort of realized might make it more likely for her to just get chlamydia again. we saw a girl who had a positive pregnancy test, came in for a termination, and when they did they ultrasound, they couldn't find a pregnancy in her uterus. i guess i have to read a little about that- i know you can have ectopic pregnacies (like in your tubes), but i thought you'd be able to see that on the ultrasound. they sent her to the ER to rule out an ectopic pregnancy, which i guess they can see at the hospital with a better ultrasound. anyway, it was a day like that until lunch, and when we got back from lunch our instructor said the schedule looked pretty slow, so did we want to call it an early day. how do you say "hell yeah" without hurting someone's feelings?

maybe next i'll tell you about the hilarious feminist doctor i work with, and why he thinks that childbirth is both "deforming" and "a metamorphosis." he thinks most women should be offered vaginal plastic surgery after their deliveries.

pediatric oncology?

2007-09-28T21:11:00.001-04:00

not for me. i'm doing alright, but the week was traumatic. and it's selfish of me to say that, given that none of the tough things really happened to me, just around me. the little girl who lost her hair? she's so sweet- i had her again as a patient. they were sending her down for a bone marrow aspiration again. i didn't know all the details of that, but did her preop checklist, gave her all her meds before she went, and even sat down to talk to her- was she scared or worried? she said no, she had done this before- 4 times. she said the first time had been really scary. i found out that her prognosis is based on the doctor's ability to get rid of a certain type of cell- her blasts- and they haven't been able to. each time, they treat her, then she goes for this procedure to see if it worked, and each time, it hasn't. each time they don't get rid of them, they are less likely to be able to ultimately get rid of them. either way, she said i could go down with her if i wanted- she said it like a dare, like she was afraid i would think it was gross what they were doing to her. i told her i would go and stay the whole time if she wanted. so i did. my mistake. i've seen surgeries, pretty crazy medical stuff, a couple emergency things that were a little gross. i was totally unprepared for bone marrow aspiration. it turns out it's exactly what it sounds like- they get some marrow out to look at it. and i guess i must have known that your bone marrow doesn't just hang around outside your bones (i think i assumed they had some nice way to get it, since when you give a kid bone marrow, you hang a bag up like an iv, and it just goes in. why not some easy way to get it out?). I'll spare you the gore, but suffice to say it was a big needle- two big needles- shaped like corkscrews, that went right into her hip with the ton of force needed to get into her hip bone. I stayed until her sedation lifted, and left her with her mom. i felt like excusing myself to go throw up a little, but made it back upstairs to check on my other patient (we only get 2 at a time usually- so cute to be a student). I went to see her like an hour later, expecting her to be drowsy and in pain, but she was sitting up, and wanted me to tell her all about it- which doctors had done it, what happened when she went to sleep, when did her mom leave the room, what did her bone marrow look like. i left out the parts about her favorite doc being the one with the biggest needle, and the part about her having some pain where she nearly woke from the sedation, but tried to be really honest. i hope they find some miracle on this test, since she needs one.

yesterday, i got to go to the peds er instead of the oncology floor. f-ing awesome. we didn't even see any amazing cases, and i still thought it was fun. i gave a asthma kid a nebulizer, watched a lumbar puncture (or an attempt at one, well, seven attempts at one. weird week for spinal stuff), assessed a kid with acute abdominal pain, got to tell a new mom not to worry, her baby's runny nose was ok, held down a couple kids to get ivs... pretty sweet stuff. i was only there 5 hrs, and i got to do so much more than other floors- probably because it's busier. i liked the pace- sometimes it was slow, other times, more to do. i have a disaster of a week coming up- 3 exams, 2 papers, this weird computer thing we have to do (takes forever)... i'm not sure i'm up for it. when the week is over, so is pediatrics. i have community nursing next- we don't know our placements, and they could be anywhere. we'll see what happens. i've heard people have everything from abortion clinics to psych home visits in the south bronx.

at the hospital

2007-09-19T18:11:00.000-04:00

today was our first day this week back at the hospital- we have classroom stuff 3 days, hospital stuff 2. Last week i took care of the girl who had her hair start coming out. the first day i took care of her she was gone most of the day having a procedure (these stories would be a lot better if i was actually allowed to say anything, but people's privacy is way more important). the second day i took care of her she slept most of the day. needless to say, i didn't think this was necessarily a lasting bond we had established. today i was taking care of my kid- an awesome kid with a really rare genetic thing that un-insulates your brain- when one of the other students grabs me and says- you should stop by and see your girl from last week- she's asking for you. i was so endeared. no patient has asked for me so far... i thought it was really sweet. she was gone both times i went to look for her, so i'll have to catch up to her tomorrow. i bet she's completely bald. i should knit her a hat!

kids... not so bad

2007-09-17T16:45:00.000-04:00

doing ok so far in the pediatrics world. i only get 5 weeks of it, and that's supposed to determine whether i'm interested forever or not. and i only experience one small area of peds, in my case, oncology (which i'm sure is not the place for me). that said, i've really enjoyed my clinical time so far- time can drag in the hospital when you aren't allowed to do a whole lot, but there seems to always be something to do even when the kids don't need anything. there are clowns and guitar guys and karate classes and all kinds of therapies- physical, respiratory, nutrition, developmental... it's neat. we get to do anything the kids do, so if they go for a procedure, we can go. if they go to therapy, we can go. and if they go to the playroom, we can go (yes!). i know as a real provider i would be too busy to do most of that, but it's pretty fun all the same.

i knew it would be sad to be around kids with cancer. i guess i hadn't realized the way it would be sad. with grown ups, they are dying, and they beg for anything you can do to help them. you feel empathy for them like you are supposed to, but it's hard to avoid sympathy and pity, which you aren't supposed to. you just feel bad for them. kids, it's hard to feel bad for them- they don't hang around lamenting what they might lose. they tear through as best they can. one of my patients was diagnosed with a cancer, and started chemo about 2 weeks ago. her nurse told me that she was tough about things when they told her, and tough when she went thru the chemo and was throwing up, and felt awful, and she was tough when she had to go to school every day in the hospital (with a tutor) while she was feeling so crummy. She had this big head of hair, and i guess when it started to fall out from the chemo, she was really tough, and had one of the moms on the floor cut all her hair to about 1/2 an inch long. that seemed pretty brave. after that, she cried her fool head off for an entire day, and hasn't cried about anything since then.

the other thing that strikes me as really sad is how some parents deal. most are wonderful- they do anything they can to help. they come sleep in their kid's room, eat every meal at the hospital, help measure the pee and the blood pressure, learn what their kid's AST level should be, bring fun stuff from home to decorate the room want to know each med that goes in the iv, even when there are 10 a day. but some don't. one kid we have is about a year and a half old, and his mom doesn't come to visit. without telling their business, one kid has parents who have lots of trouble coming- they often tell him they will, then can't or don't or won't- i'm not sure which. that stuff kills me- you really want to punch a parent that can't make a decent effort. and when they let their kid down, it's heartbreaking. one kid told me that his dad called to say he wasn't coming in. the kid said his dad cried, and he had to console his father.

some of it makes you appreciate all the things that go well though. we have one kid who is probably terminal. he's been in the hospital for weeks. he's adorable, and fun to be around. all the other kids and parents know him. one of the families had a little girl with a medical problem that they found out wasn't as bad as the doctors originally thought. she might have to have surgery, but not until she was older, and overall, she was healthy, and can remain that way with treatment. her dad was so happy and so grateful- he brought gifts for all the docs and the nurses- and for the little boy who probably won't get to go home. he brought him his gifts and was talking to him, and was telling him, "we'll come visit you- be tough." while he was trying to talk to the kid, this big tough dad was just overcome by everything, and started getting all choked up. i think everyone in the room had to leave to avoid a weird scene of 10 adults bawling....

anyway, my tests are going ok so far. it's going to be a lot of work this term. we have this dumb clinical research class- i really wish i could opt out of it, given that my degree and my last 7 yrs of work have been mostly in clinical research. but i can't, so i guess i will have to make a stupid little poster like everyone else. i'll try writing something more interesting in the next couple weeks. we'll see how that goes...

comment

2007-09-07T18:06:00.000-04:00

left on a really old post after i read flags of our fathers:

Hello! I don't know you but came across this posting when I was searching the internet looking for info. on Michael Strank. I'm glad there is someone else out there besides me who has fallen in love with this photo!
:-)
His story has moved me tremendously and I am very sad that he was only on this planet for 25 years. Such a waste. Yet, I suppose he did what he was meant to do and that had worldwide ramifications.
I agree with you about our (US) participation in war. We need to be damn sure we know what we're doing.

--A kindred spirit

I'm so glad there is at least one other person in the world who understands my enduring crush on a 25 year old Marine who died 50 years ago. it's so hard to explain to people. i gave the book to my uncle- a Marine during vietnam- for christmas. i debated and debated whether he would like it, or see it as intrusive on his private feelings. my family, for all it's glory, makes us do christmas lists, and it showed up on his, so decision made. i was speaking to my uncle recently, and he told me, "i have a pretty awful confession. i'm just getting around to reading flags of our fathers. but i wanted to tell you what an amazing book it is. i really love it." i told him that's no awful confession. he went on to tell me that he thought the descriptions of each of the guys were pretty cool. he said he had a special affinity for one of them, this Mike Strank fellow. i very casually said, oh yeah, i'm in love with him. i think, just maybe, my uncle gets it too.

back to school, back to school

2007-09-05T20:03:00.001-04:00

to prove to dad i'm not a fool (or whatever billy madison says). this term will be a little crazy i think. it's called our "five-by-fives," because we take one class at at time for five weeks each- sort of confusing, since we have other classes too, but just the one changes. first i have peds- weird, since i don't know how to take care of grown ups. i started in the hospital today- found out i got placed on a peds oncology floor. i've got to say, i'm not good at dealing with adults with cancer, we'll see if i'm any better with kids having their organs rotted from the inside.... seems like such a yucky and desperate disease. i guess they all sort of are.

my time off was ok- i was sort of below the radar in michigan for a bit. i missed seeing my friend elliott, which sucked, but other than that, the trip was good. my dad hasn't been in the best health ever, but he won't quit smoking, so i suppose that's to be expected. i'm hoping to keep up my writing on here, but i'm kind of a slacker about things, and i certainly have to prioritize school stuff (although i'm rereading some novels i like while we don't have actual school assignments yet). i'll try to thrill everyone with the amazing tales of my life from time to time, though, since this is all just too good to keep to myself...

going to michigan

2007-08-15T13:02:00.000-04:00

from the 21-29th. if you're around, let me know! this is super hard, helping andy get through academy. i'm up every morning with him at 5- sometimes before. i make his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. i'm doing all the housework- poorly, but all of it. it's the way real housewives live, i guess, but i'm not very good at it. i have to go back to school in a few weeks, and neither of us will have time to take care of our pets or the dishes. this could get interesting.

i'm looking for a new book- any suggestions? i've even been re-reading, i'm so unable to choose a new one. i'll have to get decisive eventually.

done with classes!

2007-08-05T16:30:00.000-04:00

Yay- most of my grades are in too, and i actually did ok. andy starts fire academy again tomorrow- he's wicked nervous. send him good thoughts. i think he will do fine. more soon- i have some time off before we start more crazy school again.

busy with exams

2007-06-24T11:54:00.001-04:00

I have 2 exams a week until august. it's nice to be back in school, but hard, for sure. they let us start working in the hospital, where i haven't really had anything to do but take vital signs so far. it would be interesting if i didn't already know how to do it. one of my patients is diabetic and has some circulation issues. he bumped his leg, got a little bruise, and it turned into a huge black wound the whole length of his shin, all the way to the bone. here's to never getting diabetes. i'm trying to figure out what i want to specialize in, so sort of where i want to focus once i'm out of school. i have to decide by march, and i just don't know. i would really like to work in an er, but i can see that being tough to do for years and years. you can't really specialize in acute care (er stuff) and then go to family practice without more school. i can see myself liking midwifery, but the program at columbia is pretty specific, they make less money, and the schedule issues make it something that again, after years and years could be awful. i could go into family to start with, but then it's tough to get work in an er, and family might be boring all by itself. i need to go talk to program lady probably, and have her straighten out my head. as for straightening my head, i managed to gain 15lbs taking my new medicine... yuck. it's really uncomfortable. i'm worried about fitting into a dress, but am totally excited for my friend stefanie's wedding next weekend. i love weddings, and this one will be sort of exciting! marrying nice boys rules.

happy birthday to me

2007-06-17T11:40:00.000-04:00

to quote sareet, it's my first 29th birthday. whoo hoo!

whirlwind

2007-06-13T14:50:00.000-04:00

all your good thoughts for me worked, and somehow they decided to give me my student loan, even though it took them almost 2 months to figure it out. in one swipe of my signature, i borrowed 58K. yup. that's a ton of money. it's for the whole year, but that doesn't make it seem any better. last year i didn't make that amount. oh well- i will get to go to school, and i've managed to start. i'm doing a 6yr degree (actually a 4 yr + a 2 yr) in 2 years, so i really have to have my act together. we had to go to MI for my goddaughter's graduation, so i'm already a little behind. i have two afternoons off a week to study and keep up- it should be ok. anyway, andy was on the EMS medal day program for the fire department:

he looks extra cool saving babies.
i like to watch the cat like i would watch some nature show, only she doesn't do much. mostly sleep, eat, poo, whine, and this

I saw some cool people while i was back in michigan- mostly family and family friends, since it was that sort of deal we were back for. my grandmother's best friend was there- my grandma has been dead 20 years, and this lady keeps up with all of us like she was in our family. she brought photos she had in scrapbooks-
my grandma

anyway, we had a great time- andy and i helped everyone my dad works with move into a new shop space- they had been in the old one for almost a hundred years. my dad's bench has been in the same place 30 years- my whole life. we helped build some furniture, and the new place looks great. then we went and helped my aunt clean and get the house ready for a billion people coming in for the graduation thing. it was a lot of work, and i'm not sure andy thought the minor league baseball game we went to made up for it. he does like the baseball though, so maybe. If i don't post for awhile, it could be because my nose actually gets stuck in a book. or two.

two down

2007-05-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

so it looks like i'm going to nursing school! i'm pretty excited. i have to get the financial aspect of it straightened out- it's a huge amount of loans, and your credit actually comes into play.... sucks. so in the next few days they decide if i need like four cosigners, or what. either way, i put in my resignation, which felt pretty good. i have a couple weeks to wind up working and do some knitting. i like that. i might get all my books for free too- one of the women i work with has a daughter who just graduated the program i'm in today. i offered to buy them, but she said she would just give them to me if she has them. i will have to knit something for the new nurse. and i have to order some white shoes. yup- uniform white shoes....

nerves and nothing new

2007-05-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

nervous for monday's test. i have an office friend who prays for me, which i find a little weird, but hey, i'll take it. lucy sends reiki. i think all those things work- it's the only explanation for first test. big study weekend, then i'll know pretty early monday if i have to hurry to work, or if i can wear jeans for the remaining two weeks of my stint as a boring study coordinator.

one down, one to go

2007-05-04T15:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all the good thoughts. they apparently worked.

No one cares but me and my kitty...

2007-05-01T16:40:00.000-04:00

and maybe andy. these are funny sleeping cat photos though. so here ya go.
on a bag of the nips:

and inverted:

My first test is friday- i take anatomy and physiology. if i pass, then i have to pass micro also, then i can start school at the end of the month. fail either, and i have to wait a year... i would be more confident if i had taken the classes or studied either this decade. oh well. maybe it will go better than i think. always possible. think good anatomical thoughts around 11:30 friday!