It Came From The...

I have a lot of talents, but housekeeping is not numbered among them.

As part of my move, I get a new fridge. So my 7 year old fridge goes to my bother, er brother, and his 10 year old fridge goes to my Mom because her garage fridge died after 20 years. And what Mom wants, Mom gets.

Of course, this is a good thing, but the big problem is that I have not actually done more than a cursory cleaning in the entire time I've owned it. Hey, it's cold in there, so it's not like mold and stuff can grow in it, right?

Wrong. I think I probably wiped out an entire new species of intelligent life. I had no idea (well, OK, I sorta did because I'd studiously avoided looking at it) how much sludgy stuff could collect in the bottom of the fridge under the drawers.

Luckily for my brother, I love him enough not to subject him to the horror of the flaccid grapefruit, the ancient tin of biscuits, the sickly wrinkled carrot, and the scary looking pickles which lurked in the back.

Let's just hope, for all our sakes, that the weather stays as cold as predicted...otherwise I am sure that the plague or some...thing newly come to conscious thought will emerge from my garbage can to terrify the world...

A Bouquet of a Dozen Red...

Today was Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house; I was delegated to bring mashed potatoes, so last night when I picked up my son, Gavin, from university, we stopped at the store to pick up a bag.

On the way back to the house, my son was looking at the lumpy bag and said, "Roses are overrated. Sure, they're beautiful, but they die in a couple of days. They're all show and no substance."

He was silent for a moment and then continued, "Potatoes, now...potatoes are romantic. They're everything you want love to be. They may not look like much, but they're sustaining and nourishing. They stay good a long time. And they're useful! Why, you can even use one to make a potato clock! Much better than roses!"

Now, Gavin has never dated, and says he's not ready yet. But those are some pretty deep thoughts about love (well, maybe not the potato clock part).

I hope someday he meets his soul mate; someone who can appreciate sustaining, nourishing, useful love, wrapped up messily in a very eccentric package.

And I don't think I'll ever look at potatoes in quite the same way.

Double Yuck!

DON'T read this if you get queasy easily. Really. You've been warned.

I've said it before, but it's worth saying again: I was never, ever going to be a nurse. It's my family profession, pretty much, and I was NOT going to do it. I used to become lightheaded from looking at hypodermic needles, once fainted at the sight of blood, and could not tolerate the least of bad smells.

Then I had pets. And kids. And every bodily fluid that could be spilled on me, eventually was. Silly me, I thought I was inured to disgusting stuff, so when I realized how much a nursing degree would benefit me, I dived right in.

I was SO wrong. During nursing school, I'd occasionally encounter something that would make me vomit (this did NOT thrill my patients) and once passed out during a surgical procedure that involved cauterization (between the sizzling sound and the smell, I just couldn't take it).

So I learned that there were certain things I couldn't look at, and certain things that I should avoid smelling if at all possible (a little Vick's VapoRub right under the nose works wonders).

This week, I encountered one of those smells, and I don't think Vick's would have helped, even if I'd had any.

I'm doing a study which requires fecal samples. Now, in general, I can send a kit home with my patient, and the patient will collect the sample and send it in. And I figured I'd never have to collect one, because really: who poops on command?

Evidently, at least one person in the world CAN and DID.

The disorder I am studying often makes for fatty, oily stools which have (to say the least) an intense stench. And this particular person was far more intense than most, so that the entire clinic seemed to choke on the fog of fumes issuing from the bathroom. With my eyes tearing from the noisome smell, gagging and retching furiously, I dashed in and collected what I needed and then flushed the rest.

Of course, EVERYONE in the clinic could hear me gag (and some of them were ALSO gagging). When I emerge, triumphant, my sample sealed in its container, the patient's family all look at me and start to laugh.

Patient's dad: "Hey, it could be worse! You should have been on the plane the year we went to Disneyland!"

Patient's mom: "Yes, the smell followed him out of the plane bathroom -- it was so thick you almost thought you could SEE it."

Patient: "Yeah, you could sure tell as soon as it got to the each row of seats! People started gagging!"

Patient's dad: "You should have seen the stewardess run back there!"

All three then laugh and high five each other...I am so glad it's a source of humor, and not a source of shame...and I'm also very glad I was NOT on that plane!

And also this week, my daughter, Alex, called with her own story of supreme yuckiness.

She's taking microbiology this semester, and for one of her labs she had to grow some bacteria at home. So she swabbed one of her dog's ears and put it in the culture medium, and it was growing quite nicely, with lumpy and smelly, yellow, black, green and red fuzzy crud covering a dinner plate.

Yesterday, one of her dogs jumped up on the table and licked the plate clean.

Not only is she avoiding dog kisses until she gets over the ick factor, but she gets to tell her instructor that "The dog ate my homework!"

Phlebotomy Bites

Kids are supposed to be the easiest group to hypnotize, and that's been my experience until today.

Picture this: a short and slight, gap-toothed, touseled hair, cherubic preteen with more than a hint of mischief in his eyes -- completely adorable.

He was here to participate in a study, but he was unsure about the blood draws, due to past bad experiences, so I offered hypnosis, and he was agreeable.

First, he wanted to know about my skills. "Do you have a license?" I was a bit taken aback at this unexpected interrogation by a half-pint, and explained that I had a year of school specifically for hypnotherapy and that this state doesn't require a license. So that was OK.

Then we got down to the actual hypnosis session. Sitting on mom's lap, his funnybone was tickled pretty early on, and he couldn't stop laughing (although he really did try). I was sweating it (literally! drops of sweat beading on my forehead) as I crooned my best hypnotic voice and racked my brain for my next stratagem as he failed to slip into hypnosis with my best inductions: "eyes heavy", "relaxation breathing" and "magic story".

It wasn't until I made him do the "relaxation count" that I finally put him under, and even then he counted to 25 (most people don't make it past 5).

And success! He finally collapsed into a little heap and took all my suggestions readily. And when it came time to test it out -- no pain, no pressure, no problem...and he even watched when I put the needle in.

Afterwards, he said, "I'm going to hypnotize all my friends now!"

Oh dear. What have I done?

Wheeee!

Every once in a while, I get a nice perk with the job. This time? Five days in Puerto Rico, with only one day spent in meetings!

Not only that, but it's in January, so I get a brief escape from winter!

My Swinging Lifestyle

Two months ago, I started doing one of the things I've always wanted to do -- learn to dance. I tried a couple of different types (salsa, waltz), and finally settled on West Coast Swing.

Swing is a partner dance. It's energetic, fast and fun, and you can inject a lot of your own personal style into the moves. It's really kind of a show-off, look-at-me dance.

Everyone learns the same essential moves, but because it can be so individualistic, you have to dance with lots of partners to really be good at it. My Swing Club has practice dances after all the lessons, with a mix of students from beginners to dance champions...and I make it a point to dance with all of 'em.

I have my favorites...there's the young muscley blond guy with the shy smile who has a great lead; the stylish gay guy with the fancy footwork; the enthusiastic older guy with thinning hair who never, ever gets tired and never says no; the tall skinny middle-aged guy with the handlebar mustache who seems as happy to dance as I am, even though he's slow to catch on; and the little short guy who is so breathtakingly GOOD that he makes all his partners look great.

Not only are we a mix of experience, we are a mix of ages and lifestyles and races, and dancing is our common ground.

None of it matters, only the dancing. The music and movement give me something that I just can't get anywhere else.

And...after 8 weeks in the beginner class, I passed the dance test to move up to advanced beginner...and the notoriously uncomplimentary test giver even told me that I'm light on my feet!

Anyone Home?

Gee, it's kind of dark and echo-y. It's been a long time. There are cobwebs in the corners.

Things have changed a lot, but at the same time, in many ways things haven't changed at all.

I miss this place. I miss the people who used to sometimes meet me here. I'm not quite sure why I stayed away so long, and I'm not quite sure that I won't disappear again.

But I think it's time to write a bit more.

HUHO -- Traps for Fruit Flies & Fleas, No Poison Necessary!

Lauren at Faux Real has started a carnival of Help Us Help Ourselves, for those of us who have struggled through life and found some nontraditional and cheap solutions for our problems.

As a pet owner and banana lover, I've had the occasion to rid the house of fruit flies and fleas at various times, and have managed to do so without poisons or exterminators. Sure, it takes a little longer, but these solutions are practically free and even better, they work.

First the fruit flies:

Materials needed:
Clear glass jar or drinking glass that you don't mind throwing away
Sheet of paper
Lots of clear tape
A few banana or apple slices, the riper the better

Curl the paper into a cone with a tiny hole at the bottom and tape the side, leaving the hole open.

Put the fruit slices into the bottom of the glass (I am currently out of bananas so my picture doesn't show any fruit in there).

Put it point down into your clear glass receptacle but don't allow the paper to touch the bottom or the fruit.


Use lots of tape to fix in place and completely shut off any way out of the receptacle except for that tiny hole (if you don't have the wider tape, plastic wrap can be used in a pinch).

Set it out on your counter. The fruit flies will be attracted to the fruit, they'll fly in through the tiny hole and then try to get out through the clear glass sides.

When you don't see any fruit flies outside the glass, put the glass in your trash outside. If you want to keep the glass, you can open it up -- but make sure you do it outside.

Now the fleas:

Materials you will need:

Small sturdy lamp or nightlight with a bulb of at least 20w (use the nightlight if you think your pets will knock over a lamp)
Large bowl or Rubbermaid type container
Soap
Water

Fill the bowl with soapy water. Turn on the light and position it over the bowl (if you are using a nightlight, then position the bowl under the nightlight). Put one of these in every room in which you have fleas.

The fleas will be attracted to the warmth of the light. They will jump to it and then fall into the bowl. The soapy water keeps the surface tension high enough to prevent them jumping or swimming out.

This takes a week or so but works very well with very little mess. Just be sure to put out plenty of clean water so your pets won't be tempted to drink the soapy stuff.

50th Birthday Blues

Now, most people would think that title means that being 50 is hard, and that I don't like getting older.

On the contrary, as a dear friend used to say, "Every day above ground is a good one!" I was excited about this birthday, a watermark day, a half a century achieved, happy with myself and my life. I've been practicing for 50 since I was 45 (you know, you tell people you're 50, and by the time you get there, it's old hat. In another couple of years, I'll be practicing for 60).

On my 40th birthday, when I woke up I wished for something different. I was not happy. I did get my something different; I got a divorce (look in the archives if you're curious; I have a better divorce story than anyone else I know), I enrolled in nursing school while working full time (and graduated, and passed the NCLEX in 30 minutes), I had full responsibility for two preteen kids, dated a lot, and finally moved back to Oklahoma. It was a roller coaster ride of a decade.

I am still happy. But I am also very sad.

When I got my divorce, my ex-in-laws told me that I would forever remain an honorary member of the family, and even if I wanted to leave, it was NOT allowed. Instead of in-laws, I have out-laws, and one of them, Deborah, even loaned me the money to divorce her brother.

So yes, I love them, and my life remains entwined with them to some degree, but I am most fond of Deborah; she even considers herself my daughter's second mother.

Deborah's husband Robert went to the doctor the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with headaches.

The doc was smart enough to order an MRI, which revealed a brain mass, and surgery was scheduled for the Friday after Thanksgiving.

It was a malignant tumor, and they took it out.

After the surgery, he was on my sister's ICU unit and when I asked her, she fixed it so Deborah could stay with him instead of only staying for visiting hours. Such a small thing, but the only thing I could do.

By Sunday, he was in a coma and on life support. By Thursday, he had died; 36 years old, leaving behind a wife who adored him and two small children. He was the funniest and most open minded of all my out-laws and I will miss him.

My 50th birthday was Wednesday. Yes indeed, every day above ground IS a good one. Every day is a gift and a treasure. I only wish Robert could have many more of them.

Share the Wealth

Last week, one of the MDs I work with said, "I wish I had your zest for life."

It's a gift, this joy, and I think I was given that to balance the sorrow that an extremely tender heart often gives me.

Things that seem small to others -- birds chirping, blue skies, a friendly face -- make my heart sing; while that's a trite way to put it, that's exactly how it feels.

At the same time, other things which people seem to manage to avoid thinking about -- a squashed squirrel, a sad face, an obituary of a stranger -- these leave an ache. When I can help, I don't hurt; but when I can't help, it hurts.

My children are the same way; when they were younger, even though we all knew the animal on the side of the road was dead, we'd all reassure each other with, "It's resting. Just resting. Fast asleep." It was our conspiracy of kindness for each other, helping us protect our emotions...and in helping each other, the original hurt we couldn't help was soothed for us.

Sometimes I think I should have helped my children learn to be emotionally tougher, except that I'm not sure how I would have done that...or that I would have been happy with that result in the long run. I have to admit that it gives me great delight to see my son rescue drowning earthworms, or to hear about my daughter coaxing a scared lost dog from the highway into her car and then finding it a home.

Learning to understand my sadness was my key to finding joy.

So Doc, I hope you can find your zest for life; I've talked with you enough to know you have the sadness down. Perhaps you need your own conspiracy of kindness, and find your delights in the world around you. They're here -- open your eyes and look.

Rate Your Pain

Pain is the 5th vital sign (after BP, pulse, respirations, and temp), according to what I was told in nursing school. Pain is an indicator of things gone wrong, and it's also ethically wrong to leave a patient in pain if it can be avoided.

At one of my jobs (head and neck), pain is taken very seriously, and strong drugs are prescribed on a fairly regular basis, because a lot of what we treat is cancer, which is very painful. At my other job, however, pain is often ignored, because some (not all) psych patients desperately want the high that pain meds can give.

Last night, we happened to have a patient with compartment syndrome. Of the four of us working, none of us knew what this was, so we looked it up. Compartment syndrome is a condition in which an area of the leg will be injured (possibly by having circulation cut off), and this results in chronic, long-term pain which is much worse than the condition seems to warrant...yet the psychiatrist had only prescribed Tylenol, and nothing stronger, so I had to make a middle of the night call to get her a stronger medication.

So we nurses started talking about pain, and pain ratings. Normally, we ask patients to rate pain on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being "none" and 10 being the "worst imaginable".

Most cancer patients rarely rate their pain as high as 10. Most psych patients rarely rate their pain as less than 10, perhaps because they are afraid they will not be taken seriously...or perhaps because they are desperate for the brief relief from reality that enough morphine or demerol will give them. And many psych nurses have no patience with people displaying med-seeking behaviors (and sometimes, they are mistaken, like with the compartment syndrome lady).

One of the long-time psych nurses said, "When they rate their pain as a 10, I always want to say, 'if someone stuck a dagger in your heart, would that hurt worse? Yes? Then it's not a 10, IS IT?'" While none of us would ever say this, even to a patient who appeared to be drug seeking, it struck us as very funny. Of course, at 4:30am, with my 3 coworkers each nearing the end of a double shift, everything is funny.

When I came home, Gavin happened to be awake, savoring the last of his weekend and already dreading Monday.

Gavin, groaning: "Oh, Mom, it's school tomorrow. Monday is like Tuesday, only it's evil. It's awful. Mondays HURT."

So, I asked him to rate his pain on a scale of 0-10, and when he rated it as 10, I asked, "If someone stuck a dagger in your heart, would that hurt worse?"

Gavin: "If someone stuck a dagger in my heart, I wouldn't have to go to school! I could join the circus and be the 'Dagger in the Heart Boy' and everyone would pay to see me! And no school again, ever!"

Why is it that my conversations with Gavin always seem to veer off into weirdness? (I have to admit, though, I take a lot of joy in it...)

Crime and Punishment

My children are spoiled rotten. And it's all their own fault.

Early on, both kids realized the futility of screaming, having fits, arguing, or any of those other negative ways to achieve desires.

I can hold out against those things forever; they only make me more firm in whatever decision I have made.

What I can't resist, though, are Puppy Eyes.

I think Alex was 6 or 7 before she discovered this -- in some mysterious way, her eyes would grow twice as big and slightly glassy (as though tear filled), her lips turn ever so slightly down, eyebrows slightly raised, head tilted to the side, chin tilted down, and her brow furrowed...and she'd gaze up at me as though her last hope had just disappeared.

It was a look that would break the hardest heart. It turned me to mush in an instant, and after that, "No" became "Maybe" and finally, "Yes".

After that, any discipline I was able to muster swiftly dissipated with each glimpse of Puppy Eyes.

And then Gavin learned the secret too, and I was lost.

Luckily, they have never abused their power. They've learned to use Puppy Eyes for Good instead of Evil.

It's funny, though, to have a 6 foot tall, scraggly-bearded, 17-year-old boy on the cusp of manhood make Puppy Eyes at me. How can he be taller than me and STILL manage to be gazing up at me while we're both standing?

It's all part of the Puppy Eyes magic. And it means I'm bringing home pizza after work.

Freaks

I joined Netflix a couple of months ago, and Gavin and I have been indulging ourselves once a week or so with the classic, old, or strange movies that we could never find at Blockbuster. Gavin's a fan of the noir genre (partly because of the ultra cool hats), and I've always liked old films, so we have a good time with it.

We saw a movie I've wanted to see for a long time -- Freaks -- and it was even darker than I thought it would be. If you've never seen this movie, it's about a circus in which there are two distinct groups: the "normal" people and the "sideshow" people and the interactions between the two groups. There are no special effects; the sideshow folks play themselves.

Since this is a pre-PC movie, I feared it would be belittling or sensational (especially since it also involves an attempted murder), but it wasn't. The physical differences are portrayed in a matter-of-fact way, and by the end of the movie, it's plain that the "freaks" are those so-called "normal" people who have emotional and ethical handicaps.

I've noticed, over the past few years, my increasing invisibility as I age. Stranger's eyes slide over and past me without stopping; most don't talk unless I talk first. In fact, the people who most usually interact with me spontaneously are other women my age.

I am not quite sure I can put down in words the elusive thoughts that connect my feelings of invisibility to the movie. The connections are there, tied up in societal definitions of beauty and our current narrow definition of it. I know so few women who are truly happy with their bodies, truly comfortable within their own skin..."I have to lose a few pounds"..."look at this fat roll"..."my nose is too big"..."I can't stand this cellulite".

I look at my friends, though, and they are gorgeous. *We* are gorgeous. We've earned every one of our years, sometimes at high cost, and we've persevered. We're the survivors of our generation and we have much to share with the world around us.

When I look at women's magazines, the "beauty tips" are all about "this year's face" or "this year's look". Do we really all have to look the same to be attractive? Because that's the thing about older women: we look lived in. Who and what we are is written on our faces and our bodies. There's no "this year's look" for us; we have each found our own way to look, and our own style, and sometimes I wonder if that's why society doesn't want to deal with us. Like the "freaks" in the movie, we're individuals. As young adults, we could try on different personas, different ways to look, and we could blend in with the crowd if we wished. As we get older, though, our individuality becomes too great to hide behind similar makeup and similar fashions. Our life experiences have marked us. We don't all fit in the same tidy package...and most of us don't want to anymore.

Or maybe it's just me, and I'm doomed to become the crazy cat lady down the block.

Define "Boring"

Gavin: Mom, would you buy me a copy of Dante's Inferno?

Me: Sure. Do you need it for school?

Gavin: No, but my psychology class is really boring...and if I hide it inside my textbook, then Mrs. Harris won't realize I'm actually reading something else.
Besides, I've always wanted to read it.

------

Gavin has the most surprising choices of reading material (the last thing he asked me to buy was the Tao Te Ching)...and yes, I bought it. If he wants to read The Inferno instead of listening to the high school psychology teacher expound on telekinesis (yes, that was one of their units), then I'm all for that.

Curiosity Didn't Kill the Nurse -- but it was close...

I had to have a "procedure" yesterday, nothing difficult, just a same day surgery to make life a little easier and maybe get the whole menopause thing to kick into a higher gear. I didn't even tell my daughter until the night before because it just wasn't that important.

Although I've felt better, I don't feel all that bad today...although I would have taken today off work if I didn't have a cart full of charts and a deadline in which to review them.

I wouldn't even have blogged about it, if it weren't for the mystery.

Who sent me flowers? 10 red and white roses, to be specific. Delivered to my desk in my department this afternoon and signed only, "Thinking of You".

They're not from Roger. I called the florist, and they can only tell me that someone from out of town sent them. My daughter didn't send them (although she says if she'd thought of it, she would have). Mom would have signed the card "Love, Mom". My brother would have signed it "ooga-booga" or "The Greatest Steve the World Has Ever Known". Robyn would have sent me something she made (she makes incredibly cool stuff). Gavin lives here (and has no money and wouldn't know how to go about ordering flowers). My sister lives here. My nieces don't have a clue where I work. A vendor or pharma company would surely have put something different on the card. My exhusband won't even send me his half of Gavin's dental bills, much less flowers. It's unlikely that any of my other friends from out of town know that I work in this department...so who the heck sent them?

Curiosity makes me crazy. All my life, I've understood just how the proverbial cat felt.

Even so, someone's apparently random act of kindness sure made my day (and has the whole department talking -- and it's fun to be the object of office envy for a day). So, Mysterious Person, thank you!

Extreme Volunteering

I spent most of the day Saturday working with a pet rescue group, getting ready for OKC's Giant Charity Garage Sale.

Instead of working directly with pets (which I've found to be dangerous -- more on that later), I get to work with people's castoff stuff...unloading, pricing, packing and stacking...in another couple of weeks, we'll move all of it out to the fairgrounds and then spend some very long days wheeling and dealing and amassing money by nickels and dimes for homeless animals.

This is a great thing to do in the springtime, in warm sunshine and balmy breezes, with a crew of similarly minded folks (pet rescue people tend to be a lot of fun). We work out of a storage unit facility, so there's no heating and no air conditioning, and little protection from the elements when the doors are open.

This Saturday it was 38 degrees and pouring rain. Most of the crew didn't show up (probably wimped out like my friend Bev), so those of us who did worked like...like...well, not any dogs I know. My dogs tend to spend a lot of time lazing on pillows, even acknowledging my return home with a couple of tail thumps and perhaps an ear perk if they're feeling particularly lively. I suppose I could say that we worked like nurses...

Surprisingly, though, the bad weather brought out the donors in record numbers. Maybe it just seemed like record numbers because there were so few of us to get the work done, or maybe because the rain made for lots of extra work because the Oklahoma winds drove it sideways and right into our faces; we had to work so far back in the storage unit that it was hard to move around.

One couple dropped off 10 to 12 big, heavy boxes of stuff. When we opened them, they all turned out to be trash -- empty plastic bottles, burned out electrical equipment, broken pots. I can't figure out why they did this, unless they wanted a tax receipt without actually donating anything.

Most people, though, brought stuff that should be fairly easy to sell -- furniture, working small electrics, toys, craft stuff, clothes, shoes, dishes, pots, decorative and holiday stuff, even an English saddle...which someone marked $20 until I made them remark it. That riding stuff is expensive.

If you've gotten this far, you are probably wondering why I find it dangerous to work with the shelter animals.

Every time I do, I take one home. I just can't stand the thought of homeless dogs and cats. And since I'm down to two dogs and a lizard, I feel somewhat guilty that I haven't taken in another pet...all it would take would be pleading brown eyes looking into mine, or a hairy body leaning on my leg.

Brothers -- Davin and Jeron.

The Second Oldest Profession

My friend Bev likes to say that nursing is the second oldest profession. She's probably right.

Saturday night, I worked adult psych, 11-7. The unit's lost a couple of full time nurses, so instead of working child psych these days, I usually wind up with the grownups.

The moon was full, or almost full, and while research studies seem to indicate that the full moon has nothing to do with weirdness, I'm not sure I believe it.

We had a lot of people who couldn't sleep, who were up and down and pacing and talking. Nice group, though; everyone was polite and friendly.

Mary, the nurse I worked with, is an attractive older lady, late 50s, elegantly (if casually) dressed (if you work psych, you can wear street clothes if you want), with lovely jewelry, manicured nails, nicely coiffed hair...and like me, she has a "fluffy" body shape (as in, we used to have hourglass figures but they sunk to the bottom). She has a kind and caring grandmotherly air about her, and most of the patients love her.

So here we are, sitting in the day room, working on our paperwork, every now and then redirecting someone who's up and a little loud, when a very psychotic female patient touches a male patient (whom she had just met that day) VERY inappropriately. When Mary redirected her, the patient said, "You hussy! If you'd just quit your nude dancing, my husband here would come home to me!"

She sent both patients off to their (own) beds, then sat down and looked at me with a mischievous air.

"You do know that I'd probably make a lot more money nude dancing, don't you?" she asked.

I think, O-KAY! It IS a full moon...

And then she continued, grinning, "Because they'd pay a lot of money to see me keep my clothes ON!"

If Your Opportunity Alarm Clock is Ringing, Don't Hit the Snooze Button!

"Does the Pope have more than one hat? If the Pope tells a monk to do pushups, does the monk have to do it? When the Pope dies, what happens to his hat? Does the Pope have a mechanic whose only job is to service the Popemobile? When the Popemobile is worn out, can someone buy the old one? If the Pope wanted to sing karaoke, could he?

"My history teacher says Walmart is run by Satan!"

"I bet if Harriet Meiers gets to be a Supreme Court Justice, she probably won't get invited to all the cool Supreme Court parties, just the boring ones, probably because she won't know how to hold the gavel, so all the other Justices will make fun of her."

There was more, much more...

Gavin spent the day listening to a motivational speaker at school (because of his schedule, he had to listen to it TWICE), and when I got home he started off by telling me how bad the speaker was (see title example) and then giving me examples of how he could do it better, complete with hand motions, body language, inane examples, and special voice effects.

Then, once he'd got started talking, he couldn't stop; probably because he hasn't had much to say for awhile. Between his school-work and my work-work, we've been pretty quiet here for a few weeks.

I've been working on an IND for a new study that one of the docs wrote. An IND, or "Investigational New Drug" is what has to be approved by the FDA everytime a new drug (or a new use for an old drug) is studied.

When I do a pharmaceutical trial, all this is done by the pharma company. But when I do this for the doc, I get to do all that lovely (ugh) paperwork, which is written in government speak. I think I wound up with 150 pages, and my brain feels soggy. Plus now I have to make up some data capture forms and make sure the doc and the residents fill them out each time, because when an IND is done by a site, then the investigator is ultimately responsible for EVERYTHING connected with it. So I have to make sure all our ducks are in a row...and then there's another study (written by the same guy, if he ever leaves I won't have anything to do) that I have to see if I can get donations of 7 different products (enough for 100 people), write a questionnaire covering all the data the doc wants to know, write a budget (with things like 800 spray bottles), and I had to have it all done, along with applications to 3 different on-campus entities, at 5 o'clock today...I did it with 5 minutes to spare...

I've worked late every night for 3 weeks and I feel like my brain has run a marathon.

So tonight was a treat. And yeah, I hope the Pope DOES get to sing karaoke if he wants.

She Wore a Raspberry....Guillotine?

Why are adolescents so crazy-making to their parents?

Gavin and I just came off a week and half of the silent treatment...all because Evil Overlord Mom insisted that the lawn had to be mowed, and when it wasn't, draconian measures were instituted (gasp! no computer games for a week! oh, the horror of it all!).

Anyway, on the drive to school this morning, glaciers thawed, and Gavin informed me that one of his friends feels compelled to write the complete history of Candyland.

Candyland (for those of you who have successfully avoided or blocked out any memory or connection to toddlers) is a very simple board game which has been around for at least 40 years. Players roll dice and draw cards and move a gingerbread-man-shaped token through various kingdoms of candy, ruled over by monarchs such as Mr. Mint, King Kandy, and Queen Frostine.

Both my kids were fascinated by Candyland until they were about four. I finally got smart and started stacking the deck so that a) the child could win the game quickly (but not too quickly, otherwise we'd have to play again) and b) so that I wouldn't draw either Queen Frostine or Princess Lolly too early in the game, because either of those is pretty much a guaranteed win...and an early win is OK if it's the KID winning; if it's the parent's early win, then you may have to play it 2 or 3 MORE times.

OK, I thought; so he's interested in the history of board games and that one's been around awhile.

But no. No, this is a history of CANDYLAND, in which civil war erupts between Princess Lolly and Queen Frostine, Lord Licorice attempts to infiltrate King Kandy's domain by employing Mr. Mint as a spy, Grandma Nutt is consumed by Gloppy, the Chocolate Swamp Monster, and then the peasants revolt, kill all the heads of state with the Raspberry Guillotine...and eventually Candyland is subsumed into the Hapsburg Empire, sometime around 1600.

Maybe "The Candyman" was their national anthem?

I have to admit, it makes those seemingly endless games of Candyland much better in retrospect...