Frasier Fir

This is an awesome tree. Still smells grreat! We waited til the last minute and paid a quarter of the original cost.

Gums

Ouch, I had gum surgery yesterday. 
So I got a bottle of OxyCodone (5/500 - which means 1 tab is 5mg oxycodone and 500mg acetaminophen) for the pain
and a bottle of a medicinal mouthwash that so happens to be 12% alcohol. 
I could be a junkie.

ben harper

so, ben harper married laura dern on xmas. he's so hot. (BAM, he's your man.)

when i happened to google him, i found a review of his Diamonds on the Inside album on a christian blah-blah site...here's a fast read:

Faith is a regular subject in Harper's work, but his private life is another matter. He has been known to smoke marijuana, and his music sometimes includes racy themes of "sexual healing." Perhaps he's since grown out of those tendencies, now that he's a family man. And in interviews, he regularly calls himself a "believer" to whom faith is important. Are these spiritual references in Harper's songs sincere or are they simply done for style? There are many conflicting factors at work concerning Ben Harper, so it's probably best to take Diamonds on the Inside at face value—a delightful crossroads of musical styles that offers some seemingly well-intentioned declarations of faith.

it's an awesome album btw.
i've only see him live once at ACL fest 2003.
he'll be at the Vic in Chicago this July...i will have to be there.

Merry Christmas

Getting ready for Christmas Mass (Christmass...hehhe) with a little sore throat.
Not bad about the throat. After having kids cough in my airspace (and even in my face)
for the last 3 months, not bad.

On Thursday, I almost cried at work. I sent a patient to the OR to get a new kidney. That means goodbye dialysis, hello urine, and much better health. She was so excited. And her mother was on the horn updating friends and relatives. Another patient of ours who got his kidney last summer was there to cheer her on. Ya see, after being in and out of the hospital all your life, you become friends with the other kids you see there. So on Thursday, not only did I feel like a nurse, I felt like a coach. Go team kidney.

Gmail

Gmail, I'm getting a root canal b/c you're so sweeeeet!
Have you noticed the links to recipes with Spam in your Gmail spam folder?
Cute...and I bet there's a cookbook full of these recipes in the Phillippines...as a wartime staple and a common breakfast food (fried with rice, of course) now.

Just Googled "Gmail spam" and found this...you can send an autoreply to emails...
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/gmail-vacation-autoresponder/

Welcome to Houston's Bush

Just home from work. I'm eating a tortilla from Pappasito's Cantina, Houston...so good...nothing you can get from any of the poor excuses for taqueria's here. Spent 4 days in Houston for an early Christmas with the family. Good time, good food, good to see the family. Like last year, we started a Thomas Kincaid 1000-piece puzzle, but unlike last year, we didn't finish. My sister left early to take a final.

Now we're back. I have to stay up a little longer than I want...Dental appt coming up in 2 hours.

Last night work was very cool...felt very nursey...saw a typical reaction to a drug.

I earned this tortlla.

What's the difference?

On my walk home from work this morning, I watched the interaction between 7yr son and 40 yr old mother and this made me think of shit.  He was being a little shit and she was doing the same.

What's the difference between stool and feces?  We use the term "stool" and the verb "stooling" at the hospital.
This is what I found on www.m-w.com:

Stool - 3 a : a seat used while defecating or urinating b : a discharge of fecal matter

Feces - bodily waste discharged through the anus : EXCREMENT

Christmas Party

Seems to me the workplace party in December are still called a "Christmas" Party here at Hospital Jr. 

I call them ass expanders.

Follow them size 5's

My savior...some patient's parent popped in the Goonies...it's being broadcasted to all the rooms. 

 

FightFight

Even though I've been up for ther last 14 hours, I caught this HUGE error on the Chicago Trib. Here's a pic in case they figure out it's a FISTFIGHT and not a FIGHTFIGHT...This is not a filipino kid they're talking about (i.e. LingLing)

Oh, fuck it...i can't upload the pic...basically, the headline says fightfight and not fistfight. some poor bastard died and the Chicago Trib bolded a typo for all to see.

Tres Santos

Good coffee from Intelligentsia.
They can get away with playing the Smiths albums.

And Tres Santos is grown by a few Colombian Co-ops.

Each August our Intelligentsia World Exclusive Tres Santos is rebuilt from scratch. There are seven small-scale cooperatives that contribute coffees, and every season we spend weeks cupping and evaluating individual batches of coffee from single farmers, looking for those that really have the glow. Occasionally during the selection process there appears a coffee that quite simply belongs in a league of its own…a coffee so inspiring and with such immaculate taste that allowing it to be blended with anything would be some sort of cosmic sin. Thus is born the micro-lot… as close to perfect as it gets.

the new hottie of Austin:  http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/08/lost.lottery.tix.ap/index.html

 

Snowed...the traffic on La Salle going towards downtown was so slow that I saw an elderly chap in a scooter (a Rascal?) go faster than the cars around him! and when he arrived to his building, the doorman shoveled a path from the street to the sidewalk just for him.

Anyway, my friend K2 and I got to the Chase Auditorium for a taping of NPR/WBEZ's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me...Egon from Ghostbusters was the special guest. Funny guy. This taping was better than the one we saw a few months ago. Mo Rocca and PJ O'Rourke...very funny. the woman, can't think of her name at 5AM was ok.

So I walked in snow, on unplowed sidewalks to get to work. one of the nurses scheduled for 7pm didn't get there until 11pm...she was on the road for 4 hours...another nurse was in the process of getting towed, so she couldn't come in.

Bad news at Midway. Poor kid in a car on 55th who got hit by a Southwest Airline plane and died. They didn't take him to this hospital.

My body is running on greasy taqueria food, cherry coke, and a few cookies from the ER holiday party.

I DO miss texas taqueria food. the stuff here isn't good sober.

Peas out,

sweetyellowcorn

Snow Storm

25 degrees and the snow is falling. A snow storm in Chicago. How news worthy (smirk). Actually, this is causing havoc in the city...traffic galore and delays and cancellations at Ohare and Midway.

Tonight...Snow in the evening. Snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches. Lows in the middle teens downtown and 5 to 10 in the outlying suburbs. East winds up to 10 mph shifting to the west after midnight. Wind chill readings 10 below to zero.

Here is a pic of my court yard.









Here's a pic of the snow coming down.

Double Decker Bus

Bye Bye London's Red Routemaster double deckers.

LONDON (AP) -- After half a century, London's red Routemaster buses are rattling into retirement. Thousands of fans said farewell to the hop-on, hop-off buses Thursday, the last full day of regular service for the icon that has been the subject of thousands of tourists' photographs and postcards.

This will keep Morrissey (and his "girlfriend") safe for another day.
See: "There is a Light That Never Dies" from the Best of...2

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure - the privilege is mine

Wilco

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a really really good album. And I picked it up during my Music Hunger 2004...The girl working at the music store said she liked this album the best out of her others. I listened to it a couple of times and thought, "still hungry." About 2 months ago, I started listening to it again...I love it. Really good. And the on the cover of the album are the Marina Towers, or what many call the Jetson Buildings.

plans

tonight i'm back on the night shift...11pm to 7am. sucks b/c i slept last night. crashed in the middle of the Queens of Comedy on Comedy Central. hopefully i can catch some sleep during the day.

i'm starting on the "secret santa" stuff today. we're supposed to give our person a $25 gift and do 2 good deeds. my first good deed is a "food deed." I'm making some Cayenne Pepper Chocolate Cookie dough...so she (who i am secret santa for) can keep them in the freezer for up to 3 months. i may make her some steamed pork dumplings that she can keep in the freezer, as my second good deed.

Running in 12

last night, my friend K and I ran after sundown in 12 degree weather. and ya know, it wasn't that bad. the snow on the ground makes things, um fun. we were both dressed just right. Check out what RunnersWorld suggests.

Along with hat and gloves, from inner to outer layer I wore:
sleeveless shirt that wicks moister away
longsleeve shirt that wicks
fleece jacket
outer shell of a ski jacket

I wore a scarf just in case.

K wore about the same thing i wore, but she wore silk thermal long johns under her pants...I didn't but i'm getting some today.

Linklater Movie

A Scanner Darkly...Looks very cool. Using the same technique as his Waking Life. The Charles Schwab "Talk to Chuck" commercials use this too.

Maureen Dowd

Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report interviewed Maureen Dowd tonight. I got sick of her about a year ago. Sure she is sharp, but she doesn't use it well all the time. I am not a fan of G.W. Bush, but her op-ed pieces on him got really old. SOrry I don't have any links to let you see what i mean.

Night Shift - The beginning

Tonight, my first night shift

7PM to 7AM...strange to walk to work, with all the stores open, and when everyone else is going home.

I don't mind working nights...I mean, it is expected as a nurse.

But it's really tiring.

The sorority of nurses are up and about...doing nurse business.

Even the cafeteria is open - there's a short-order cook that will make you anything...even big-ass pancakes.

I will sleep WELL after the shift.

Oh, I have heart burn or something. 

 

There's tomorrow night.

Cheers and goodnight.