Santa

My son hates Santa, I mean hates him. I do think that we his family are to blame in this manner. It started just after he was born at the end of November, someone bought him a Santa outfit. If I had a scanner I would post a pic that we have of him in the outfit, the dog (Boo) is looking at him with a "I'm so happy that is not me in that outfit" look.

After that it went down hill. The stuffed Santa with a motion detector in it that would yell "HOHOHO" the play a very bad tinny rendition of Jingle Bells. K, so hated that thing that I did not need a baby gate, just put Santa at the bottom of the stairs and the kid avoided them like the plague.

Then someone bought a Santa hat. The hat was left about the house to show him that yes, he was watching. Not only that but my mother, this kids grandmother had someone the uncles types wear it outside and run buy a high window. Yes, she had that much control over our lives.

God, this is sick stuff. Anyway why am I putting all of this here. Well, this is background to explain what I call the Santa wars. The Santa wars are still being worked on and as I get them done I will post them.

Stolen

I don't often do meme's but this one looked like fun so I stole it from Tina. It was not as fun as I thought it would be it took me hours to get the pictures here. I still can't move them to where I want them.

The Rules: Type the answer to the following questions into Google Image, then pick from the first page.

Age at my next birthday:

Place I'd like to travel:

Place I've been:

Favorite food:

Place I was born:

Place I live:

Name of past pet: (he is current I could not find a pic of last pet name)

Best friend's nickname:

(this is another name for my Honey)

My first name:

First job:

Wacko's weather, and other things

OMG! I am not going to post the name of the group that is going on and on about getting something up at the capital that talks about Santa and hell. Now, I knew that these cult like, picketing, people were crazy but now I know that they are nuts. I really really wished that they had gone to Canada where with their signs they would have all gotten jail time. Anyway, as I am not mentioning the wackos by name here is an article from a local paper about what they are trying to do.

Weather, we are now under a winter storm warning. What that means for us, is a sudden drop in temperature, rain/snow, snow, high wind and if we are lucky we will still have power in the morning. They keep changing when this storm is to get here but the last I heard was 2200 tonight. That is why I am blogging now so that I can.

I did work today, woohoo. Well, kind of. Today I worked at the hospitals Hospice House. I don't mind that kind of work but going from working with one patient to 5 was hard. It is a nice place to work, everyone there tries to make the passage from this world to the next as easy as possible.

Yes, I do believe in an after life. It might not be what we expect in fact I think that the Wackos will be totally surprised at what is there.

No Work

I am so sick of not working right now. It seems as if the hospitals have put everything on hold. Last week I worked all of 10 hours and this week nothing. Every shift I have had has been cancelled. I know a lot of it is the economy, elective surgeries are not being done. That cuts down on patient load but you would think that with all of the emergency's and car accidents that they would not be sending people home.

This morning I was just about to walk out the door when they called. At least I get late cancel pay.

I have been working on my stitching and have finished a panel. I should take a pic and show what is done. But at least it keeps me busy, and I would rather be busy than go shopping and spend money. Though if I get cancelled tomorrow, I might go and spend the day at the book stores. I don't know all of this inactivity is starting to make my brains go mushy.

Remembering Christmas Part 2

My sister and I are several years apart in age. Not a huge age gap but enough so that people could tell I was the older one. Mom, use to buy us matching outfits. I don't know if that was the "Thing" or if she thought it was cute or if we wanted them that way. I do remember when that all stopped.

It is a family tradition that on Christmas eve we all got to open one give, new Jammie's. My sister and I always got matching ones. Then one year, I don't know if my parents were at a party or where they had gone, but they were not at Grandma and Grandpa's. This year the three of us got footie Jammie's. My sister and I matching ones again they were pink. My brother I think had cars on his.

When it came time for us to get ready for bed we all went to put on our new pj's. At that time I was about 4 inches taller than my sister. I did not think anything of it when I put on my PJ's and they were short. I had to scrunch down to get my shoulders in the sleeves, my knees bent it was miserable I could not stand up straight. Now, my sister, hers were to long. Footie's dragging behind her, sleeves covering her hands. So what did we do, not change clothes. Oh no, I was in MY Jammie's and she was in HERS. So we did the natural thing. "GRANDPAAAA!!!!"

What did he do, he took one look at us grabbed a pair of scissors and cut my feet free, the he attacked my sisters PJ's and cut off all of the extra material. She looked OK just a bit ragged, I looked like I was wearing high waders. The elastic that should have been around my ankles were around my calf's.

Needless to say mom was not happy when she got back later that night. However, we never got matching PJ's again. I think that my Grandfather did that deliberately. He was a very smart man.

Remembering Christmas

When I was six years old my Grandfather got in trouble. It was not his fault, someone bought my brother a toy dart gun for Christmas or that my grandmother had hung up honeycomb crepe paper bells in all the door frames of the house. It was not his fault that my brother was more interested in the trucks that he got.

So I asked Grandpa if he would teach me how to shoot. So what the bells made convenient target practice, it was not his fault that I had good aim. Boy, was my Grandmother mad. She hollered and yelled and even cussed him out.

But out of all of that, I remember spending time with grandpa (who always smelled like pipe tobacco). Sitting on his lap taking careful aim at the bell, and shooting it. It was as if we were the only two in the house and I know that was not true. The house was full of people. Grandma, Grandpa, kids, parents, aunts, and uncles.

But what I remember the most is Grandpa, the smell of his pipe, sitting on his lap, and target practice.

Years Past

Today the 29Th is my son's birthday, he is 17 now. The years just go by so quickly. So today I was thinking about him and some of the things that he has done over the years that make him who he is.

First there is Boo's Box, my cocker spaniel had a box. It was his bed, his safe place and if I was lucky I could get his blanket out to wash it every once in a while. When the Boy was nine months old he was bound and determined to see what was so cool in the box. He had already checked out the dog food, and water dish, now it was time for the box. The only thing is Boo was in the box. The Boy crawled over to the box reached in grabbed Boo's long ears and started to try to pull him out of the box. Boo was not having that, he did not bark, growl or show teeth. He pulled back. It was going to be an epic tug of war, who would win the Boy or the dog. Neither, I won. I picked the Boy up.

When the Boy was three we had taken him to Costco and he fell asleep in the car. Getting him out of the car woke him up. He was not quite awake enough to walk so my brother was caring him. It was December and the store had a Santa outside handing out candy canes. The man came up to my brother and said, "little boy would you like to have a candy..." Before he could finish his sentence the Boy punched him right in the nose. He has always hated Santa, there will be more on this if I remember to post about it.

When he was four he was enrolled in karate. He was in it up until he got his green belt. However, when he was six he used it for the first time. He and my brother were roughhousing. My brother kept picking him up and tossing him on the couch. The Boy said "stop" several times. Bro of course did not listen to him. So what did the Boy do? A round house kick, got my brother right in the knee. Dropped him like a rock. The Boy was standing over him crying "I did not know it would work, I didn't". R was on the floor rolling about holding his knee. I like a good mother and a good sister was laughing my a$$ off.

So Happy 17Th Kid.

Tequila Suprise

When I go out drinking Tequila is my drink of choice. I love to have it plan in a glass, just a shot or a double shot. I know that there are all kinds of other ways to drink Tequila, there is the Sunrise, the Margarita, Acid Trip, and many others. Now there is a new use for Tequila. I would have never thought about that.

Thank you Dr.'s however this better not cause a Tequila shortage.

The Laundry

Today was laundry day, the only thing I like about doing it at a mat is that in an hour and a half all of it is done. What I don't like is dealing with all of the people. Most of the time they leave me alone and let me do my cross stitching. Sometimes I get questions on what I am doing or making, when they find out it is stitching their eyes glaze over and they walk away.

Sometimes I will start up a conversation, but I have to be in a chatty mood to do that. I think the last time I started a conversation was a week before the election. I see doing my laundry at a mat as a personal time.

Today however, there was a family in there and I would have liked to slap the parents about the head with a common sense stick. Mom and dad doing laundry and a bright boy about 2. He ran all over the place opening the machines if they were running or not, wandering off outside, then talking to a stranger. Now to me all of these at that age are unacceptable. Playing with the equipment there I understand, the kid is curious. When his parents would tell this little boy not to do something or to mind them he would say quite clearly "F**k off". Guess what mom and dad did, give up. They laughed.

Mulberry Street

Today I saw a man in his yard with a house vaccume cleaner vaccuming his yard. He had it turned on and was vaccuming his grass. I don't know if he was trying to suck up the leaves or the pine needles but it was an intersting to see him out there vaccuming the grass.

This kind of reminded me of my favorite poet. I know that most people do not feel this way about Dr. Seuss. Just read Green Eggs and Ham, or A B C and you will see what I mean. He has a way with words. If I had to choose between Dr. Seuss or Ogden Nash I would have a hard time. Ogden Nash is another favorite poet of mine.

Anyway, when I lived in Springfield MA. I found Mulberry Street, the street that Dr Seuss wrote about and I think lived on when he was a kid. When I saw this man vaccuming his yard I thought about what I saw on Mulberry Street. I have not read that book in a long time.

2 Pics and a link.

Project Postcard

I have 5 postcards at home for this I need to get more. Oh and I still have no computer at home.

An update

The computer is still in the shop. Bummer.

My sister and I talked about my being a lesbian and she is cool with that. Yeah sis. I still have to tell the aunts and my brother. But, I am getting there. Honey is on the east coast this week and I wish I could have gone with her. I miss her when she is in CA and I miss her even more when she is in FL.

A friend of mine who lives in Canada the town of Oshawa sent this to me. She works at that school but did not see the attack she had her back to the parking lot when it started. This is the updated article.

If you have not yet checked out Join The Impact the next event is DEC 10Th.

NO Computer

I am without computer at home for at least a week and I am not to be using the one at work for personal things. I am going to try and get to the library on a daily basis and see if my laptop will connect to their wifi. So I am going to have to try and catch up or seek a peek at the hospital.

Hard things, I guess that we are coming out together

In life there are somethings harder than others. It is not until they are faced that it is seen how hard and how easy events, and situations in life are. Then the same thing can be easy or hard depending on how they are dealt with.

This past week has been one of those dreaded and then not so dreaded times. My blog I have kept from my family because I post things on here that I thought would get some of them very upset, that I would be rejected. I do know what that feels like and it is not a good feeling. The other day my sister found my blog, it was a link to a link type of deal. I don't even know who is reading my posts that she is reading from. I know confusing, but we all know how that goes. Anyway, I posted some topic on here that we had talked about and she asked me if Katzenjammer was mine. After mumbling a bit I admitted that it was. She then lost the link, and I did not send her one. A few days later she found it again. We have talked but I am sure that she has things she wants to ask me about that I have not yet brought up.

How do I tell her the night that I knew from the time I was a late teen that I found women more attractive, or that I married because I thought it was what I was to do ( that was a HUGE mistake)? Or the nights when I would get off the phone with my best friend and tell myself that I was not in love with her, that I had myself convinced of that? Or that weeks later when I saw her again I started having panic attacks when I realized that I did love her. That I for days was a nervous wreck, or the joy I felt when she said that she loves me too. We have not talked about any of this. There is a lot to talk about, the present and the future.

I would like to think that my dad would have been OK with me being a lesbian. My mom would have called me a slut and a whore among other things, but she did that when some guy would smile in my general direction when we were at the store.

So today I took another step in the process of coming out. I called my cousin. I wanted to meet someplace for lunch and talk face to face but with his new job that is not possible. After a bit of chatting, I told him that this summer I had gotten engaged and that my Honey is a woman. He was OK with that, I thought he might be and that is why I told him before some of the others.

As I write this I am tearing up. It is OK Honey. It is a relief to have it out there and yet there are still more people to tell. The one that I fear telling the most is my brother, my aunts I have some worry about and as for my son I will have to tell him when I can sit down and tell him face to face, but I want there to be people that he trusts that he can talk if and when he needs to.

Book Club Night--- Infidel

Tonight was book club night and for this month we read a book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali titled Infidel. I tried to get a link but the computer is not allowing me to at this time. When this book was brought to my attention that it was going to be one of the ones that the group was reading I was not happy. I thought that I would not like it, that it would be a book that would be difficult to read. I was wrong.

For most of the book I enjoyed reading about a different outlook on life, a different culture. I will admit that one point it was very hard for me to get through. The author was describing what happened to her, her sister, and brother. He was circumcised, she and her sister were mutilated. I had to read a word or two and walk away and then come back and read some more.

If asked I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about overcoming obstacles, to learn about Islam, to learn about what it is like to be a refugee. A very good book.

The next time the group meets in Jan 8Th and we will be reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

I voted

I voted. It was a simple processes really. I voted for president, Governor, and other offices that were on the ballot.

Then I got to the propositions. One was easy enough. It was about traffic, and buses.

Then there was proposition 1000. Prop 1000, Death with Dignity, Physician Assisted Suicide. This one made me think more than the prop about the buses. What as a person who works in the medical field think about this. I have seen people die, watched them as in pain they struggled to breath. Listened to them as they begged to die, to end the pain. Sometimes I am the only one in the room holding their hand as family refuses to come and say good by.

I do not believe in taking a life, I have never had to deal with self defence so I am not sure about that. I do think that taking another life is murder, and that it is wrong to do that. However, as I sat and thought about prop 1000 I asked myself some questions that I needed to answer.

I came to the conclusion that I do not have the right to tell others how and when to die. That is not my job or my responsibility . That being the case, how should I vote. No, because I believe taking a life is wrong. Yes, because it is not for me to tell you how to live or die.

I voted yes. I do not have to help someone die, I cannot give them the medication to die. I can go to bed knowing that even though I do not believe taking a life is OK, I have made the choice to allow other to die in a manner that they choose.

Why could not CA, AZ, FL and AK do that? Vote so that others could choose their own lives, their happiness?

I can only hope, and fight and maybe one day Honey and I can get married, not just unionized.

Exposure

The good news the great news is that 8 against 8 raised $13,759.

I love my job, I love my job, I love the bugs at my job. As long as I keep saying that things will be OK. This is actually more of a note to me. So today between the hours of 1300 and 2100 on October 30 2008 I meet some good bugs. I was in and out and in and out and in and out ( get your mind out of the gutter) of a room today and on the last run in there a nurse came up to me and said, " one of the patients in here is being moved to a private room, the doc thinks she has TB." Whoopee, if Honey did not like my hair I would have pulled it out then and there.

Then today between the hours of 1300 and 2100 I went to a room that had a nice tiny little sign "droplet precautions". So on go the gloves, the mask, and the pretty (read ugly as sin) yellow dress. OK, so its not really a dress it is a long sleeved, open in the back hospital type gowns. See photo above. Get in the room and the nurse says to me. "They don't know what she has they think it might be encephalitis." What the he!! is going on? I know that encephalitis is not airborne but some of the things that cause it can be. What they don't know is what caused it.

This week alone I have come across more and more nasties than I have in a long time. Bacterial meningitis, salmonella, TB, encephalitis, e.coli, not to mention the more normal ones. MRSA, VRE, 2 cases of the flu, colds, sinus infections, and more. Thank the frogs I am not a hypocondrac.

Marriage means to me

With all of the talk on marriage and the rights that go along with it I thought I should write about what marriage means to me. The me that got stupidly hitched at 19 because that is what I thought I should do. The me who when he left me pregnant became a single mom. The me who did not for years even think about a relationship, because the kid came first. The me who for several months lived in a homeless shelter with a small child. The me who held nontraditional jobs, like fire support for ground and air firefighters.

Personal, I am scared to get married. I don't want to disappoint Honey, I don't want to hurt her. I don't want her to one day wake up regretting marring me.

Marriage is to me an acknowledgement of our love. It is me telling others that I love this woman so much that I am willing to stand up and tell the world of my love for her.

Marriage to me means being with her when facing the hard times. Taking care of her when she needs it.

Marriage means compromise. Accepting her for her, and giving her space when she needs it. It means realizing that you are both individuals working toward a common goal. Marriage means working through the misunderstandings or finding a way to live with the two different points of view.

Marriage means growing as both a couple and as individuals.

Marriage means sitting at a hospital for all hours. It means fixing her favorite meal when she is sick. It means having someone to hold in the dark scary times. It means that after death the survivor will get the respect of being a widow.

Marriage to me means that my love is as important as your love.

8 and Movies

Thank you to everyone who donated, and read, and posted about 8 against 8. I don't know what the total is but I do know it is more than $8,000. Woohoo!!

Now on the the topic that is going around work this week. What should I bring to a Halloween potluck? I want to take something so that they won't ever ever forget me. I was thinking lung cancer cake or something equally nasty with out all the work.

Speaking of nasty, one of the things at work we have been talking about is scary movies. I love a good scary movie. I don't mean a gory one filled with blood and guts and oozy things I see that at work all the time. Gory movies are not scary or entertaining they are more like a bad documentary. I am not allowed to watch them with family anymore. My family sits around and says things like "eewww" or "what is that?" They really don't like it when I say "That evisceration with the chain saw was not deep enough to show the kidneys. Oh, and where are the reproductive organs? Movie makers seem to forget those." Gory movies are like a bad day when I was an EMT.

I want movies that are scary enough so that at night when in bed alone every little noise from the fridge starting up to the car alarm 5 doors down makes me want to get up, turn on all the lights, shove a holy book under my bed, and have a death grip on a baseball bat until the sun comes up. That is the kind of movie I want to see. I do think that the movie studios have quit making them.

Some of the ones that I like that are hard to find on DVD are... Watcher in the Woods, The Cat People (1942 version) , and The Haunting (1963). What are some of yours?

Waaaateeer

I have decided that with all of the talk about politics and just how serious things are getting in the news that I would change things here for a bit. I thought about telling a ghost story but I want to write it out, get it right before I tell it. Then I thought about a joke of some sort and realized that I am not good at telling those either.

So tonight I went shopping, I needed just a few things. I used the self check out as I had gotten under 5 items and it was close to closing time. I got some cleaning supplies, 2 bottles of water as my brother and I were thirsty, and ice cream. The cleaning supplies, ice cream all scanned well. The water we had to enter in the UPC code. After typing the code into the machine it spoke phonetically. I thought that I was going to pee.

The machine sounded like something on Sesame Street. It said "put the Waaaateeer in the bag." Waaaateeer. Drawing out the vowels making sure that I understood that I needed to bag my waaaateeer. Not my ice cream or my cleaning items my waaaateeer.