the RATS of moose

The Random Access ThoughtS of a mid-west, approaching-middle-age, nurse starting the next phase of life.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Hanging by a color

grumble grumble grumble..... Buying curtains shouldn't be this hard. All I want are curtains to hang in front of the closets. I hate closet doors and had curtains in my first apartment here and I want to do it again. (Need curtains cuz I am busy throwing the closet doors in the garbage.)

Rule 1) Buy curtains first and 'then' select the paint color.

All I want are some green curtains. Something that will complement the walls. So far the closest I have come is a shower curtain. (I already tried. It's not long enough) Or if I get the right color, they are $40 a panel and I need 10 or 11 panels. It's making me nuts. Am almost ready to settle for cream colored curtains. Almost.

I did get curtains for the dining room. Finally. Yellow. They blend in with the walls. Nicely. Need to make a couple of adjustments. Will do next weekend. This week is shot.

Class Monday night. Class Tuesday night. Teach class Wednesday night. Figure by Thursday all I will want to do is sleep.

Which is what I should be doing now.

Later gators!

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

TTP (time to pee-kinda 'UNIQUE', huh?!)

Peeing in public restrooms is such a joy. Yesterday at Costco I was privileged to wipe my rear with THIN AIR! I swear to chocolate.... the toilet paper was SOOOOOO thin it was like wiping with air..... sheesh.... took half the roll to get the job done....

And then, of course, are the let's-maximize-the-retail-space-and-skimp-in-the-bathroom-square-footage stall.... These stalls are especially comfortable to use in the winter when you have a coat on. Keep in mind that my everyday coat hangs to my knees... which is just about the level of the toilet seat or that nasty space between the front parts of the split seats... that space that collects yellow blobs of other peoples pee?? So I navigate into the tiny stall... required to move soooo far into it that my coat bottom brushes the seat as I attempt to turn around and close the door without taking off half my ass (remind me to wash the coat again this weekend) only to find that the door isn't hanging right and won't lock and I have to back-up and overhang the toilet again to get out (this time taking off part of a boob). And gawd forbid if I have my everyday purse hanging off my shoulder (all 35 pounds of it)... the resulting hang up of purse/coat/boob usually causes the door to slam in some fashion which causes the other residents of the toidie to look askance at me as if making noise (both mechanical and verbal) was against the law.

And then I get to repeat the performance in the next stall.

Well, great, the lock works in this one but there is no hook on which to place my LONG coat and hang the 35 pound purse. Okay.... leave coat on and hike up to boobs... hang purse from neck and sit... right into the wet spot that my coat bottom didn't quite dry off when it made its entrance sweep. yuck..... hold coat with one hand while other hand roots around in purse for Rolaids to settle queasy stomach...

Okay... job is done.. now for some toilet paper.... which is located right under my left elbow firmly encased in in said coat and holding coat bottom... switch coat to right hand and manipulate left arm back and down under the dispenser (one of those huge things that holds the 9000 sheet 1-ply roll. Grope around until end of paper is found, pull out in 3 sheet sections so as not to tear it off and loose the end up inside the container..... finally get enough paper but can't wipe left-handed so transfer paper to right hand and coat to left, levitate butt off seat and attempt to clean myself.

Sheesh.... it just shouldn't be this hard....

On the upside.... at least I didn't have any shopping bags to juggle.....

Friday, March 17, 2006

That feeling...

I don't get it. I don't understand it. I have no concept of it.

Addiction. To drugs. To alcohol. To cigarettes.

To anything.

And someone else died yesterday from heroin. 23. A person who was just in the ER 2 weeks ago after being found with no pulse and no breathing. Paramedics brought the overdosed back to life.

To overdose again.

Only not such a good outcome yesterday.

What on earth makes a person indulge in something that can kill in just a few moments? Smoking and alcohol I get.... death is usually slow.... cancer, cirrhosis.... although I suppose you could crash the car while fiddling for a lighter (especially if you are drunk at the time).

I never did coke because I figured I would be the one idiot in a million to drop dead of a heart attack on the spot. Explain that one to Mom.

And meth?? Not in a million years! Have you seen what these people look like after doing that crap?

But not even at my wildest or smokiest was I ever not able to put them down for a day or a week or, sometimes, years at a time. It was never that important to do them. It was just fun. Or pleasant. But not a must-have. Not ever.

Leo McGarry summed it up pretty well I guess. He was talking about the feeling you get when drunk. (He was talking to someone who was not an alcoholic.) "I'm an alcoholic, I don't have one drink. I don't understand people who have one drink. I don't understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don't understand people who say they've had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this?" [3.9] I suppose it's like that with an addicts substance of choice.

How can you have enough of a feeling like this? I must have missed something. Cigs only left a bad taste in my mouth (especially after doing a whole pack in one night while drinking!)... especially the morning after. Alcohol makes me giddy and leaves a hangover. The older I get, the bigger the hangover.

The only things I like daily now are ice cream and chocolate. They don't kill, they just make you fluffy. But chocolate does give me that feeling. heh heh heh

Which is why I'm on weight watchers.

Oops.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Wicked

WickedWickedWicked Rules!wicked

More later..... (or, it was a really really good weekend!)

Thursday, March 09, 2006

A birthday of sorts....

My truck had a birthday of sorts... it rolled 100K miles this week... I missed it.


B-day 1

B-day 2
100.000 is a lot of miles... but, she's had some work done.... and I got to thinking... maybe she's not as old as I think she is..... the transmission was replaced at 89,000.... I think that means I get to start over. Consider it new again.... get a can of "new car smell" and no one will know the difference.

Then again, as my bestest friend J pointed out.... heart transplant patients don't get to start over... why should my truck.

Rats.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

I'm too old for this.....

Ugggggg... It only takes one 8-hour shift on the floor to remind me how much I like my desk job! It's hard to believe that it's been 9 years since I worked the floor full time. I don't know that I would have the stamina to do it 5 days a week. And I really don't think I could do 3 12-hour shifts a week anymore either. Or maybe I'm just out of practice and I would rebuild my stamina. Don't know. Don't think I want to find out.

I do know that my feet REALLY hurt when I got home last night. And for the first time in a long time, I didn't do any work of any kind when I got home. I sat and read a book and the newspaper. No TV, no radio. No internet. No blog. No email. Just me and reading material.

But.... even tho my feet died, I also know that I was appreciated yesterday. I spent most of my day caring for one patient. He came in at 8:30 and I didn't transfer him to ICU until 4 (an hour after my shift officially ended). He consumed most of my day, caused me to miss lunch (do you know that Snickers bars are worth 7 points on Weight Watchers??), and negatively impacted the care my other patients received (thank heavens my co-workers picked up the slack) (that is-when they were not in my room helping me with my patient-sometimes there were 4 or 5 of us at bedside)... but when I left the family in the waiting room, they all said thank you and told me that I was a great nurse and they really appreciated the way I cared for their family member.

It makes the sore feet worth it.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Fluffy is as fluffy does....

I am too fluffy for my pants. All the weight I lost 2 years ago is back. Oops. That's what uncontrolled eating and no exercise get you. Bad Moose. After the peanut butter cookie episode, I decided it was time to go back on the wagon.

I joined Weight Watchers. Nothing like a commitment of money to motivate you. I like this program better than the last one... it lets me eat ice cream. I count points... last night I had so many left over after dinner, I had a WHOLE BOWL FULL of ice cream. ;-) it was almost (almost) too much. I will have less tonight.

Will be interesting to see if I manage my points well tomorrow. I work 7am-3pm in an ER. And I probably won't go to bed until midnight.... hope I'm not hungry...