a good monday

it really was a good day - it zipped by until about 1:30 when it slowed to a crawl, but a lot happened in the meantime.  andrews came to see me this afternoon.  she usually stops in medical records, grabs a cup of coffee and me and we head to the picnic table where we catch up with all that's going on.  in ways, i'm still her secretary.  if she needs help, i'm there...and will proceed until apprehended.

andrews interviewed for the nursing supervisor job today.  i wish her the best and if she really wants the job - i hope she gets it.  but from the looks of her, the stress of doing the job in the interim is getting to her.  she looked wan.  she seemed a little emotional, and after she told me what all had gone on in the past week, i guess there's no wonder.  sometimes, i wish i had toughed it out and stayed at hoke where i could help her and still work with the old gang - twinkles and the like.  but it occurs to me that durney will retire in another couple of years...and there's no telling who will fill the slot, then.  but she needs me, i think...makes me feel like i jumped ship and left my captain to drown.

on a home note, i just came in from the rain a bit ago.  i had to untangle spike, who was wrapped around a tree and crying like a baby because he was getting wet.  so now he's free, but we're both soaked.  my hair is wet, still, and curling. but he and i fared better than the man who went 30 feet up in a tree to rescue his cat - and then couldn't get back down.  his girlfriend had to call the fire department to rescue the both of them.

and i have a doctor's appointment on thursday.  pain in the left upper quadrant, feeling weak and tired...not sure what it is, but it's time to find out.  i've let it go for too long.  it hurts to lay on that side. 

ode to a broken thing

i have been your cheerleader, crossing things, saying - you can do it, it will happen, and eventually it did.  i crossed fingers, legs, toes.  if it could be crossed, i'd do it, and i would this time, but if you don't mind...i think i'll sit this one out.  it isn't like you really need me there in the corner where i always was.  and it's ok...you'll be ok, and probably be a lot happier, and it's not like there was anything to tie us together in any way other than one wanting the the other to be happy.

yeah..i believe i'll sit this one out.  your luck might be better that way, and for me, it's the final break.  and that's probably a good thing.  :-)

coasting in neutral

the news about rockwell is still upsetting.  carol spoke to him yesterday and he said - don't work hard.  don't try to do a good job - they'll just turn on you.  i'm worried about him...he's brittle and delicate right now.

and in the same breath, carol wants me to work some overtime with her, and frankly, i don't mind. the only thing is, my comp time won't go over into month.  i would have to leave early on fridays, and if i work an hour over every day...that would mean leaving at 11 at the end of the week.  OR - if the overtime was approved, i would get money!  that's even better...or i could roll the time over into sick time. that's like money in the bank. pity i can't put it on vacation.

one thing hoke taught me was to shift into another gear.  neutral.  it's almost like being outside of yourself - autopilot? - and doing everything that needs doing.  with national commission coming and the mess we have this time around, that could come in handy. we don't have a hospital administrator at this time.  our superintendent is new. the nursing staff...mostly new.  there are few long timers left who know how to prepare for the accreditation inspection.  and now we don't have a clinical social worker.  i don't think we'll be chosen hospital of the year this time.

 

 

knowing me

i’ve had some time to ponder things today…one of those things was me and how i must project via the net…not sure how that is, but there are bits and pieces of me in the entries i write, whether i’m writing about honeysuckle, or friends, or anything that means something to me. but you can’t really know a person through this medium. it is at best a one dimensional representation. and there are some who might be reading who have met me not once, but many times…

but who am i? if no one else who thought they knew wonders…i do.

i’ve been told many things. i’ve been called inherently sweet, and that may have some merit. by the same token, i’ve been called a bitch, and that might be true too, but i do know while i was being one, my heart wasn’t in it. i’ve been called a poet, but i haven’t seen that side of me in a while, so you have to wonder if what we are is transient, or if bits and pieces of us surge and recede when it’s time for other parts of the puzzle to come into play. i may be a bit of a philosopher. as hazy as these are, some aspects are crystal.

i am a lover of music, art, animals. i am a sensual being who loves textures and scents, flavors, colors and words. i am a creature who likes cozy and warm, a water child who revels in its bouyance, and i am a child of nature who is as comfortable among the hollies and beside a lake as i am by a fireplace. a part of me is pagan, rejoicing in the vibrance of autumn, transitioning into its starkness as easily as turning the page - another chapter of a beautiful book.

i give…unconditionally. i’m happy for others’ good fortune, and if i’ve said to you i love you, i meant it with all my heart and for more than the moment it took to speak the words.

i have a need to see the goodness in others, and to value and celebrate them and their role in my life.

i am strong and vulnerable, and sometimes i have to remember to protect myself. it has taken a long time to know my own value, but it was worth the wait.

because i feel like rambling

i do believe my boss has decided to take me under her wing.  she's always giving me things and today...i was thunderstruck when there on my desk was a bag containing 2 very sexy nightie things.  one was a baby doll satin gown.  the other outfit was a pair of satin shorts with a see through top to match.  she said they were to go with my new body.  and i can pair those with the dangly earrings she gave me..hmm. 

she's the type of woman who has a wicked twinkle in her eye, and i really like that about her.  she and i have a little bit in common!

and she was having a rough day...at noon, we kidnapped her and whisked her to panera bread for chocolate brownies, and boy did she pack 'em away.  three huge brownies - 1 raspberry, 1 caramel and 1 fudge.  i don't know how she ate them all...guess she was overdue for some comfort food.

and it rained all day and will probably rain all night and tomorrow, too.  i'm looking forward to crawling in bed wearing my new nightie and pulling the covers around me and enjoying it all. 

ahhhhh, some things are meant to be indulged in.

 

morning pep talk

my job is not a difficult one, really.  it has its little challenges, yes, but it's nothing like the one i left.  and yet, i find myself giving personal pep-talks - come on girl, you can do it. all you have to do is get there and everything will be ok, and besides - there's coffee there!  and it's a good place to be, you know it is so just get it in gear and go.

yesterday, andrews came to see me.  she told me the replacement ward clerk/secretary stays out a lot and isn't entering the urgent ur's when she IS there.  i know for a fact that things have changed a lot since i was the secretary.  the nurses, upon having to do my job, realized how broad it was and how frustrating it could be, and they have agreed among themselves to pitch in so as not to lose the new secretary...but i knew how she would be.  i had met her previously at the hospital and experienced her attitude.

when andrews told me what was going on, i pulled up the hs16 screen.  nope, nobody trained me, in the beginning, to fix that screen, had to learn myself.  just like chillie, the queen of all ward secretaries did...i went through and jotted down the names and the remedies for resolving the issues on that screen.  if the secretary comes in, i'll fax that to her so she can get that out of the way.  if not, i'll fax it to andrews so she can do it.

and i don't consider myself some hero or anything like that.  i do wonder if i'll ever stop feeling responsible for everything and everybody.

it's the little things

my marriage has been bumpy.  there, i said it.  and there was a time or ten that i threw my hands up and gave up on it, and sometimes i still throw my hands up...and then something happens that makes me put them back down...

we fell alseep on top of the bedspread last night because it was warm in the house.  and this morning, i woke up with a blanket covering me...it was cool in the room, and i must have been cold and didn't know it - but he did.  and he covered me so i would be warmer.

such a simple act of love (how could it be anything else?) and yet...it's such a large thing in the scheme of a marriage or relationship.

i have just come to realize how important those little (large) things are, just when i had given up on them so many years ago.  and now they're back and reciprocal, and damned if they don't work this time around...

i know what it's all about, now.  the little things.

it's saturday

and all the boring, mundane things nobody cares that i did are going right into this journal.  thank god nobody reads it.  it's worse than vanilla...

i miss hoke.  i miss the people there.  every now and then when i'm sitting at the picnic table outside of first aid, some of the officers will come, and if i'm at the gate around 4:30, one of the officers from hoke comes up, on his way to pharmacy to make the daily drug run, and it's so good to see them.  they say mccain is different, and they're right...but hoke is different in a better way.  i guess that's because i fit in with them so well, like there was a slot open and i filled it perfectly.  i like to think i left things between the departments better than i found them...but i don't know about that.  it was never about me, it was THEM.  good people.  a little bit crazy.  a whole lot warped.  there wasn't a person there who thought he or she was better than anyone else.  wait, that's not true.  there was the upper echelon whose egos preceded them down the hallway by 3 feet, but nobody was in contact with them much, anyway.  at any rate, i miss them.

it's saturday, and i'm home alone, rambling away at the keyboard and going over my purchases from last night and making plans for the coming week.  we have...salmon.  ground turkey.  sausage.  shampoo.  lavender ivory soap for my bath.  16 bars of that.  it was on sale for 3.50.  heheheh.  ;-)  black beans. brown rice.  a whole lot of yogurt.  strawberries.  bread.  missing from the cupboard:  pancake mix.  tomato paste. kidney beans.  garlic.

it's an odd thing how, when all is quiet, the mind is everywhere.  i've gone from prison to the grocery store to my kitchen cupboard, and now i'm veering in another direction. housework.  getting spike off that damned chain.  setting You free.  picking sprigs of mint for my empty vases.  taking a bath with my lavender ivory soap.

this is so pointless.

 

 

my boss

is forever giving away her possessions to roberta and me.  last week alone, she gave me a box of books, several vases, a black sheet, a computer hutch, a bench she had put together herself...and a stick of deodorant.  now i have to wonder why she gave me that, of all things.  she SAYS she couldn't wear it because it hurt her, but you just never know.

i'm beginning to feel uncomfortable being given these things,  but i've figured out why - she's bringing her son's things from new york and didn't have room for her old stuff.  periodically she cleans out anyway.  roberta and i save her a trip to the salvation army.

the books were interesting, and provided some insight into her.  one was housecleaning made easy, a cook book, and i forget what the other was, but there was absolutely no fiction.  all were how to's and self-help.  one of the most interesting was a book on mental exercises.  stretching the mind.  and so last night i thumbed through it and thought..i don't have time for all these, but you know what?  i tried some of them this morning.  it is NOT as easy as it seems.

here's one set:  upon waking, count backwards from 100 as fast as you can. easy enough, right? the next is reciting the alphabet, giving each letter a word partner (a-apple, b-boy).  no problem,  the next - name 20 men's names aloud as fast as you can, numbering them as you go (1. Larry 2. Mark, etc).  next you do the same with 20 women's names.  names are no problem - but when you add the number to them - for some reason that's difficult for me! and the next is to number and recite 20 types of food as fast as you can.  the next is to choose one letter of the alphabet and recite as many words, numbering them as you go, that begin with that letter.  all this should take about 5 minutes or so, depending on how stuck you get with the numbers. heheh!

after trying these, the mind does feel warmed up. i'm typing and everything, and i feel alert.  can't argue with that!

but there are different exercises - for concentration, memory (i really need that one), patience...perhaps i CAN find time for them.

tomorrow is thursday

and that means...friday eve.  i'm not wishing my weeks away, but my time away from prison is becoming more important to me.

i got some sleep last night.  after i finally went to bed, i don't think i moved all night long - at least not until 4 this morning when nature called.  and while i was up, since i didn't know if dale had come in last night..i crept into his room to see if he was in bed.  just checking, you know.  i switched the light on, he jumped a mile, exclaimed - MAMA! damn.  and i started laughing and couldn't stop.  didn't think either of us would go back to sleep, but we did.

and so i feel a bit more rested today, but still have a long way to go.  that's what the weekend is for..right?  and right this minute, i'm trying to get ahead on the laundry so the dryer won't be heating the house up come saturday, getting all the dishes washed and put away so i won't have to spend all morning on saturday with wet, wrinkled hands from having them in dishwater. 

i might just sleep all day saturday.  or maybe i'll write.  or go outside and play...or go swimming.  whatever it is, this weekend is for enjoyment.  and i mean it. yeah!

 

so sleepy...

but it was a good day.  we treated roberta to a birthday lunch at golden corral.  and then i decided to finish up dr. schell's clinics no matter what.  three more to go and they'll all be ready for his signature on thursday.  i get so tickled listening to him.  he was zipping through one progress note - subjective, objective, response to treatment, side effects, and then came diagnosis - total silence.  then he chuckled and said...sit tight, we'll come up with a diagnosis.

gotta love it when he talks to the transcriptionist.  i wonder if he knows i'm chuckling with him.

and now i'm tired...can't write another word.

mo and me

something always brings it back.  today, it was paul mccartney singing silly love songs, and the next song on the radio was best of my love, by the eagles.  suddenly, i was 15 years old again, and melissa (mo) and i were at my uncle's house, walking back from britt's store, singing best of my love.  we did that from jr. high up - sang.  she was soprano and i was alto, and we harmonized carly simon, elton john, whoever or whatever caught our ear.  but this time, i remembered the eagles singing..

every night, i'm lying in bed holding you close in my dreams
thinking about all the things that we said and coming apart at the seams.
we tried to talk it over, but the words come out too rough...
but here in my heart, i'll give you the best of my love.

then mo and i would go into the chorus.  and there was a beautiful song from godspell that was perfect for us, a duet -

where are you going, where are you going?
will you take me with you
for my hand is cold and needs warmth.
where are you going?

far beyond where the horizon lies
where the horizon lies
and the land sinks into mellow blueness

oh please, take me with you.
let me skip the road with you.
i can dare myself...i can dare myself
i'll put a pebble in my shoe and watch me walk
i can walk and walk

i shall call the pebble dare
i shall call the pebble dare
we will walk, we will talk together
about walking.  Dare shall be carried
and when we both have had enough
i will take him from my shoe singing,
meet your new road.
then i'll take your hand
finally glad
that i am here, by your side.

want you always with me by my side.

we loved that song.  and i think mo and i would have adored karaoke. 

i hear she's in greensboro now, managing a red lobster restaurant, married to a cop she met there.  it's something, isn't it, how closeness and knowing turns into distance and rumor, but when i think of music or hear certain music, i think of her and how we belted out tune after tune, loving every minute of it - one voice a perfect complement to the other.

that's not a bad way to be remembered...as music.

 

busy busy busy

i'm ready for that vacation to new jersey now, but i've had a great time getting that way.  the kids had a blast this weekend.  sara has been so sweet, and josh spent the night with uncle steve and brandon..and the x-box.  that kid is so smart.  i talked with his dad and we discussed how gifted he is.  apparently, the school wants to move him up a couple of grades, but jeremy doesn't want that just yet.  and i can't blame him, really.  hard to believe he's only 7.

he told me - you're not like a grandma.  and i was getting a little bit upset that he would feel that way until he told me - grandma's are supposed to be slow.  you beat my high score on pin ball!

and so, my weekend is almost over now.  the house isn't quite a wreck, but it was worth everything i didn't get done to spend some time with the children.  i remember what it was like to be a mom all those years ago when my own were small.

only now, it's better, because i can take off at a moment's notice or plan for a vacation in new jersey or have coffee at the picnic table and still give as much as is needed of me.

a flashlight named mary

there is no doubt in my mind that the same blood in my veins runs through sara's.  this morning, she and joshua were playing catch the fairy - something i've never heard of. they shine the flashlight on the floor or walls and move around quickly - and one tries to catch it.

well, sara calls the flashlight "mary".  and after josh was tired of playing, she decided it was my turn to pay attention to mary.  "if you don't play, mary's going away and you'll never see her again!" 

well, poor mary's batteries were getting kind of low and i pointed that out to sara.  "look - she's tired.  mary needs to rest a little bit so she can shine later."

and she turned it off, rocked the flashlight and instructed me to be quiet so mary could sleep.

i have never done that, but i do name my appliances, cars, etc. 

and it might be a wise idea to invest in a baby doll for the child.  i have no toys in this house, forcing my granddaughter to adopt instruments of illumination.

my son

i don't care if he's 18.  when midnight rolls around, he's supposed to be home and when 4 a.m. rolls around, he'd DAMNED sure supposed to be home.  but he isn't and i'm sick with worry because i can't find him and i don't have the faintest clue where to look.

i hate goodbyes

this morning, i was invited to go to ava's party.  and i did - and it was so good to see all my old co-workers again.  dr. h, allen, lt. jacobs, andrews...and ava.

she was teary-eyed a time or two, but told the best stories.  being a former psych nurse, she has quite a few to tell, and i'll record those eventually. 

she really is an admirable woman.  she is as tough as nails and softer than cotton, and a lot of lives are better for her having been in them. and some lives were not made better by her...but she always did what she thought was right. 

and so, i spent an hour with old friends and said my goodbyes to a helluva nurse.  the rest of the day was frantic.  my boss, carol, is scattered these days and needs a little extra help.  that's a sure sign someone feels overwhelmed.  i did manage, though, to get through half of doctor schell's 5/25 clinic and should have less than 15 more progress notes and psych evaluations to go.  not too bad.  they should be caught up by his next clinic date. 

transcription sure does increase typing speed.

and now...it's about to rain.  my coffee is ready, josh is on his way over and i'm gonna go have a few quiet minutes to settle my thoughts.

 

 

well...it's thursday

and i am pleased that it is.

the holiday and the class messed my week up - don't feel i've gotten anything accomplished.  sometimes it feels like i'm spinning tires.  but it'll get better - if i go to work early enough, i'll have an hour to work on the things i need quiet to work on.

i had planned to visit my parents this evening, but bessie is always there.  always.  it doesn't matter what time i go over, there she is, and there is no opportunity to visit with my parents.  she manages to dominate the conversation.  frankly, i'm tired of her.  it looks like she would have a little consideration and let the family have some time. 

she was my uncle's second wife.  oddly enough, she was his first wife's good friend - and when first wife got sick, she started hanging out at the uncles house, baking..cooking...cleaning.  same thing she's doing at mom's.  and she SMOKES in the house.  i don't even smoke around my mother.  that would be like one more nail for the coffin, but does bessie care?  and she gives a woman who can't walk 5 feet without being winded (due to her heart functioning at 20%) an EXERCISE BIKE?  i'm sorry - but something ain't right here.  we know her MO.

then again, she might just be lonely...hell, i don't know.  i would just like to visit my parents. without extra company.