Free Art

Go see my friend Delilah at The Unruly Helpmeet. She is giving away free art!

Pulp

Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies. I love the timing of it, the back and forth from future to past to present so that you aren't really certain where you are in the story until the end. The acting is incredible as well.

So I own a copy, of course, and there are deleted scenes on the end, of course. I think this one is a little gem and love the questions that Mia asks of Vincent... Oh, and if you want to skip the completely spastic Quentin Tarantino intro - the actual clip starts at minute 2:40




Are you a Beatles person or an Elvis person?

This was a hard one for me. Since I live in the south, there is this mythic quality to Elvis that speaks to me. I had a velvet Elvis in college on my wall that I got on one of those crazy road trips bought for $25 on the side of the road. He had a tear that sparkled on his cheek. I have been known to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich. But the music? Not so much.

So really, I am a Beatles person. I love the Beatles. All of it - the cheesy early stuff. The psychedelic stuff from the middle and the incredible lyrics, sad and beautiful. I sing Blackbird and I Will to my kids as lullabies. And it causes me pain that John Lennon was killed. He was a true gift. Elvis killed himself. Totally different. He was on his way to being a Vegas lounge singer, John Lennon would have continued to break the rules and write amazing songs.

Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family?

Definitely the Partridge Family. BB was always so goody goody and unrealistic. Not that the PF was really more realistic, but it was a teeny bit grittier. Plus that love is a rollercoaster song ROCKED the house for me. The few musical things the BB did just sucked balls.

On Rich Man, Poor Man who did you like better Peter Strauss or Nick Nolte?

Always gonna be a Nick Nolte girl here...

What is your favorite way to say "Thanks" in a foreign language?

Danke Schoen - preferably singing it a la Brenda Lee (remember that scene in Ferris Bueller's Day off?) "Danke Schoen, darling danke schoen - Thank you for all the joy and pain..." Fabulous song. Full of the dichotomies in life.

In conversations, are you waiting to talk or really listening?

I like VV's answer here - but I must clarify by saying I am a great listener. When someone is really upset or needs to talk, I listen very carefully and only comment when needed. In casual conversation I admit to be waiting to talk sometimes more that listening and if you are boring me, I am waiting to change the subject or find an excuse to get away.

In the Archies, who would you fuck first, Betty or Veronica?

If I was into the ladies, it would have to be Veronica.

So how about you? Which way do you go?

Blog Schitzophrenia

OK, I have been a terrible blogger. Mostly because I haven't been able to decide on a genre, I think.

I am NOT a knit blogger, because I just don't produce enough. I knit here and there and occasionally DO finish something, so I think I may continue to share those few and far between finished objects here for those of you who care. But I really don't think it is interesting to note that I have about 4 more rows of garter stitch to do and sew some buttons on and then the February Lady Sweater will be done. Do you care? Probably not. So I will take my blog down from ravelry (not that it was getting me any real readers - especially since I don't post about knitting all that much) and move on.

I am NOT a Mommy blogger - even though I am a mom and it does consume my life quite a bit. So my kids will still be featured here, but it won't be everyday or anything. But it is kind of like ignoring the pink elephant in the room - you just can't do it.

What I am figuring out is that I am starting to come out of the fog I have been in for the last 6-10 years, maybe longer. Nice that I have wasted the prime of my life, so to speak, in a fog of depression, neglecting myself, my husband and my family. I am trying to look up more, smile more, and see and experience MORE of my life. It is so easy to be bogged down by life, you know?

And I am trying to redefine myself outside of my kids. Somewhere I got lost in there. It is time for them to learn what an amazing person their mom is beyond the hugs and peanut butter and banana and the silly songs we make up, and the fact that mom goes to work three days (sometimes nights) a week.

So no genre. Just some rambling a way to rediscover myself.

And my apologies. I am a great reader but not a great writer. But I am trying to learn to be a little more insightful and observant and I hope that I will be able to convey some of that into words. Hope you will let me know when I am succeeding.

Bawls*

Notice - this post is going to be a little more risque and foul mouthed than usual, so if this is going to offend, please stop now. Don't flame me in the comments when I have given you ample warning!

My friend Katiri had a teaser of a post wondering about the appropriateness of using the word pussy. It is really a word I think is only appropriate in the bedroom and not a word to be used in a derogatory manner toward men OR women. I mean, really, why is it that the words we use in slang for a woman's vagajay are also used to be mean? "Man he was such a pussy for not blah blah blah". Or my favorite "That woman is such a cunt".

I went through my ultra feminist phase where I was insulted about hearing those words at all. I refused to allow them uttered in my presence. I got all offended and returned the favor by offending the offender back. Tit for tat and all that. I don't think I was a particularly attractive person at that time in my life, angry, bitter, dealing with my baggage.

I am over that, but I really think the best place for those words is in the proverbial bedroom, not the locker room/ball game/bar etc. Pussy/cunt are words to be used in worshipful tones only, please.

Then there is Balls. Why is courage referred to as having balls? "Wow. That took balls". There is usually awe and reverence there that you NEVER hear with the slangy use of pussy. Why balls? Those two, fragile little things dangling between a prick and an asshole, why are they another word for bravery, demanding of respect? Hanging in the breeze, vulnerable to kicking both metaphorically and not, why do those things hanging in their soft sack, the slang term for courage?

Because I am here to say that being born with balls does not make you brave. It takes a lot more courage to grow up female in this male-centric world we live in. A lot more guts to have breasts and walk down a dark city street at night alone. A lot more daring to have sex with someone when you have those ovum down there, ovulating away every month just dying to get fertilized. A lot more bravura to deal with the fertilized egg as it implants in a female uterus and starts to grow into what may one day be an independent person in this world. A huge ton of pluck, steadfastness, and power to birth a baby into this world after nurturing it for 10 months of it invading your body, your life. THAT is courage. THAT is valour. THAT is grit and determination.

So can we make a pact to not call acts of daring and dash "Ballsy?" Can we call it having ovum instead? Damn, that guy seriously made an ova move there. That took ovaries!

Do you think it will catch on?



* Bawls is what my 2.68 year old son calls his testicles. His bawls. He has a peenis and bawls and likes to touch them and tell you all about them and ask how yours are doing. He is very upset that I don't have them. Personally, I am pretty happy to be peenis and bawls free and have a mighty fine set of ovaries.

THE Great Read

Do you have any books that you re-read over and over again? And I don't mean the ones that your children might make you read for them.

I think a book that you dive into more than once is the sign of a great read. The story never gets old, even when you know how it is going to end. I thought I would share a few of my favorites with you - and hope that some of you might give me your favorites. I am ALWAYS looking for the next great read.

* The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I admit that I haven't read this in years, but I am going to take it out again as my daughter gets closer to the age to enjoy it. I don't know how many times I read these books, MANY many times for sure.

* Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh - sci fi and just an amazing story.

* The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein - need I say more? I actually didn't read this book until I was a freshman at Wake Forest. It was assigned reading for a religion class called "Faith and Imagination".

* Mama Day by Gloria Naylor - I cried and cried at the end of this book because I knew I would never have the experience of reading it for the first time again.

* One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - just a beautiful book.

* The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan - fantasy and I only regret that this series after 13 books is still not finished yet and I am waiting and waiting for the next book to come out.

* Kushiel's Dart, and the books that follow in Phedre's story by Jacqueline Carey - Revisionist history with a twist on religion that is fresh and new and lovely.

* I am currently plowing through Philip Pullmans trilogy - The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and His Dark Materials. I don't think I had noticed how anti religion it was on the first read. Really enjoying it again. Want to see the movie.

* The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - King Arthur's story retold from the point of view of the women. Big focus on the druids and goddess worship and how they were forced out by the church which destroyed the ties the people had with the land and the magic. Can you see a theme here?

* Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I like the books that follow as well. Sci Fi - a great story.

* The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling - what can I say? I love them along with the rest of the world.

* My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok - story of a devout, Hassidic jewish boy in Brooklyn that has a true gift for art and how that tears him, his family and his community apart.

* The Ruins of Ambrai and The Mageborn Traitor by Melanie Rawn. Such an awesome, awesome story. Supposed to be a trilogy but the third book has yet to come out. I have been waiting for YEARS.

* The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I read all of the books in the series, but this is the only one I actually re-read over and over again. I can't wait until my kids are old enough for me to read it to them.

* A Wrinkle in TIme, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Arm of the Starfish, and A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle. Loved them as a child, loved them as an adolescent, love them still as an adult.

* The Awakening by Kate Chopin - an author ahead of her time. Timeless story about the oppression of women and reminds me how many more choices and options I have now because of women like Chopin.

* Dune by Frank Herbert - an epic classic. I love this book. Not so much the ones that follow - just this one.

* The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Near future - oppressed women, writing is excellent, story is gripping.

* Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. My favorite, by far, of Austen's works.

* Geek Love by Katherine Dunn - crazy story of a carnival couple that intentionally does things during pregnancy to mutate their children for the carnival. Told from the point of view of the kids.

* Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins - Which reminds me that I need to read this again...

* Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - by Roald Dahl - love the book to bits, hates, hates, HATES the movie(s).

* The Cider House Rules by John Irving - my favorite of his books, but I really like everything he has ever put to paper.

* The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - I think I love this most because it takes place in Spain.

* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Need I really say more?

* Snow Crash and The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson - He is awesome. Still slogging my way through the Baroque Cycle...

I think the one thing all these books have in common is that I was complete caught up in and consumed by the different worlds the author creates... I like to lose myself completely in a book. If you see my Good Reads bookshelf there are a lot of 5 star books there - but these are the ones that I keep re-reading.

What are your favorites? Do you re-read them?

Blindness

I just finished reading Blindness by Jose Saramago. Amazing book. Although I did it backwards. I saw the movie first (imagine me hiding under a chair in embarrassment here). I have to admit, the movie was incredibly true to the book and I think I liked it better than the book. It may have been the writing style. It was kind of free flowing, no paragraph breaks or quotation marks to break up the dialogue at all so I really had to pay attention to understand who was saying what.

But the thing that was most interesting to me is that no character had a proper name. It was "the doctor", "the first blind man", "the girl with the dark glasses", because when everyone is blind, names aren't important anymore.

So if you haven't read the book, I suggest that you do so. And if you have, put it in your netflix queue. Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo are both amazing, but especially Julianne Moore. Can she act badly? I don't think so.

A Special Place in Hell

Even though I don't believe in hell, I think there must be a special place for those lost souls that light other people on fire - or throw hot grease on , dip in boiling water, or put their body parts on hot stove/oven/grill surfaces.

Can you tell I am still spending far too much time working in the Burn Unit? Special kind of evil, there.

Shooting someone? Stabbing someone even? But to BURN someone? Come on! That is just too twisted for color tv (to quote Steel Magnolias).

And then there are the strange ones - the people that light themselves on fire. WHY? Can someone explain this? If you want to kill yourself, why not chose a less painful path? Pills? Throwing yourself off a very tall building? Even putting a bullet in your head, but to douse yourself in gasoline then light a match?

Oh, and in case you haven't figured it out - it isn't a sure path to death either. It IS a sure path to excruciating pain, extensive repeated surgeries, long term hospitalization, and certain mutilation and disfigurement.

As a nurse, especially one in a teaching hospital, I see a lot of patients that probably shouldn't live. Ones that doctors manage to keep alive for far too long in the name of science. People pulled back not only from the brink of death, but from death itself. People that were heading to the light or what-have-you, but we yank them back just in the nick of time so that we can torture their bodies for a few more days/weeks/months longer. People that if they do manage to survive have a terrible quality of life after we "save" them.

I have told my family I will haunt them if they don't stand up for me and tell the doctors to back the hell off and let me die if I have a terrible brain injury (but don't necessarily qualify for "vegetative"), if I have burns over greater than 50% of my body, if it looks like they are going to amputate all my limbs or I can't move my arms or legs. The living wills all talk about "persistent vegetative state" but there really are very few cases that are that cut and dried. Doctors will say "There is hope. We don't know that much about the brain, we won't really know until they wake up". By the time it gets to the point where waking up is an option - and I am not talking about Hollywood waking up here - no one just opens their eyes and says, "bring me a grilled cheese, please" - I am talking about long slow wake ups where the patient might just get to the point where they open their eyes and move one arm, but can't speak or eat normally. By this time you've got a feeding tube and are headed for a long term care facility. Then it is much harder to let someone die.

Hard stuff. Even for someone like me that has, at this point, seen a lot of death. I know the hope people have for their spouse/child/parent. I know the ones that can't and won't let go. How can you? How can you make that choice? How can you decide for someone else what their life should be like? Especially if it is a child? I am starting to realize that it is much easier to say what I want/don't want. I am an adult that has lived and loved and seen life and death. I know the kind of choices I am making and sharing with my family. Children are so, so much harder. No one should ever have to see their child suffer. Yet we also ask for so much more suffering from children than we would ever want or expect from ourselves. Because they haven't had the chance to live/love/make mistakes/wildly succeed/go to Disneyworld - whatever - we ask them to endure great pain, great suffering so that they may have that chance one day. So that we can hold onto them a little longer, love their bodies that we have nurtured and grown in our own bodies.

Not preaching here, just trying to work through the abject suffering I see on a daily basis. And I DO know that my own ideas about quality of life have changed for myself since I have become a mother. There is a lot more suffering and pain and humiliation that I am willing to endure now that I don't want to leave my children without a mother in this world.

FO: Clapotis

Do not get excited. I finished this last summer, but I finally have some great pictures of my goddaughter in it.


Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious Single Silk in Rook-Y
Mods - none
Problems? Um, had an issue with dropping one of the stitches down and ended up having to cut a bar of yarn and then spit splice it back together.




I think she likes it. Her mom says she wears it quite often and has gotten several comments about it. I told her it was a very popular pattern and to not be alarmed if strangers wanted to pet it.

This yarn is really truly amazing. And I have over half a skein and another full one left over. I used less than half the yarn I ordered. This yarn went so far. Any ideas of what I should do with the left overs? Probably around 800 yards left. I could knit a tank or vest with that much.

Do not read if the f-bomb is going to offend...

I am in my winter slump. After the holidays I can't seem to get anything done. It is the same way every year but for some reason I forget about it until I am in it again. And fucking February is the worst of it. The crocuses and the daffodils are blooming, but in case you haven't heard, people, IT IS STILL FUCKING WINTER and I HATES it.

This pervades my entire existence. So I haven't blogged since December, ach well, I wasn't a blogging regularly anyway. And there are only a few people that are paying attention here anyway, so who cares, right?

And I have been stuck working in the fucking Burn Center for like the last 2.5 months straight. That is another thing I HATES. It isn't the work so much - I mean it is just a branch of the surgical trauma stuff that I dig. It is the stories. I mean, it takes a certain amount of just plain EVIL to burn someone on purpose, you know? I mean, who gets pissed off at their girlfriend and LIGHTS HER ON FIRE. Or their husband, or their CHILD. Yes, there are kids there and while I don't have to take care of them, I have to see them. Makes me cry. Big time. And the doctor/nurse climate there isn't all that great. The main doc doesn't really want the nurse to do any independent thinking and I am used to being part of a team. I don't go for the doctor's handmaiden shit too well.

But it is into the knitting. Terribly. I can't finish anything. Or if I finish it, it really sucks. Here is the run down.

* I free knitted a hat in this gorgeous yarn (there is a big clue there - I don't free knit anything) and it was just way. too. big. Like it was too big for Paddy-O even if he would be willing to wear a slouchy beret style hat in lavender, golden yellow, cream and brown variegated yarn. I got my mom to frog it for me.

* Then there is the sweater I knit for Paddy O for christmas. It isn't bad looking - a Cobblestone knit in some lovely tweedy green with flecks of brown and orange in it. It is FINISHED. Except for the kitchenering (is that a word?) of the armpits. Plus, I am scared of finishing it because then he will want to wear it and what if I am totally doomed by winter and it doesn't fit? It is, after all, my first adult sized sweater. I am paralyzed by fear of failure here.

* The Lady February Sweater? Nothing wrong with it. Looks like it will fit and all that. Knitting it DIC Classy in Some Summer Sky and the yarn is amazing. The fear here is that it will really be unflattering on mhave and here I will have put all this work into a sweater (not to mention this gorgeous yarn) and it will look like shit on me. And it is February, in case you haven't noticed, and therefore my mommy body is at it's whitest and flubbiest and I really think I might go drown myself in Jordan Lake if I put all this work into this sweater and then it looks like hell.

* A hat made of odds and ends in simple rib stitch - looks like it will be too small for an adult head and too big for a child's.

* Spring Forward socks (from Knitty) are the only thing getting any action. Bus knitting. I have turned the hell, I mean heel on the first one and am working my way down the foot. But it is a sock - and while it is shaping up to be a very pretty one, it will still need a mate when I am done with it. And since it is strictly bus knitting, it isn't moving very fast.

Part of me thinks I should just start something new and see if that will turn things around. The other part says if I fuck up another knitting project in February I might stab myself with the closest knitting needles.

At least I am doing some reading. See my sidebar for the latest. Just finished The Friday Night Knitting Club, and why didn't anyone warn me it was sad?

Here is what is in the stack - anyone want to suggest which one I should start next? Maybe the heaviest thing I should read right now is a Hello Kitty coloring book, but I am open to opinions here...

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimon
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Better by Atul Gawande - although that might be cutting too close to work for February reading. Written by a surgeon.
Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey - I am just obsessive enough to go back and read the entire series before starting this one - and she has two more after it that I need to read too. These are some of my favorite books so maybe I want to savor them sometime other than February. Or maybe they would be a pick me up? And not too difficult a read...

All Time Favorite Gifts

Nora wrote this post about favorite gifts you have given or received. I loved the idea and I have been dredging up the ghosts of Christmas past to come up with my favorites...

1. Last Christmas my mom put a black shawl on her Christmas list. Just one to throw over her shoulders in her cold church on Sunday mornings. She was never so surprised at a gift than when she unwrapped one that I knit for her.



She never expected me to actually knit one. She taught me to knit several years ago and it didn't really "take" until the last couple of years. She cried when she opened it. Always the sign of perfectly received present.

2. My grandmother needlepointed stockings for everyone in the family one year. The amazing thing was the personal attention to details she put in each one. My mom's had a piano, a baton, yarns for needlepointing. The main focale point was two blond children (my brother and I) decorating a christmas tree.

3. The year my father bought me a stack of books and cd's. It was the first and only year he bought my Christmas presents himself. My mother and my stepmother had always done it for him. It was the year after he and my stepmom divorced and the year before he died. The first and last Christmas gift my father ever chose for me himself. And he obviously thought about it and picked things he knew I would like.

4. My mom and I are making dumpling bags for all my neices this year. I don't know yet how they are going to like them, but the experience of knitting them with my mom has been priceless.

5. The first Christmas I spent with my in-laws I was 27 and Paddy-O and I were still only dating, but serious. His parents came to my mom's house for the holiday. I spent a lot of time and effort choosing things that are particularly North Carolinian for his parents. Hand-crafted bees wax candles from Old Salem, a book on golfing in NC, a dried flower garland to hang over a doorway (still in my mil's den), baked moravian cookies. I put so many hopes and dreams into the gifts - that they would find my home-state lovely and welcoming. That they would be glad to visit again. That they would love me and want me to be a part of their family.

How about you? What are your favorite gifts?

A Finished Object

This little sweater has been done for awhile, but I finally managed to get Paddy-O to upload the camera so that I could share a photo...




The Wonderful Wallaby knit for the Sproglette from Blue Faced Leicester hand-dyed in the Coastal Sunset colorway by Morwenna at Mosaic Moon. Took me about 3 weeks of bus knitting to knock this little baby out. She had the gall to say to me afterwards that she really would prefer I take the hood off.

She took it back when I told her I would just give it to Widget if she didn't want the hood.

An old love...

I am so bad at this blogging thing. Mostly, I think, because I have had so little to say and yet my life has been so full.

But one thing I wanted to share is that I seem to have found my reading mojo again. It has been gone since Sproglette was born over 4 years ago. Gone in a bad way.

See, I used to read constantly. Ever since I learned to read I have always had a book with me. They were my friends when no one else wanted to be. Yes, I was the little girl with the horrible buck teeth (then braces) and the thick, thick coke-bottle bottomed glasses that were always a big heavy plastic frame to hold the weight of the lenses. So to escape from playground ridicule, I read books. My grandmother was a librarian, and I don't even remember getting my first library card, but I have had one ever since, wherever I have lived.

Up until I had kids, I would go to the library once a week, check out 3-5 books, read them and return them the next week. Rinse repeat. Almost always novels. I love science fiction and fantasy, classics, contemporary stuff, well, really, all of it. I have a BA in English with a minor in Comparative Literature. In college I would sometimes be reading 4-5 novels at once.

After Sproglette was born, I delved into parenting books like it was nobody's business and then I just stopped. I couldn't read the way I liked to read anymore - there were too many other demands on my time. I could no longer stay up until 4 am finishing a book. I couldn't stay awake when I got in the bed to even try a chapter a night. There are so many great books I started and then just couldn't continue with because I couldn't remember what I had read the night or 3 nights before (Hello, Neal Stephenson? I love you, and I own the entirety of The Baroque Cycle, but I just can't do it right now. Maybe when the Widget goes to kindergarten I will be able to give you the attention you deserve).

So I have started reading again finally. And I didn't start with anything too long, or too complicated. And I am not rereading something I have read in the past either. And they are novels and they lovely, and somehow I am managing to read them fast enough to finish them.

So for my own purposes, I am going to keep track of books finished in my sidebar. November is the beginning of Novels again for me.

Hello old friend!

Book Review

Have you read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein? I always thought, as a child, that it was a lovely lesson in giving and being selfless. We read it to kids at summer camp as councilors to teach about sharing and as a parable of Christ's sacrifice for humanity.

I pulled out my old ratty copy the other night to read to the Sproglette. As I turned the pages I grew more and more horrified. That poor tree. Just kept giving and giving while the boy kept taking and taking. Eventually the tree is only a stump and yet is so proud to be able to give the old man (that stole her apples, her leaves, branches, limbs and trunk for his own selfish gains) a place to sit his tired, selfish ass down.

Funny, now I don't see this as a parable of god's love for his children anymore. It really rings as misogynistic - how a man can take and take from his wife or mother and never have to give anything back. The ideal woman would be happy just to have sacrificed everything for her man/child.

Not this woman. Not this tree. I'm going to teach my kids that we don't use people for our own personal gain. That we take care of ourselves. That the best friendships and relationships are full of giving and taking. That we don't expect something for nothing. That even when we are given gifts we are gracious and say thank you and are appreciative. That we never take the wonderful people we have present in our lives for granted. We say "I love you" to each other everyday, many times a day.

And The Giving Tree? Not so sure what to do with it now. I don't want to give it away in case it might infect someone...

More Politics...

This is hysterical...

What ICU Nurses Think About...

teeny school rant...

OK, what responsible adult thinks that putting a sharp, real, metal paring knife in the hand of my just-turned-four year old is a good idea?

Fortunately, the pediatrician said she didn't need stitches in the flap of skin she cut off while cutting veggies for soup at school today.

That's right. School.

Now I admit to knowing about the knives, but I was assured that the knives were for the "older" children in the class and only with very careful supervision and teaching.

Um, yeah. Somehow, I don't think my child (who is chronologically the youngest kid in her class of 4-6 year olds) was really ready for knife work.

Obviously!

teeny work rant...

So I am in the Intensive Care Unit float pool at work. That means that on a given day I go to whichever ICU or stepdown unit needs me. As of today, I also may be called upon to work in the Emergency Department (ED). As I am getting paid an insane amount of money (in nursing standards) to do this, I am trying to go with the flow.

But as I toured the ED here all I could think was how crowded, disorganized, messy and dirty it seemed. I am going to hate it. Plus I don't take care of children. Just. Don't. Do. It. Makes me cry. AND I don't do acute psych either. And there are lock down rooms there. It is a state university hospital with a psych ward and everything. I understand they had to call 6 security guards in last week to take down a guy in paper jammies who tried to hang himself with a bedsheet in a room with rubber furniture and when the nurse INTERRUPTED HIM, he cold-cocked the nurse in the eye. Yeah. I am excited.

Plus my anal retentive qualities that make me an excellent ICU nurse are probably not going to feel very happy in the "focused assessment" world of the ED.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

It is just 12 hours at a time though, right?

Musings on Mothering part 1

You know those women that seem born to be a mother? My sister in law is one. Four kids. When the twins were born, their older sister was almost 11 months old, and their older brother had just turned three. I know now that I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old that I would not have survived it. Folks, I would have dropped my basket for real. There is no way, no how, that I would have been able to have 4 kids under the age of 4 in my house and made it work without killing myself or my husband. I think I would have probably held it together enough not to kill the kids, but there is a good possibility that I would have hit the road and not looked back.

My sister-in-law was always a baby person. She always was a babysitter. She was the one at weddings or family gatherings that was down on the floor playing with the babies. And I admire her so much for what seems to be second nature to her.

Because it is not natural for me. I have never thought of myself as a "kid person". I mean, I always knew that once they hit the age of reason, or first grade or so, that I would be ok. And I hoped that the fact that children that were my own would be easier than other people's kids. And they are.

But it is a struggle. A daily struggle to be the mother I want to be. To be the mother I want my children to have. And I wonder if the fact that I know it is a struggle makes me work a little harder to say the right thing. To apologize when I know I haven't been the greatest mom. To research the mother shit to death trying to make informed decisions about how to raise my kids to be well adjusted, happy productive members of society that care about their fellow man and aren't a fascist, or a serial killer, or (gulp) a republican.

The Fairy Tale They Should Have Told Us

From my friend Gigi...

Once upon a time, in a land far away...

A beautiful, independent, self-assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle.

The frog hopped into the princess' lap and said "Elegant lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me. One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper young prince that I am.

And then my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping in your castle with my mother. Where you can prepare meals, clean my clothes, bear my children, and forever feel grateful and happy doing so."

That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sauteed frog legs seasoned in white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself..."I don't fucking think so."

Politics...

I promise I am not going to do this, well, not often anyway...

But here are just two little nuggets from me on the current political scene...

One is from my friend Jon...




The other is my observation that Sarah Palin is disturbingly reminiscent to Dolores Umbridge.




OK, maybe she doesn't exactly look like her, but she sure is acting like her!