Blog Update

This summer I am trying to make my life more blogworthy.  This means that I am trying to do things that other people may just want to read about.  In other words, I am trying to spend less time on the couch watching Seth MacFarlene cartoon reruns and drinking PBR.

So, I have updated this blog with a few new features.  You've probably already noticed the new title.  I am quite proud of that.  You can follow me on Twitter, RSS, or you can just subscribe via email.  I fixed the slideshow so that it actually works and doesn't show the same damn pictures.  (Well, it does show the same damn pictures, but it shows them in a different order.)

And, well, that's about it.  For the all the work it took me, I thought that I would have more to offer.

MICU?

I was just working with a medical record of someone who was on the MICU, and that got me wondering about what exactly a MICU is.  Turns out that it's a medical intensive care unit.

Excuse me?  Isn't that a tad redundant?  I mean, is there a non-medical intensive care unit where they just stand around and hope that you get better?

Jon Stewart was Right: they are Appholes

Let me please take a minute to do what blogs were really designed for -- angry rants towards large corporations to minuscule and insignificant audiences who don't really care, all simply for the purpose of making me feel better.

So, recently, John Stewart recently went off on Apple. A brilliant monologue -- that was no surprise -- but I thought that Mr. Stewart had gone a little bit too far in saying that "…It wasn’t supposed to be this way – Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one! But you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes! What the fuck is going on???!!!"  I thought that this was a bit over the top until I actually had the pleasure of visiting a Apple Store.  You see, my iPod has suddenly decided that I really don't need to hear music in both the left and right ears.  One should do fine, thank you.

Let me take another second here to say that this is the third iPod I have owned and the third one that has broken down in less then a year.  The first was actually a present, so when that one decided that it didn't want to do anything except show the damned Apple logo on it's useless little screen I sort of cut my losses.  The second one was used and after it decided to become a $200 paperweight I decided that I would never own an iPod again.  Then a friend came around and sold me an iPod Touch after getting an Android, and well, I couldn't resist.  I mean, I figured that it was a totally different bit of machinery and I was willing to give iPod another chance.  Big mistake.  I don't see my Microsoft is so intent on building an "iPod killer"-- the damn things are committing suicide just fine on their own.

Anyway, I went to the Apple Store knowing that I was most likely going to be very disappointed.  My used iPod does not have AppleCare© associated with it, so I was pretty sure that the Apple Store was going to tell me to either fork over more money then my iPod was worth or get the hell out.  As it turns out, I didn't even get that far.

No, I got to the store and as I attempted to walk in, I was stopped by not one, but two mall security guards.  There were three at the door, and the third was chatting up the Apple guy who was lounging outside the store.  As the guard asked me what I needed, I looked over his shoudler assuming that someone was going bonkers with an uzi inside-- the only reason that I could think of that a store would need to have four men manning it's gates.  Turns out that this was not the case, this is just stardard operating procedures for an Apple Store nowadays.

I told the guard that I needed to have someone look at my iPod, and the guard indicated-- no, bowed, actually, at the Apple worker and told me that I would need to "talk to him first."  The guard told me that this god-like man "may or may not choose to let me in."  Excuse me?  Did I hear that right?  Let me in?  Is this studio fucking 54 now?  Would it help if I were a blonde bimbo?  I waited a good thirty seconds while the Apple guy talked to the guard about some restaurant that he'd gone to before Mr. Apple God finally agnowleged me.  When I told him what I wanted, he pulled out an iPhone and asked me in a snooty maitre'd sort of a way if I had an appointment.  No, I told him, I don't have a damn appointment, all I need is for some AppleCare moron to tell me that they can't fix my iPod.  The Apple Maitre'd offered to make an appointment for me.  When I asked if I could get in that day he just laughed at me.  (I am being totally serious.)  I turned around an walked away and Mr. Maitre'd Apphole remembered something he read about customer service and called after me to have a good day.

Like Mr. Stewart, I am also feeling a bit put off.  Aside from the fact that I haven't owned an Apple Computer since 2001 (when I went to work for MS), I did support those losers when their stock was worth less then a candy bar.  I spent my hard-earned money from working at my college cafeteria on a damn PowerMac 7100, for god sakes.  And now they won't even let me in the store to fix my broken iPod.

Screw them.  My next mp3 player is going to be... oh, who am I kidding.

Scientology is Complete Crap

So, one of my meet-up groups has been doing a tour of different religions.  I am new to the group, and I am pretty sorry that I missed pretty much every one of these talks.  They have had nights centered around all sorts of different faiths, including Baha'i, Muslim, Hindu, and even Mormon.  This week they were sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel and we went to explore the Church of Scientology.

The inside didn't really look much like a church, it looked more like the room of a top-rate nonprofit, with a main meeting room and classrooms and offices at the side.  The meeting room walls were advertising various books and workshops with "L. Ron Hubbard" spattered in every available niche.  (For someone that is so philanthropic, as we learned later, the guy sure seemed to like his name spread around.)

Anyway, the first part was a viewing of thier new DVD (based on the book "The Problems of Work").  This was basically a poorly acted but generally well-produced "dramatization" (so we were told, no I have not read the book) of the different chapters.  They are geared to help improve communication at work as well as one's own being.  One of the things that they talked about were "Tones".  Someone at the bottom of the stack feels "sub-apathy", and the idea is to move them upward through the various tones to Serenity.  Now although tones are really just a rip-off of Kübler-Ross's grief model (Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) I do have to admit that for me, a chronic depressive, there is a bit appeal and dare I say logic to this model.  We were told that people get stuck at various tones and need help to pull them out.  When the video talked about how people who were stuck in apathy saw the world as (I am paraphrasing here) "like looking at shades of gray through water" I have to admit then had it not been freakin' Scientology, I might have considered actually picking up a few pamphlets and maybe checking out their books in the library.   I mean, after dealing with despression for more then half my life, that stuff spoke to me and I am long past the point where I will try just about anything.

Anyway, after the video we had a guy who looked remarkably like Kyle MacLachlan with a beard  (Cooper from Twin Peaks or Orson from Desperate Housewives) jumped up with a smile and ask if we had any questions.  He quickly established that he was one of us (sane) by saying that he is an engineer and Catholic (probably figuring that would cover pretty much everyone in the group in some way.)  Kyle took our questions, and being that we were a pretty nice and respectful group, we started out with some easy ones.  Is there a service in the Church?  How does the church see god?  Are other faiths accepted?    As Kyle took our questions with his smile, the other Scientologsts that were standing around holding thier free DVD and other stuff slowly inched in as the questions started to get more difficult.  When one gentleman asked about Scientology and it's believes towards physics and other established sciences, Kyle's little posse started to edge in protectively, smiling at us with suspicious eyes.

Finally, someone got around to asking about money.  After assuring as that "no one has ever gotten rich over Scientology" he said that this would be the last question, as he knew that "we" had to go.  I looked around and didn't see that anyone in my group looked particularly interested in leaving.  The Scientology posse was getting nearing and started making "alright" gestures- nodding and looking like they were ready to give us our DVDs and get us the hell out.   Before this happened, however, one girl did manage to ask about Tom Cruise and his views twoards Psychiatry.

Now here things got interesting.  Kyle gave a sort of fake laugh and then went all Jekyll and Hyde on us.  I inched towards the edge of my sheet, thinking that Kyle was going to go off on Tom Cruise and what a lousy representative of Scientology he was.  Instead, Kyle started to rail on psychiatry in general, stating that people are spirits and can not be controlled chemically.  Although he did come out in favor of Phycology and it's "talking cure" (every psychologist I ever had referred me to a psychiatrist for a prescription) he stated that pushing pills and chemistry was simply a way to control the natural spirit.  There was no pill, Kyle insisted, that would help the spirit.  Pills were a way of pushing buttons to control people, and Kyle said with a snear, do you know who started these vile experiments?  It was the NAZIs!!!!!


There was a definite change in the room at this point.  The Scientologist bouncers looked ready to jump and the audience was just getting started.  One woman in the back quickly jumped in and identified herself as a clinical psychologist.  She pointed out that although the "talking cure" was well and good, there were many of her patients that suffered from visual and audio hallucinations that talking really could not cure.  Kyle seemed to see that he had gone a bit too far and then back-peddled, saying that there were people who were "insane" that Scientology didn't really claim to help.  Apparently the door was closed to the "insane", non-insane people who didn't hear voices were welcome to join their own brand of "medicine"-- provided they were willing to toss their antidepressants and anti anxiety medications.  Obviously, that was the end of our little talk.

Anyway, my opinion of Scientology has gone from mocking it to realizing that this is a pretty scary concept that should be stopped.  They target people who are depressed, lonely, and scared and lure them in with promises of a cure.  They encourage them to abandon their established methods of treatment and throw their mental health (along with their wallets) into the hands of what is essentially a group of quacks.  This is wrong, and this is unethical.  It is no different then those people who claim that they can cure cancer with no more then clean living and a special concoction of vitamins and snake oil.

Scientology isn't just a cult, they are evil.

Update from Samoa

I found this old email, and thought that I would pass it along as an update to my time in Samoa.  A sister of my Samoan mother wrote me to let me know that my Samoan grandmother, Fetu, passed away.  Although she was never officially diagnosed, Fetu suffered from Alzheimer's and was cared for at home by my Samoan family.

Hi There Kimberely,


My name is Tui Filemoni I am one of many daughter in-laws of Fetu. I was asked by Talosia Sini in Nuusuatia to get in contact with you to inform you of the family's sad loss of Fetu. Who sadly passed away in Samoa on the 11 January 2008. Talosia sends her sincere apologise for not being able to get in contact with you sooner, and also asked to send her love onto you. I do apologise myself for being the one to inform you of our mum, but am pleased my sister Talosia has asked me to do this for her as she expressed you had deep love for our mum. I am in contact with Talosia quite alot so if you wish for me to relay any message to her and the family back in Samoa, please do so, would love to repay the favor for you.


Many best wishes from the Fetu Filemoni family


Tui Filemoni


Dear Tui,

Thank you so much for writing. I was so sorry to hear that Fetu passed way. I actually work at a hospital and we get a lot of elderly patients, most of which have Alheimers like Fetu had. For these poor people, they live in nursing homes and they have no one to care for them. When they come to the hospital they are very confused, and many of them are screaming for help. I try to help them, but I know that what they really need is to be at home in a familiar place with people who love them.

And then I think of Fetu. I am pretty sure that she also had Alheimers, but unlike the poor, lost, scared souls at the hospital she was at home, and she was with people who loved her dearly, and that made me so happy. She was such a lucky person to have so much love in her life. Many times people with Alheimers will become confused-- they will swear, and hit-- but this is just the disease. When I think of Fetu lying in her fale, tapping the floor, singing and saying prayers, it always makes me smile and feel glad that she was able to have so much support for such a terrible disease. I remember that I would teach Anne songs on a flute and after hearing them a few times, Fetu would be singing and tapping away with us.

I know that it must have been so difficult for Talosia to care for her mother when her mother was so different, and I hope that Talosia knows that it was the disease that made her mother do strange things. But when I work with people who have the same sickness here, in America, I always wish for them what Fetu had. I wish for them that their families would show even a little of the care and respect that Fetu's family gave her. That is something that I always remember when I think back to Samoa and to my family in Niusuatia-- the love and devotion that is shown to each other-- even to me, a stranger. So although I am very sad that she died, it always makes me so happy to know that Fetu had so much love at a time when she needed it the most.

Please tell Talosia that I am living in Iowa, and that I am studying to be a nurse. This may sound a little crazy, but I think that I started thinking about being a nurse when Angel got sick right when I first got to Samoa. She was so hot, so sick. I guess that something like that is normal in a country like Samoa, but for me I had never seen a child so sick and it made me scared. I went to Apia and found some children's fever medication, and the next day when I got back from school Angel ran out of the house and threw herself into my arms, not a trace of fever left. Ever since then I always felt that I wanted to help children everywhere get better. I am going to a school in Sioux City, Iowa called St. Luke's College, and to pay for school I work as a nursing assistant at St. Luke's Hospital. It's a Methodist hospital. :) I have about a year and a half left, then a few years working in the states before I travel again.

After I left Samoa I went to Yemen, then Thailand. It was so hard to leave Samoa, but it was something that I had to do. I felt bad that I left so quickly, but I was offered a job that needed me right away. I am glad that I have had the chance to travel so much, but everywhere that I have been I have never found anyone who cared about me so much as my family in Niusuatia.

Tima

PS:
Did you know that you can see Talosia's house on Googlemaps?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=samoa&ie=UTF8&ll=-13.983696,-171.838735&spn=0.002415,0.00346&t=h&z=18

Nursing School: Check!!

My and my Dummy, who was my patient stand-in and helped my pass the CPNE. He is happy to return to his former job as my PJ's, a ski-mask from my Iowa days, and a few pillows.

Note: this blog entry could alternatively be titled "Jodi K can kiss my ass."  Yeah, you know what I be talkin' about.

Despite trials, tribulations, tears, and transfers I have finally completed nursing school, yes, about 6 months late.  8 months late if you include the obscene amount of time that they make you wait for your actual graduation date.  Anyway, you can read about the final test that I had to take to achieve this milestone here.  Basically, this was a hellish weekend in Albany, NY (no, not Albany OR, and yes, there is an Albany, OR) where I had to perform at my highest standards.  To pass this test you have to:

1. Complete for simulated lab stations: IV push, wound dressing, IV drip, SubQ/IM injection
2. Real-life "Patient Care Scenarios" where you have to provide care under the very watchful eyes of an instructor.

On each of these, you can fail once.  Most people fail for little things.  But really, this is an easy exam.  If you had to walk across the street at any time of your choosing and just do it for $25, then this exam would be a joke.  When you have to wait 4-6 months for a test date and need to cough up $2500 for the test, plane ticket, and lodgings, it becomes a little bigger of a deal.  And it's generally the only think that stands between you and the RN.  So I will just say that I was feeling pretty fuckin' good when I passed that.  I told everyone at Starbucks and killed my phone battery.

Today, I am suffering from post-CPNE syndrome.  I wake up panicked before I realize that I don't have to take the CPNE again.  I start to get restless if I don't check the CPNE bulletin boards after about a day.  I need to double check with my college to make sure that I really passed it.  The real scary thing was that after I got back from the CPNE, my body totally went to shit.  I was sick for a week.  My periods, which had been absent for about three months, suddenly came back with an angry vengeance.  It was all this that made me realize just what my body can do for me.

The good think about the CPNE is that it makes the NCLEX look like a pathetic joke in comparison.  Onwards!!

Old Friends, new friends?

(Kloro, it would be good to catch up, send me your email, you should be able to email me though my profile...)

My good friend Dylan suprised me with a visit yesterday, and we wandered around my 'hood a bit, got some Thai, et cetera.  It was good to see him again, and he asked me about Portland.  I had actually just been talking about that subject with one of my Portland friends... ahem, let me restate that, my ONLY Portland friend the night before.

Dylan asked me how I was liking Portland and I said that I liked it fine, however I have not been terribly sucessful is making friends.  Talking with Dylan made be realize just how much easier it was to make friends when I was younger-- why is that?  Have I changed, or have the people around me changed?

When I was younger, like when I was at Apple or Microsoft, I felt that I had a good number of friends, of course back then I worked in teams and had to deal with other people to meets goals.  In my current job at a call center, I really don't work with my co-workers all that much.  I think that it also has a lot to do with the fact that most people my age are involved with kids and families and are not really in that "lets make friends" place.

I can see why many people choose to stay in one place for thier entire lives.  It sucks when you are in your twenties, but then you get a little older and having a few familiar faces can make all the difference.

New Spiffy Blog Title and Look! Yeehaww!

I am going to start off my requesting that the person who left the comment that they met me in Santa Cruz please stand up and identify yourself. I have an idea who you are, but I am not sure, and it is drive me crazy.

Anyhoo, It's been a while since my last update. I have to say, it is hard to keep a blog when your life is nothing but work and you are not allowed to discuss your job outside of work. Had that problem when I worked at the hospital and I have that problem now.

Anyway, I am working at the Lions Eye Bank of Oregon as a Donor Coordinator. I love it, it's a great job!
All for now.  My next post will be all about PDX biking.

Get Picked up at the Supermarket

I got picked up at a Seattle supermarket, unfortunatly he turned out to be gay.

Just a Thought...

For those of you that forgot to get a birthday present, it isn't too late...

http://www.peterrivard.com/Pages/potter.html

Home Health Haikus

I work as a Home Health nurse while I am getting through the end of nursing school. During an twelve hour overnight job, I wrote the following haikus whilst trying to stay awake at 3AM which I feel are a rather poignet insight into my character:

The focused student
Learn! Because after the test
She'll forget this crap

Red roses in a vase
Starting to wilt and show age
What a waste of cash

Oh stupid black dog
Wake up the patient again
And YOU'LL need a nurse

Warm heater air blows
I drape my shirt on your vent
Oh such warm buttocks

Dumb empty Coke bottle
Laughing at my exhaustion
Laugh in the trash can

(This one is a bit darker, but keep in mind it was three in the morning:)
Diligent nurse
Watches her patient all night
"Just die! I want sleep"

Update, finally

Hello world, I am hailing from Portland, my new home. Anyway, I am here and am very happy to be out of Iowa. Very happy.

Anyway, a new friend just asked me why I haven't updated my blog in a while. He also seemed to express a bit of surprise over the fact that I hated my new (and please God, temporary) home health care job that I have. I hope to answer both of these queries in My New Rant (TM).

Ahem.

As you know, there is a a huge health care problem we face today. Too many sick people and not enough money. And as you also may have noticed, there is another problem which is less pressing where funeral homes get these poor people who have lost their loved ones to spend way to much money on their uptake.

I will connect these two in a minute. Grandma dies, and the family is either told or feels that their final act will indicate how much they loved Grandma. I mean, what cold hearted bastard is going to place her in a pine coffin and throw her in the sea? Even though she is dead and doesn't care, it just feels wrong to not do the best. Even when the best is a total waste of energy and time.

You see, I am not a advocate of the so-called "death panels", but I do feel that money would be better spent if we could figure out a way to put people who are in Hospice and have no quality of life out of their misery and spent that money, say, giving a five-year-old a new kidney. But of course going around and telling people to euthanize grandma is a step above telling people to just dump that corpse into a patch of forest that desperately needs fertilization. It isn't going to fly.

Keep in mind that I am talking about people who have no quality of life. People who don't know who they are, where they are, and who do not enjoy anything. People who can't get out of bed and have bedsores and people who are in constant pain and stress because of all the things that we are doing to them to "make them comfortable". When a person is screaming in pain as you roll them to clean up a BM or apply a dressing to an open bedsore, you really have to wonder what you are keeping them alive for.

I hope that I never see this. Someone please-- about 150 units on Insulin in my ass should really do the trick, thank you. Take the money that you would have used to keep me alive for another year and go feed Africa.

So why I hate my job-- well, although home health has a romantic ring to it-- helping the suffering, easing pain, yadda yadda yadda, most of the people that I see are pushed aside, forgotten. I mean, if you loved you sick little mother so much that you just had to keep her around for another year so that the two of you could bask in each other's glory-- even if she didn't recognise you-- would you really hire someone to take care of her for 10 bucks an hour and whose only job requirement was a GED? I mean, these aren't exactly the kid from Lorenzo's Oil that I am taking care of. Yeah, I am sure those patients exist, but most of what your average home health worker is seeing is a person that is forgotten. It's sad, and it's a waste of their time.

I think that Lorenzo from Lorenzo's Oil is a good example of why to keep someone around-- not that he kind of got better at the end, but that he had people who loved him enough to really take care of him. Had he been forgotten in a nursing home and neglected until his sacrum as pushing through the skin, I might have felt differently for the poor kid.

I also want to finish with a story from Thailand. My teenaged students refused to wear their helmits on thier motorbikes. I woudl bed, threaten, and bribe them to wear them, but the best I got was for them to take a helmit, wear it, and then take if off when they got around the bend. One day, a guy crashed outside our school and half the school watched as he was taken into a car and driven to the hospital, where he died of a brain hemorrhage. Most people knew of this poor guy. I fully intended to make a point about this man. The next lecture, I told the students sternly how sad this man-- a husband and a father-- had to die when all he had to do was wear a ten dollar helmet, which would have very likely saved his life. My class listened patiently and politely to my stern lecture and then one brave student raised his hand and asked "Teacher, why Americans afraid of die?" I was so taken aback by the question that I didn't even bother to correct his grammar. Why are we so afraid of death? And who is more afraid of death, the person facing it, or the ones they will leave behind?


Anyway, end of rant. I hope that I haven't offended anyone too much.

Yes, we DID!!!

See "Obama sweeps to victory as first black president"

I can't believe that I am actually tempted to get on the internet and email all my overseas buddies that I am proud to be an American for the first time in almost a decade. This from the girl who used to introduce herself to her English classes "Hi, I'm Kim, I am from America, sorry about that." I am so proud that the people of this country made such a brave and bold choice. I spent last night at a Democrat party watching the polls roll in. I don't think that I will ever forget the moment when my beloved West Coast came in and announced that Obama will be he next Commander-in-Chief. Thanks guys!!

(Look for me in the top right corner of that picture!)

Go Phillies!!!

I managed to win St. Luke's College's "Who Will Win the World Series" game by being the only person to correctly guess that the Phillies would win. This is very exciting to me as a) I don't think that I have ever really won anything, b) I don't follow sports and basically picked a team out of a hat and c) well, um, that's it really.

Please, get out and vote on Tuesday. A lot of lame people I live with are saying that there really isn't a difference between the candidates. I can't really respond to this as I have been to busy to watch the debates so I can't really give concrete examples of how they differ. I will say this however: this was the same BS that people were saying in 2000 about Bush and Gore. Eight years later, one man has started an illegal was that has killed hundreds of thousands, and the other has spearheaded the movement against annihilation of the planet though global warming. No difference my ass.

As they say in Chicago: "vote early, vote often!"

Nothing... nothing.... nothing... then I miss THIS?

Check this out:Man survives four-story plunge from apartment

Argonaut Apartments is where I live. The picture in the article is right outside my back door, where our laundy room is. No, I didn't know the guy that jumped out the window (I try to have as little to do with my neighbors as possible) but this story didn't really shock me. I am just praying this this happy family gets evicted.

I missed it because I went to see Prince Caspian. It was okay, but I would probably have been more amused by a guy jumping four stories out a window and surviving. The only good parts of the movie was when they didn't bother trying to follow the book-- like when the Narnians stormed the castle, a scene not penned by the great C.S. Lewis. Not that I don't like the book-- quite the opposite-- but I think that the scenes were better because they were designed to be in a movie, while the other scenes were designed to be in a book.

No matter how good her acting (which isn't really that good) the cinematic Lucy can never show how strong her love for Aslan is as the literary Lucy. This is why I pretty much feel that this movie proves that Hollywood (and Disney in particular) should make thier own damn movies instead of ripping off the plotlines of authors (unless the book happens to be Fight Club, but that's a different story.)

This includes Harry Potter (which finally got kids to read) and Lord of the Rings. Although I agree with Randal Graves (of Clerks 2 fame) on both the LOTR books and the movies: "Those fuckin' hobbit movies were boring as hell. All it was, was a bunch of people walking, three movies of people walking to a fucking volcano... Even the trees walked in those fuckin' movies."

Sioux City still sucks. I did have a good time at the Marti Gras festival yesterday (yes, I know it's July) where we had a "parade". I put "parade" in quotes because actually all it was was a bunch of guys in identical shirts throwing beads to the crowd. A few had large Macy-day type balloons which probably could have used a few more tanks of helium. The fun part was screaming out "Beads! Beads!" while clapping your hands like a deranged seal in the hopes that a necklace would be hurled your way.

A Sampling of Great Sioux City Minds

Seven percent Give Or Take
Overheard discussion on fashion models in a Briar Cliff University stairway:
Girl 1: ... are so unrealistic. I mean, no one looks that way.
Girl 2: Yeah, totally.
Girl 1: I mean, I bet that, like, less then 10% of women look like that.
Girl 2: I bet it's more then that. I bet it's like 7%.
Girl 1: Yeah, 7%.
Girl 3: I bet it's more then that. I mean, what about all the starving people in Ethiopia?
Girl 1: Oh yeah. Well, 7% plus them.


Vocabulary Building
Overheard discussion between family of four (mom, dad, 5 year old, baby in stroller) while walking to work:
Man: ... messed up. I mean, he won't be going anywhere near there again. I took that dude down! [unintelligible] ... some bitch.
5 year Old: Bitch! Bitch!
Mom: ...

Birth Control Really is a Lovely Thing
I was sitting next to a classmate that was moaning about the difficulty of a nursing class. She asked me if I thought that the class was hard.
Me: Well, I have an advantage. I don't have kids to distract me.
Her: You don't have kids at home?
Me: Nope.
Her: Do they live somewhere else?
Me: Uh, no. I don't have any kids.
Her: Grown kids? [Note: grown kids aren't uncommon for a 32-year-old here.]
Me: No, no kids at all.
Her: Wow. Don't you even have stepkids?
Me: No. I'm not married.
Her: Are you divorced?
Me: No, I've never been married.
Her: Never? How old are you?
Me: 32
Her: Are you still a virgin?

Water Water Everywhere

Actually, there isn't any flooding in Sioux City... we just got some really pretty thunderstorms and that was about it. The Little Sioux boy scout ranch is a ways away and we weren't hit.

I felt raelly guilty, actually. I was really hoping that something would strike down a lot closer. The hospital got put on a “Sky Alert” and I was disappointed that I wasn't there to help move everyone into the halls. When I heard about what happened the next day, however, talking to the doctors who helped really drove the point home that something like this isn't all excitement and is all tragedy. Because the hikers were kids who didn't carry any type of ID, notification of families was delayed and 12 horus later one boy's family still hadn't been told. That image really hit me hard-- of a mother who didn't know if her boy was alive or dead, or where he even was. So the next time that I look at a dark cloud it won't be with anticipatory excitement but with that image in my mind.

Funny to think that I used to be terrified of lightening and tornados. I guess I used to be afraid of a lot of things.

The flooding in the news is on the Eastern part of the state, and so we've only been affected in that a lot of our doctors and nurses are heading over there, leaving a shortage here. I wish that I could go and help-- the fact that I have classes sounds like a pretty lame excuse even to me.

Hey! Leave Them Streets Alone!

Nothing new to report, really.

A few weeks ago I was awoken by some yelling outside my window at around 6AM. I live in a rather "colorful" part of town and the yelling was "Hey! You're a @#$%ing drug dealer! Get out of here, you @#$%ing drug dealer!!" I peeked out my window to get a look at the @#$%ing drug dealer and saw that my car was the only one parked on the street. So thank you, Mr. @#$%ing Drug Dealer, you prevented my car from getting towed as an hour later there was no longer a street outside my apartment.

I spent the day watching the men tear things up. Now I am not one to oogle workmen (for more reasons then one) but it is an attestment to my geekhood that I found the machinery-- especially the Excavator very graceful. They were like huge dinosaurs tearing up the street, moving so smoothly that it was easy to forget that they were controlled by humans and a few gears. If you ever see one, you should stop and watch it for a bit.

The streets in Sioux City are so bad that even George W. Bush-- who is in a bad position to complain about anything American-- pointed out that the city was wonderful but needed the potholes fixed. Like most statements made by Bush, I disagree. The only redeeming qualities that Sioux City has to offer are for the most part being dismantled by the Republicans (such as the library funding.)
Anyway, I am hoping that they take all summer to fix the street as while there isn't a street there aren't any drug dealers screaming up to people at my window. It's been a quiet summer.

The Sioux City Walking Tour

I thought that this weekend would be a good weekend for the Sioux City Walking Tour. At the museum, I found a few brochures that had maps and “historical areas” in Sioux City. It was cold at the time, so I filed them away for a sunny say. The weather finally turned decent recently-- after snow on April 25th, I was starting to wonder.

So I took the maps off the shelves, dusted them off, and had a look. My first thought was that wandering around looking at what really is a bunch of identical buildings wouldn't be very interesting. I looked at one in particular on the corner of Nebraska and 3rd and thought “Hey, wait a minute, I have been to this corner about a zillion times and I have never seen that building before.” It was then that I noticed the fine print: “Buildings in italics are no longer in existence.” Great. Of the 16 buildings that I am supposed to trek around the city to look at, only 5 of them exist and one of those is the warehouse district-- famous, yes-- famous for it's smell.

And let me give you a sample of the “historical” narrative that this pamphlet boasts. Here is the listing for one of the remaining buildings: The Warrior Hotel on the corner of 6th and Nebraska.

Warrior Hotel, 1955 Constructed as the Fontenelle Hotel in 1930, it was known as the Warrior Hotel by the time it opened in 1931. Omaha hotel magnate Eugene C. Eppley purchased the Warrior during the mid-1930's. Eppley hotels sold the Warrior to the Sheraton Corporation of America in 1956, after which time it was called the Sheraton-Warrior. In the late 1960s Sioux City contractors Jospeth and Frank Audino purchased the hotel and renamed it the Aventino Motor Inn. The building has been empty since 1972.

Oh sure, Kim, you are probably thinking, pick the most boring listing and of course it looks bad.Sadly, the rest of the listings are like this: a history of who bought and sold the building and a history of the various names and owners of the property. Some of the more exciting entries talk about elevators being rebuilt, but that really is the extent of it.

So, in other words, the best that Sioux City can do is to lead me on a tour of the city looking at where a bunch of rather drab and boring buildings used to be before they got torn down. Wonderful. Sign me up. Underground Tour, Seattle, watch out-- you've got some real competition here in Sioux City.

where the F@&! have u been?

That was the greeting that Sonia left on my Facebook wall this morning, Sonia having apparently forgotten the virtues of email. (True, I can't really talk.) It's a fair question, actually... A question that I have more or less been asking myself.

Sioux City continues to be a rather sizable disappointment. It's a living testament to why Wal-marts are a bad thing. Seriously, Micheal Moore should come here to shoot his next documentary on large-business centralization and the havoc that it can cause on the character of a town. After visiting the rather pathetic Sioux City museum, I picked up a few "walking maps" of the "historic" 4th and 6th streets. The fact that they are historic is really the only thing that is going for them, as every possible business has either closed or is in the process of closing as more and more people are getting into their cars and driving to the malls outside of town.

The social scene isn't much better. Walking home the other day, someone threw a rock or something at me while they were driving past. I keep falling on the ice and the bystanders keep watching with bored interest and no concern. Sarah pointed out that if we were 19 or had kids it might be different-- as things stand right now, people aren't quite sure what to do with us. And don't get me started on the dating scene. Since the men seem to have a tendency to knock their girlfriends up I have been sticking to girls, but all the lesbians here are catty, gossipy, and mean.

Another reason that I have been away is that work is hell. There is some sort of flu plague that has hit Sioux City and everyone and their grandmother seems to be landing on my floor at the hospital. I heard on NPR the other day that everyone who bothered getting a flu shot might have well been injected with water-- the strains that they predicted would strike this year were wrong and as a result we were all inoculated with the wrong dead virus. As a result, I've been forced to hand out about ten complete bed baths a morning as the hospital refused to crawl to a temp agency to give us a few more techs.

So, two years of nursing school (two years minus two months actually) and I am outta here. Sarah's trying to leave earlier then that-- she's a big help. I suggested that she dump her three year program and join me in my two year AAN program and get her BSN later and she just laughed at me.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you that wished me a happy b-day and demanded that I update my blog. I didn't think that my life was that interesting, and it's nice to know that you guys disagree.