Recap

Thanksgiving at my parents' house. What can I say? I guess it's best described in a series of vignettes. Mainly because I'm really bad at stringing stories together...especially in any kind of way that makes sense with respect to space and time.
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Scene 1: In the kitchen. My mother (who literally cooks one day of the year) and my sister Jen (age 14) are attempting to figure out how they made such awesome dressing last year. (The answer, of course, is that my Dad made it.)
Mom: "I don't remember how I made it last year. Jen, look in one of the cookbooks and see if you can find a recipe."
Jen: "Okay."
Me: "Um...didn't Dad make it last year?"
Mom: "No! Did he? I can make dressing. Jen just has to find the recipe I use."
Me: "oookay."
Jen: "Here's one. It calls for breadcrumbs..."
Mom: "Good, that's the one."
Jen: "Eggs. Sage. And uncooked popcorn."
Mom: "Uncooked popcorn?"
Jen: "Uh huh. It says Mix all ingredients, then stuff turkey. Finished when bird reaches 180 degrees, and when the popcorn blows the ass out of the turkey. Ooh! I was just reading!"
Mom: "JENNY!"
Jen: "It says that! Samantha doesn't it say that!"
Me: "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't see anything about the A-word."
Mom: "You know better Jenny. Now find another recipe. That one's not good."
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Scene 2: Still in the kitchen. My mother, Aunt Jonnie (age 92), and I are standing around washing dishes. Suddenly Dad walks up behind my mother and kind of drums a couple of fingers on her shoulder.
Mom: "What did you just put on me! Get it off!"
Me: "Mom, chill out...he didn't put anything on you. Turn around, I'll look."
She turns
Me: "AUGHHH!! AAAAH!! MOM!!"
Mom: "OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT?!??"
And I'm still just shrieking.
Mom: "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"
And my Dad is dying laughing. And I'm still shrieking. Mom is beating herself to death trying to get it off.
Mom: "AUGH!!"
Then she starts running. Runs to the door of the kitchen. And RIPS HER SHIRT OFF. And continues to shriek running topless through the house. Dad and I are doubled over laughing. She comes back five minutes later in a different shirt.
Mom: "I couldn't find it...it could be anywhere."
Me: "Um. There wasn't anything on you. We were just messing with you."
Still dying laughing.
Mom: "You guys are jerks."
But she's laughing too.
Aunt Jonnie: "I wish I'd had a video camera."
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Scene 3: The night before Thanksgiving. Bear (age 18), her boyfriend Kylie-poo (age 16), Jen (14), Jo (11), and I are in the den. I'm attempting to teach everyone some basic swing-dancing steps. Kind of hard to do when all you have is a Kelly Clarkson CD and a bootleg karaoke machine as your CD player.
Jen: "Do I have to dance with Jo?"
Me: "She's the closest to your height, so yes."
**Timeout: Jen and Bear are both 2 years apart from Kylie-poo. Jen has a huge crush on him, and is hoping that Bear will dump him when she leaves for college. Then she will swoop in and claim him as her own. She has it all planned out. Into phases. It's terrifying and brilliant. **
Jen: "Fine."
So they're dancing, I'm watching and trying to keep the CD player working.
Jen: "Jo, quit dipping! You're killing me!"
Jo is holding Jen's hands, hopping around, shaking Jen like crazy.
Jen: "Jo, let go! Quit! No! That's it! FREESTYLE!"
Jo lets go of her and starts dancing like a maniac around the room. Maybe that was their safe word?
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Scene 4: Thanksgiving Day. Bear has gone with Kylie-poo to his grandparents house in Auburn for an early Thanksgiving lunch. We're scheduled to have lunch at our house at 2 PM. At 11, the phone rings.
Mom: "Hello?"
Mom: "Okay, did you call the police?"
Mom: "Okay, where are you?"
At this point I'm getting my jacket and car keys.
Mom: "What street are you near? Okay, calm down. Call me back."
Mom: "Bear's car broke down in Auburn. She doesn't know where she is."
Me: "Okay. I've got the cell phone...I'll start heading down there and you can call me when you know where she is."
Mom: "Okay."
My sister Jess (20) and I hopped in the car to drive to Auburn (about a 30 minute drive.) 5 minutes down the road, Mom calls and says they got the car running and not to worry about it. We turn around, and 2 minutes after walking back into the house, they've broken down again. But this time they know where they are. So we go. We arrive to find them parked in someone's front yard. Apparently some guy had come out and screwed something to the battery to fix it earlier, but they made it a block before it died again. A policeman had stopped the first time they'd broken down. Watched them take off again, and then when they broke down again, came by with the helpful comment, "Ya'll didn't make it too far didja?" The car is a stick-shift, which only Jess and Bear know how to drive and Bear had washed her hands of it. We decided if we could get the car going fast enough, she could kick it into second and go. So it's Thanksgiving day, and I'm in someone's front yard pushing a car down a street. Jess kicks it into second, and it goes. We make it through most of Auburn...Jess just kept revving the car at the lights.

We make it to the railroad tracks, which are conveniently both on a hill and immediately followed by a light. So you have a hard time seeing the person in front of you, and might get stuck at the light and resultingly have to sit on the tracks. Of course, we get stuck at the light, and the car dies. With my parents' car (that I'm driving) right behind Jess...at the top of the hill...and virtually invisible to the people coming up behind me. We jump out of the car and immediately begin pushing the car again. Except this time we're pushing up a hill. And it's not happening. To make a really long story slightly abbreviated, the battery was dead. Very very dead. And the alternator was also in questionable shape. We ended up jumping the car approximately 7 times...and had a three car caravan going home cause we eventually were too scared to have to get out and push the car on the highway. Wussed out and called my Dad. But when we got home, it was 2 PM and Mom had the food on the table. Mmm Thanksgiving. Which leads us to....
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Scene 5: The kitchen. Aunt Jonnie's out with my Dad. We're figuring out where all the food is going to go. Jen pulls out the huge vat of marinated vegetables my Aunt brought.
Jen: "We have to serve the vegetables Aunt Jonnie brought."
Me: "Oh my God have you guys tasted those?"
Mom (who usually eats the disgusting food her relatives make with a smile on her face): "I'm pretty sure those vegetables are rotten."
Me: "Are you kidding me?! I ate some last night!"
Mom: "And you're still here...so it hasn't grown into botulism yet."
Me: "Ha. Ha. Seriously, I thinks he brought those specifically for me. Stupid vegetarianism."
Mom: "Good! You can eat them! Except you probably really shouldn't."
Me: "What are we going to do? She's going to notice that none of it's gone."
Mom: "Think we should get rid of some of it?"
Me: "Yes!"
So we had Jen go dump some of it in the woods. And then we put some of it in our napkins during the meal. I hate to say it, but as a trained public health professional, I will. In many cases, old people cooking is dangerous. Particularly in my Mom's family...where the women never die. They just get older and more forgetful of food safety. Seriously. My grandmother has a "utility room" that's pretty much made of concrete and stays about 2 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. In Alabama, that means about 75 as a low. She calls it her "cool room" and treats it as a giant refrigerator. Just sets a ham out on the table down there. For days. Then tries to feed it to you later. The room needs a skull and crossbones on the door.
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Scene 6: In the kitchen. Mom and Dad are walking in with groceries. Jo, Jen, Bear, Kylie-poo and I are unloading them. All of a sudden, Mom starts screaming.
Mom: "AUUGH!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!!"
At this point Dad is dying laughing, and Mom is on the verge of tears.
Me: "Mom, he's just messing wi- HOLY CRAP THAT IS A HUGE FREAKING BUG!!"
Mom: "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF OF MEEEE!!!"
She's succeeded in knocking the largest bug of all time from her shirt onto her hip. But she doesn't see it. I am still shrieking just for the hell of it. And she takes off running. Jo follows her. She gets to the kitchen door before RIPPING HER SHIRT OFF AGAIN. Lucky for Kylie-poo, she was out of his field of vision. :-p I follow her into the bedroom where she is looking (topless) for the bug. We find it in the blinds and let it out the window. I go back to the kitchen while Mom looks for a new shirt.
Dad: "Man when I saw that bug, I couldn't resist."
Me: "You put it on her?!?"
Dad: "Of course."
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Scene 6: On the way to church on Sunday. Somehow we've gotten into a discussion about Mexico? I'm not really sure how it happened.
Jo: "Jenny, you can't speak Mexican."
Jen: "Yes I can...I had to take a class."
Jo: "Fine, say something."
Jen: "Brainos dias."
Jo: "What does that mean?"
Jen: "It means have a good day."
We decided at that moment not to let Jen help Jo with her spanish homework later in life.
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So that's about it. I've got a family full of nuts, sadists, and streakers, but we have a good time.
Plus we went to see "Happy Feet" and can you find anything cuter than a tap-dancing baby penguin? I submit that you can not. So that's about it...you can go now. Seriously, go.

FREESTYLE!

Hangnail? I'll get the defibrillator! *

Today I got out of the office! Woo! My boss signed a few interested parties (i.e. me and two other people that would rather be anywhere than sitting in the office) up to take an EKG interpretation class at a hospital across town. I've realized that I'm too lazy to create organized paragraphs and much prefer to use bulleted points. It's less effort. And I'm totally into low energy expenditure. So without further adieu, my list.

1. The class cost $125 to attend. No idea why...I was there all day today and was never given anything. Certainly nothing worth $125. Not even juice or cookies! (Very disappointing.) Anyway, a couple weeks ago my boss gave me a check for $125 made out to the hospital to pay for the course. I believe her exact words were, "Make sure you don't lose this...it was a pain in the neck getting the foundation to cut us a check." And I believe my exact words were, "Umm...can you just hold onto it for me until it's time to go?" I'm pretty sure that she kept it for me...but she denies it. Anyway, the point is that I lost the check**. So, my two coworkers (who had not lost their checks) and I showed up to the class in the morning, and I pretended to sign in under a hospital's name that had pre-paid for their participants. In essence, today I stole EKG training. Cause I sure as hell wasn't cutting a $125 check out of my pocket...and I wasn't going to tell my boss I'd lost the check. Flying under the radar baby. ;)

2. The class was held in the hospital's auditorium. AKA an old church. Because in Alabama, many buildings are either a. former churches b. current churches or c. warehouses being used as churches. There's a road in my parents' town that literally has 10 churches in a one-mile stretch. 9 of the 10 are Baptist churches. And those 9 are none too happy about the Jehovah's Witnesses on the block. Anyway, the room had wicked high ceilings. Which meant it was a nightmare to thermoregulate. And our teacher was in menopause (I assume.) "Are ya'll hot? Cause I'm 'bout to get naked up here. Ya'll just wait til you get 50, fat, and hormonal...then you'll wanna run the air conditioner in November too!" She had to keep stopping class to adjust the fan blowing directly on herself. I had to keep pausing to see if my jacket would zip any further up. Like over my head. Such was the coldness.

3. The class was entitled "EKG Interpretation." If the teacher would've named it, I'm sure it would've been called "How to keep your patient from goin' to meet Jesus." Cause that's all she kept telling us to avoid. "If you see this rhythm, you're gonna wanna go make sure your patient isn't going to his eternal reward." Thanks for the tip.

4. Sitting in class all day really reminded me of how much I love school. Loooove school. I love knowing the answers. I love learning new stuff. I think the main thing is that I love truly understanding how things work. If I find someone that actually understands something thoroughly...it doesn't matter what topic...I will listen with rapt attention. Because I want to know. And this teacher was good. She has an extreme Southern accent, and questionable social filters (I know I wouldn't threaten a classroom full of licensed professionals with my nudity) but she knew EKGs. I sat through one day of class, and now all I want to do is cardiovert somebody. I want to do EKGs on everybody...and then when I find a weird rhythm, I wanna zap somebody. Seriously. I think it would be awesome. Reason number 243 to go to med school: Cardioversion.

5. To sum up, my Christmas wish list:

• Portable EKG Monitor
• Defibrillator
• A good lawyer

Tomorrow...EKG class: Part II. This time I'm bringing a blanket. And snacks. ;)

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* I totally stole this title

** I did not lose the check.

News You Can't Really Use for Any Discernible Purpose

1. I just watched a new episode of "Gilmore Girls." I generally catch GG in reruns on ABC family, but I just happened upon a new episode and decided to glimpse into the future. News flash GG fans: The future is a dark and terrifying place. Seriously, I wish I could erase the last 30 minutes of my life. Things that should never have happened, have happened. It's not pretty. I don't know where the series derailed, but it has gone hopelessly off the path. I have a lot of catching up to do to figure out just what the hell happened. Arg.

2. Overheard in the office today: "The lady was about 79 years old and needed a colonoscopy. We drug her up and start puttin' in the tube. As soon as that tube touches her rear end, she jumps and kind of murmurs "Oh, Harold!" Sounded like Harold was gettin' it!" I work with really disturbed people.

3. One word for you guys that are swearing by Airborne: waste. Taking Airborne is the equivalent of eating some fruit. It's basically a multivitamin with some baking soda. And here's the thing about vitamins: you can take as much of them as you like, you're just going to pass the excess in your urine. So Airborne, which has 1,670% the Daily Value of Vitamin C, is a waste of vitamins. You're going to get what you need, and then you're going to have some pretty nutritious pee. Yum.

4. I am indescribably excited about this movie. Seriously. It's a movie about penguins. And one of them tap dances. And one of them is voiced by Robin Williams. What could go wrong with this movie? Of course, I also said that about RollBounce. Whatever dude. Dancing penguins, I'm there. :)

Guess Who's Back?!?

Hopefully he's not actually back, but it was a bizarre coincidence to see him. Longtime readers may remember creepy neighbor guy from his previous appearances on this blog here, and here.

Yesterday I was leaving work to go check on a patient, and as I walked down the sidewalk someone honked at me. I ignored it and kept walking, but the honking persisted. So I finally turned around, and who's there? Creepy Neighbor Guy, stopped in the road waving at me. I wave back and continue walking to the parking lot with another coordinator. I told my coworker a little of the backstory of creepy neighbor guy, and he just laughed at me.

4 hours later, we were walking back to the office. Someone honks at me. I look up, and CNG is pulling his car up next to the sidewalk. He's blocking traffic and rolling down his window.

CNG: "HI! How are you? It has been a long time since we have seen eachother!"

Me: "Yeah."

CNG: "So I am just over here for an appointment, do you work down here?"

Me: "That's good. Yeah, I work somewhere over here."

CNG: "Oh, that's cool. I need to get your number so we can get together for coffee and catch up!"

Me: "Oh, there are cars behind you. You better go, it was good seeing you!"

I couldn't believe we saw him twice in the same spot in one day after not seeing him for a year. My coworker said he probably just did laps around the building waiting for us to come back.

Creepy.

If You're Going to See "Babel" DON'T READ THIS

Seriously, spoilers galore, don't read this post. I'm basically going to tell you everything about this movie.

S, P, and I went to see "Babel" tonight. You know the preview? Exciting music, Brad Pitt looking angry, some implication that it's like the bible story and people are no longer able to communicate with one another? It looked great and we were pretty stoked to see it. Oh, also, the new Will Smith movie trailer sucked. I have no desire to see a shabby looking Will Smith overcome adversity as a stock broker. None.

So the movie begins in the desert, and a dude sells somebody a gun. And the music is slow and boring, and there are lots of long and lingering shots of landscape. And landscape in the desert consists of rocks. Lots of rocks and sand. About 15 minutes in to this 2.5 hour snoozefest, I realize I've been had. I've been punk'd by Brad Pitt. He has suckered me into watching a movie that will slowly suck my soul from my body. Seriously, the most boring movie ever.

The film basically has 4 plots that are connected (actually, 3 connected and 1 that they threw in and probably came up with a connection for it at the last minute because it's ridiculous.):
1. Moroccan Family: Father, wife, 2 sons, and a daughter. Goatherders...pervert son who's good with a rifle...daughter who thinks it's cool to strip for her brother...and son who is an irritating whiny tattletale. Pervert son accidentally shoots American tourist.
2. American Tourists: Brad Pitt and wife Cate Blanchett...this was probably the most exciting plot simply because someone gets shot. About 30 minutes in, I began wishing someone else would be shot. About an hour in, I began wishing that someone would be me.
3. Kids With Mexican Nanny: These are actually Brad and Cate's kids that were left at home, but they have their own crazy subplot that involves a trip to Mexico and Gael Garcia Bernal. Sadly, the best thing about this subplot is the part where a guy rips the head off a chicken. The worst part is that the daughter is the sister of Dakota Fanning. And man do I hate that kid.
4. Deaf/Mute Japanese Chick: Holy crap this was the weirdest plot. Basically the plot is, the chick is horny. That's it. I started hoping someone would take care of that for her because I really didn't want to have to see her naked again. And I mean naked. It's the second movie in a week that I've seen full-frontal nudity in. Did some rule change? I don't remember ever seeing full frontal before now. And quite honestly, I could do without it. They don't seem to be doing it with anyone remotely attractive. Blech. And this plot's connection with the rest of the film is that her father gave the rifle used in the shooting to the guy that sold the gun to the family in the first place. Know why her Japanese father gave some Moroccan dude a gun? Moroccan guy was his guide on a hunting trip. What the hell were they hunting in that desert?!? Goats?!? They were really reaching with that one. So stupid.

I think the best way I could describe it is this:
Seeing "Babel" is like being punched in the face. For two and a half hours straight.

So save your money. So then you can see "Happy Feet" twice next week. Laters! :)

Dispatches from the Other Side of my Eyelids.

I love the word "dispatches." Everytime I think of it, I think of letters written with a quill and a pot of ink, bound together with a piece of twine, placed lovingly into a leather saddle, and riding away on horseback with a messenger who understands that its contents include the most precious thoughts of their sender. I would have named my blog something that includes the word "dispatch," but I'd already named it "A Caffeinated Place." After a line in an Our Lady Peace song. Which kicks ass. Maybe next time, dispatches.

In other news, I haven't been to sleep in a long time. Like, I woke up on November 8th at 6 AM, and now it's 1 PM on the 9th long. That kind of length that makes you think that your life
a. may not exist
b. is definitely not worth living with this many call days and
c. is running in syndication on God's version of Comedy Central. (Along with Colbert Report...because God knows that Steven Colbert is the funniest guy on the planet. He made him that way.)

I spent the night on a neurointensive care unit...taking care of a patient. Overheard?
50 yr. old man with head injury singing alone in his room: "Save a horse, ride a cowboy!"
60 yr. old man with head injury while nurse emptied his bedside urine: "You ain't the police, is ya?"
Male nurse taking care of a 20 yr old guy with a ventriculostomy* :"Dude...you just can't rock a ventric."

I think the funniest thing about last night, was people-watching in the ICU. "Squeeze my fingers!" "John, grab my boob! I know you want to!" or the unforgettable "You can't have any Bugles, Mr. Johnson! You're having surgery!" But in the room in front of me, there was a young guy. Probably 20 something. And he was recovering from some sort of head injury...was obeying commands, but couldn't talk or anything. Could smile just a bit. The doctor would come by and ask him to perform simple commands, and he wouldn't do it. The nurse would ask, and he'd do his strained half-smile, and lift his arms. Or squeeze fingers. Or stay away from Bugles. As she walked around his room, changing blankets, drawing labs, even emptying catheters, his eyes always followed her. He'd move his head if it meant he could have a longer glimpse of her.

It made me think of my parents. They met when my mother was taking care of my father in an SICU. She was the nurse, he was the patient, it was true love. They never even went on a date before marrying. And they've been together 24 years. It made me think that I could be witnessing the beginning of something amazing. She may not have noticed the way he drank her in with his eyes...he may not have realized that she went home every night and prayed he'd be there the next day. But maybe they'd both realize it before it was too late.

I think my father does the best job of relaying how he truly felt at the time that he realized his nurse was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

"Samantha, I was on a lot of morphine."

Ahh....c'est l'amour.

Sweet dreams ;)

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*Where they drain fluid through a hole in your head to relieve intracranial pressure and prevent progression to brain death. You know that thing on tires where you put the air in? It looks like one of those..except clear plastic...and with a tube coming out of it. Not sexy.

License to Drill

Now I remember why I hate going to the dentist. I just spent an hour and a half pretty much standing on my head. I was excited because I thought I would get the silver fillings out and replaced with white ones. In fact, I now have white and silver swirled fillings. And now I know what I missed out on when my parents wouldn't let me eat paint chips as a child. My mouth tastes like I've been gnawing on dried up white-out.

Deep Space 9's on. And I'm regaining feeling on the left-side of my face....and they've only got two fillings left to do. So this will be a 2 day saga rather than three. Find the silver (and white-swirled) lining I guess.

Heavy Metal

Welcome to Day One of the the three day saga. Samantha's getting fillings.

This shouldn't be a big deal. I have a ton of fillings from the dental nightmare that was my childhood since moving to Alabama. Prior to the move, I never had any dental issues. Teeth looked great, blah blah blah. Then I moved here and in one blow needed four fillings. Questionable. And the dentist told me that I was "genetically predisposed to cavities" because my mother's teeth are so bad. In retrospect, I don't remember him genotyping me, but whatever. So over the few years that we went to that dentist, I was always in need of at least a filling. Every time. Eventually my father got hip to the racket and we switched dentists.

We switched to a chick who cursed like a sailor while talking about the new baby nursery she was building. This is the dentist that replaced all the other dentist's fillings, and added some of her own. That was the summer of 15 fillings. The summer that I gave up on the dentist. So, after that, you'd think that a few more fillings wouldn't be a big deal. And you'd be correct.

I got a full night of sleep last night, unlike the nights of my childhood where I laid awake all night dreading the torture that stretched out before me. I woke up this morning and realized I was kind of looking forward to the fillings today. Know why? And this is the sad part. It's giving me an excuse to leave work. I'm leaving in about 20 minutes. I'm going to get shot in the mouth, pre-existing metal is going to be drilled and removed, and more metal will go in its place. I won't be able to feel my mouth for a few hours, and when I finally am able to close my mouth completely, I'll be tasting sand and chunks of whatever the heck they use. It will be unpleasant, and I will be hungry and unable to eat, and it will not be fun.

And yet, it still beats the pants off of sitting in my office doing nothing but being occasionally hugged by the creepy smoker guy. For the small price of an hour or so of pain and misery, I'll be rewarded with the ability to go home early, put on my pajamas, lay on the couch and watch Star Trek and netflixed movies.

Plus I can watch Gilmore Girls while he's working. It's kind of win/win. Laters!

Missing

I let someone borrow my copy of Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation." And I really want to re-read it, and I don't think whoever it was returned it to me. And I can't remember who it was...but I suspect they read this blog.

So, if you have my book, drop me a line, give me a call, hurl it like a brick through my window...whatever your preferred method.

Thanks!

"This Stuff Happens Everywhere." *Now with updates*

Phone Rings
Me: "Hello?"
Mom: "What's a Flava-Flav?"
Me: "Umm...he's a rapper. I think. And he's gross. Why do you ask?"
Mom: "Do you think his show is appropriate for eleven-year-olds to be watching?"
Me: "Mom, I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to be watching. I can't stand more than 10 seconds of it. Why??"
Mom: "Do you think it would be appropriate for showing in a sixth-grade classroom?"
Me: "Hell no. Are you kidding me?"
Mom: "Apparently Jo's sub decided that it was."

So my youngest sister Jo is in sixth grade in rural Alabama. Where crazy nightmare situations occur all the time and yet my parents keep sending her back. This is the same school that allowed my then 8-year-old sister to fracture her arm playing basketball and then tell her she didn't need to go to the nurse. The same system where the principal's wife fired a shotgun into a car full of cheerleaders (actually hit one in the back of the neck) and didn't spend a day in jail. The same system with the embezzling preacher/counselour. It's a real winner, let me tell ya.

Me: "Who was the sub?"
Mom: "Ms. Thiefy McGee*. Remember back when I worked at the hospital?** I turned her into DHS cause she was stealing her grandfather's social security checks. Then she called the hospital and threatened to sue me for slander. I told her to do it. Of course she never did...wish she had***."
Me: "How'd you find out about the show?"
Mom: "Jo seemed pretty upset after school, and your father knew something was wrong but she wouldn't tell him. But when she got home she told Jen and she made Jo tell us. I'm writing a letter detailing what Jo says she saw. I'm so mad right now."
Me: "What'd she see?"
Mom: "Well, according to her she saw "women in bikinis being spanked by a man wearing a big clock, a man who was naked except the little blurry thing, and a man and woman humping." Jo said her classmate told her that's what they were doing. And the teacher told them to "Be quiet, I haven't seen this episode." And also instructed them not to tell their parents they were watching this. It's all going in my letter."
Me: "Nice. For the love of God will you please move someplace where people are sane?"
Mom: "Samantha, you're going to have corruption and bad teachers everywhere you go. This kind of stuff happens everywhere."

Based on my little stat tracker, I'd say most of my readers are not from Alabama. With that in mind, a question. Have any of you people ever seen half the crap that happens at this school come anywhere remotely near happening at your or your children's schools!?? Honestly if they were all like this, I'd start preparing for homeschooling. But I remember my elementary school days. They seemed considerably more sedate. And maybe it's that times are changing. But I'm fairly certain it's just that my family has positioned itself directly over the portal to some coked-out parallel universe. Who in their right mind shows Flava of Love to 11 year olds?!??

Mom's going to see the principal this morning. And that same sub's scheduled to teach today. If she's there, Mom's plucking Jo out of class. I told her to call me afterwards. My mother's already the bane of the superintendent's existence. Maybe the lady will want to sue Mom again. I'll keep you guys posted. ;)

^^^Okay, Mom went to the school this morning. The sub was there. The principal removed the sub and put her on a year's probation from teaching there. Here's my question: what are the qualifications for being a sub? From what I remember, they're glorified babysitters. They don't teach you anything. So really you should be able to get anyone to do it. Which means you shouldn't be hard up and should be able to tell this woman she is never allowed to sub there again. But whatever. I wasn't looking for a rational resolution to this whole thing. It is Alabama. I've learned not to expect much.^^^
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*Names have been changed to protect the guilty. And also because I can't remember the chick's name.
**My Mom was director of nursing at the local hospital for a number of years.
***There is nothing that my mother loves more than getting in fights with people. Loves it. And I fully support it cause it entertains the hell out of me. And because most of the time these people desperately need their asses kicked.

My New Year's Has a First Name

Okay...so I'm going to Philadelphia for New Year's. I can't tell you how excited I am about this*...and the reasons why are going to reveal what a loser I am but I don't care.

1. This will be my first New Year's Eve not spent counting my father's fingers and yelling for him to avoid potholes in the yard as he runs from the fireworks he's just lit.
2. This will be my first New Year's Eve with alcohol instead of sparkling white grape juice (which I freely admit I prefer to champagne.)
3. This will be my first New Year's Eve spent with my boyfriend.
4. This will be my first New Year's Eve with snow in over a decade. (I assume there will be snow. Better get on that planning committee.)
5. This will be my first New Year's Eve with a snazzy nickname. Philoney '07 baby.

And so I'm really excited. I get to meet Adina...I get to figure out where the hell Philadelphia is...it's all gold. And if this goes well I have a proposal.

If I have to stay in Birmingham everyone has to come south. Birmingham Alabama On New Year's Eve**. The cool kids will probably call it "BALONEY '08."***

It's gonna be great.

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* I can and I will.
**I know some of you are thinking "Don't you need a comma between the city and state?" And the answer is no. Commas are dead to me.
***Tom will probably call it "BALONYE '08." But he can come anyway. ;)

Bingo Mondays and Salsa Saturdays

Today sucks. Today didn't suck until about an hour ago...but then it devolved into a nightmare situation. My job includes working weekends. And when you're on call for a weekend you earn a free weekday off. If you're on 1st or 2nd call Friday that means that you get Thursday off. If you're on 3rd call Friday you get to stay at home or whatever... cause the odds of them needing a 3rd call person are pretty low. So I went to work today thinking "It's all good...I'm off tomorrow...woo!" At about 1 PM my coworker asked if I was coming to work tomorrow. (It's kind of a tradition at my place of employment that people just don't show up on Fridays. Unless you're on call.) I said that I wouldn't be around because I was on 3rd call. "Um...no you're not." "Yeah....I'm on 3rd tomorrow." "No. You're on 2nd tomorrow."

And that's when I realized that I was at work on my day off. That I had wasted an opportunity to sleep in. That I had spent the day playing Line Rider in my office when I could have been playing it at home. It's a terrible realization. It's sad and it's angry and it makes you bitter and dark inside. It makes you want to lash out at others and eat frozen cookies. In that spirit I am going to go eat frozen cookies. And watch Star Trek. Both Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation. That's right. I watch Star Trek. In fact it's probably the best reason I can come up with for quitting my job. Such is my love.

Also this post is devoid of commas. I declare it "Comma-Free Thursday." You knew someone was going to be made to pay for my wasted day. Sorry punctuation. You lose.

I can't believe that just happened

I was on some stupid new site about music. www.ilike.com. And I was setting up a profile...you know, to try it out, see what it's like. And it says that the more people that you know with profiles, the better the whole thing works blah blah blah. That's not the point. The point is that it asks you to import contacts...so I imported my gmail thing cause there was no button to skip this step. And then when it was taking too long, I clicked the button at the bottom thinking it said "do this step later." No. It said "send and continue." And when my contact list popped up, it had everyone checked. Every. One.

The Dean of the School of Public Health. BU med school's head of admissions. Ex-boyfriends. The chick from Hopkins whose emails I never answer and if she ever calls me I was planning to deny even having an email address. Every single person I've ever sent an email to.

I am so completely mortified I could die right now.

In the meantime, check your email. You probably heard from me.