Another "I Hate People" Moment

Or more accurately another moment in my life where it makes me sad to be part of the human race. I have disabled comments on my blog. Now, logic is probably suggesting that I did this because I got a nasty comment that I just couldn't handle and I never wanted it to happen again. Sadly, this is not the case. It was another blog that inspired this decision. I've been getting regular feeds from several of my favorite blogs for quite some time now and while I'm doing this to read the blog and not the comments sometimes I feel the need to know what others think about a specific post. Every time I go to the comment section I am pretty disappointed in humanity. Because people are allowed to post their comments anonymously or with a user name like "goddess894374" people think that they can say whatever the fuck they feel like. I saw a humor blog comment section turn into a race riot in less than 20 posts. A HUMOR BLOG. A blog meant to inspire laughter or good feelings. When a race riot isn't started in a comment section ignorance reigns supreme. Misspelling and grammatical atrocities that make it painful to decipher what the moron was even trying to say in the first place. I just can't take it.

And even though I don't get comments often enough for this to really matter on my little blog I don't think I've gotten any overly profound comments that I feel I'll be loosing out by not hearing what the world has to say. Most of the people who do read my blog and feel the need to comment about something talk to me on a regular basis and can say these things to me. Face to face. Or at least over the phone. I don't need the comments. Negative or positive. I'll live in my own little bubble where I can pretend people aren't comprised of 90% assholes/morons.

Patient Tales #542

I've skipped posting a lot of them.... because why would I exaggerate or make up a number like that?

I'm sure anyone reading my blog has been to the doctors at least one time in their adult life. This is assuming I have anyone still reading my blog after such sporadic postings, of course. And, of course, when you are at the doctor you get the wonderful clipboard with bullshit papers that you have to fill out every time you go in even though they already have all the information and you've deemed them tree killers (or is that just me and my doctor's office? Seriously, I have to fill out a demographic sheet every f'ing time I go there.). So the doctor I work for has these amazing demographic sheets as well. The worksheet we have is only one page of actual filling out and then the standard HIPPA regulation page that the patients only have to sign so I don't count it as actually filling out. Our demographic page looks much like any other doctor form you've filled out over a lifetime. But are you one of those special individuals that likes to tell your life story via patient registration sheets? Because apparently the patients our facility attracts constant enter into TMI land.
Over the course of the three and a half years that I have been entering information from these pages I have noticed several trends:
1. Marital Status
Apparently Single, Married, and Divorced are just not enough to explain our patient's marital status. We need to switch to the facebook style and have an 'it's complicated' option -- now I'm a little tempted to put that in the next time I have to fill out that bullshit. In all the time I've been working on these things I have seen many "happily married" with varying amounts of smiley faces surrounding this, "NA" not applicable -- because they are neither single nor married nor divorced they are beyond these trivial human word associations, "in the process of a shitty divorce" and there certainly wasn't enough room for that in the space allotted so they were determined to get that off their chest, etc.
2. Allergies
This may be a sensitive subject since I'm sure this varies from office to office of how much info they need, but at the vast majority of offices (excluding an allergist) do not need to know what foods you are (or think you are) allergic to nor do they need to know you have seasonal allergies for which you take over the counter meds. I can't speak for all offices, but when we ask we want to know medicinal allergies. Like penicillin not strawberries. We aren't going to feed you strawberries, but we may need to know about the penicillin. Although telling your waiter that you're deathly allergic to green peppers just to make sure they don't put any in your food is totally acceptable.
3. Current Medications
If you take vitamins good for you. A general broad canvas of "vitamins" or "daily vitamin" is actually more than we care to know about, but still acceptable -- writing down how many and every specific one you take is not. Having a printed up list of all the meds you take, although acceptable, is a little terrifying and generally makes us think you are already on your death bed.
4. Past Operations/Medical Illnesses
Holy crap! I can't even go into all the craziness we experience in this section. I think it goes against HIPPA regs, but I do have to say "multiple attempts at suicide" is slightly unsettling.
and lastly...
5. Crossing off sections you don't approve of...
You would think that an optional section would be labeled as "OPTIONAL" but no. Apparently our whole form can be taken with a grain of salt. We don't need this information. We only ask for it to give you callouses on your fingers from writing too much and a cramp in your hand. It amuses us. But the whole reason for today's outburst is because recently I had a patient cross of the "sex" section. I would think it obvious that we aren't looking for the Mike Meyer response of "Yes, please!" and that we are actually asking about your gender, but on several occasions we have gotten variations of the low brow humor that goes along with any mention of the taboo word, sex. This past week I had a patient cross out the word "sex" and replace it with "gender". Thank you, lady. I may not have understood that otherwise. I get confused easily.

Can I Have the Model Number?

I don't know about anyone else out there, but I really do enjoy screwing with telemarketers. Nothing too obnoxious, I mean, they are real people just making a living too, right? It's not their fault that they are making my job annoying and miserable by calling, I suppose. It's the small pleasures in life that make it all worthwhile and one of my small pleasures is messing with these people. Mostly, its just a game around the office. The guy calls up and says, "Hi, I represent the people who got you your copier and we want to send you a new catalog. Can you give me the model number on your copier?" Right away I know this is a lie. First of all, I know the people that sold us our copier. She was in a couple weeks ago with a new brochure and if she wanted the model number she would have got it then. So its pretty obvious that this guy's whole job revolves around screwing over unsuspecting receptionists who have no clue who sold them their copier. So I immediately say to the guy, "Sure! Hold on." Then I start talking bets around the office for how long we can get the guy to stay on hold for. Today I was the only one in the office so it wasn't quite as entertaining as it usually is. It did cheer me up a little to know that whatever commission this guy may make on these calls was totally lost for the six minutes he stayed on hold. You'd think they'd learn the places they call and stop calling the ones that already know their game.
I am also fond of telling telemarketers that they have to talk to my boss and then let her bitch them out. Hey, she has a door on her office and I'm out in the open. If our patients hear my telling someone to fuck off they might get offended or some bullshit. There isn't really a lot of damage I can do to these people since I am supposed to be acting professional and all, but the little things really do make it worthwhile.

Real Writing....

Obviously I haven't written in a long time. I don't have much to say -- well we all know that isn't true. Honestly, I've been busy with my real writing. I mean my stories, of course. Since I decided to stop posting my stories on here (no one was actually reading them) I don't have much else to post. My life is essentially the same as it's always been. I'm still with my boyfriend and will will be actually living together (or 'officially living in sin" as he likes to call it) by the end of next month. I'm still working at the same place and doing a damn fine job (as evident from my raise and bonus). No major friend drama has occurred (not that I'd really want to write about it in here anyway) and I don't have any exceptionally funny stories about crazy patients to tell. I mean other than the standard crazies which I guess I'm just getting used to. One recently made us go covert just to get her money. She didn't want anyone to know that she was paying for the procedure herself so she designed a whole secretive plan to get her money from her purse to the billing department. It was pretty exciting -- well it would have been if I hadn't been at lunch when it all went down.

Nope, I live a pretty uneventful life at the moment and I'm satisfied with my after work activities. I'm doing pretty well on my story. It is now sixty pages long and it hasn't quite reached its climax yet. I feel pretty hopefully. I'm on the sixth book in the "Dead Until Dark" series that inspired the pretty fantastic show "True Blood" on HBO. I hope they keep this series going through all the books I've already read. It'll be interesting. I've also been into "Dexter" an awesome show on Showtime (for you obvious people out there) and I plan to read all the books that are related to that show as soon as I'm done with Sookie Stackhouse tales.

I guess the only reason I'm writing this blog is because the handful of readers I actually do have reading my blog have managed to comment that I'm being a slacker. I guess you can no longer say that, can you?

More New Stuff!

A story that I've had in my head since my sophomore year in high school just received an ending. You see, in my little world I come up with a scene that I think would be cool and I continue to develop that scene into a story. Usually moving on from the point that I start gives me a complete story with plot twists, a great opening, and an ending that makes sense for that story. Sometimes I come up with an idea that seems cool, but it never goes anywhere so the story ends up in the recycle bin in my brain. Of course I never take the recycle bin to the recycle center to get rid of it because I'm lazy and so it just sits there collecting dust.

Well, today one of those dust covered gems decided to resurface and say "Hey, look ma, I have an ending!" I really haven't thought much about this particular story since shortly after I got it into my head. Once I realized it was going no where I moved onto.... well, something else that went nowhere, but that hardly matters now. I moved on and just assumed that story would never see the light of day. Hell it would never even see the pages of my journal.

I was just sitting at my desk making new charts and spacing off. The Today show is droning on in the background when it struck me. "Hey, my main character is supposed to be a famous singer so duh, why wouldn't an interview be the best way to tie all my jumbled thoughts together?" They weren't interviewing anyone on the Today show to give me this insight, but I'm still going to credit them. Maybe it doesn't seem like much of a revelation to the outsiders (in other words, people not inside my head), but the moment that idea presented itself to me the rest of the story fell into my lap. Since the story only had one good scene in it that really was quite a gem to fall into my lap.

So, I can't exactly work on this project since I'm already plugging away at another project, but at least now the idea is mapped out and one day I'll be able to return to it. October is an awesome month for me getting ideas. I love this month.

Blogity

I probably should have titled this "Inconsequential Nonsense" to be more accurate, but I already filled in the title box and its not likely that I'll actually move my cursor back up to that box because I'm exceptionally lazy. My laziness is really the reason for the randomness that this blog is about to become. I have three totally unrelated observations that I've come across in the past month.



Alphabetical Insurance

This is the most recent observation I've come across, but probably the least interesting as well so that is why I'll start with it. I was at work earlier this week and overheard a conversation that my manager was having with a patient about her insurance. My manager had gotten a claim returned because the insurance company claimed they were not the primary insurance and they would not pay until after the primary insurance paid. Which is of course how it always has been. You see, we foolishly trust our patients to know which of their insurance is primary and which is secondary. Unfortunately most people are exceedingly stupid when it comes to health care even though they are paying a crap ton of money for it each year.

So the woman that my manager is speaking to is freaking out thinking their insurance is not going to pay (because of course she wasn't listening to a word my manager was saying). So, still freaking out she passes the conversation on to her husband who starts to spaz out because he's listening to his crazy wife as opposed to my manager (who actually knows what she's talking about). Eventually my manager is able to get across to these two exceptionally dumb people that she just wants to know which company is their primary so we can resubmit the claim.

The man insists that his Coventry Health Care insurance comes first because (and this so needs quotes) "It comes first in the alphabet."

Huh?

This man was sure that the way you tell the difference between your primary insurance and your supplemental insurance is by seeing which company would appear first in the phone book. Well, hell that just made our job a lot more convenient because Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska is way better at paying out than any other company.

Now, time for the amusing part of this story: The guys other insurance was Blue Cross Blue Shield. Let that sink in for a moment. BCBS is insurance company one and Coventry is insurance two. He claimed that Coventry had to come first because of the alphabet........ yep, go ahead and wrack your brain to figure out what alphabet he was using. The best my manager could come up with was the fact that his name came before his wife's name if you put them in alphabetical order and maybe that's how crazy brain processes information.



Pink Backpack

My two year old nephew really likes the color PINK. That's right a little boy liking PINK. GOD FORBID!! Anyway, so its the new school year and that means new school supplies and a new backpack for him. Naturally with his current obsession with all things pink he points to a pink backpack and claims he wants no other. My brother refused. REFUSED to buy him a pink backpack. I'm sure in his head he is trying to "protect" him from getting made fun of at the daycare by "mean kids". He's TWO years old. He goes to daycare with other TWO year old kids. You know, the age where you still don't care if your clothes match or not. Who's really going to be made fun of for this?

So, I've been dwelling on this for the past month because I still find it ridiculous that he can't have pink. Pink soda and pink frosted cupcakes are no problem, but him wearing pink is. Weird. So why doesn't the same hold true for little girls? A little girl can go into a store and say "I want the spider-man backpack" and most parents would think it odd, but not stop her or force her to get the pink and purple one with little ponies prancing on it. No one says you can't wear blue because its a boys color and the inequality annoys me. Colors are sexist. Not cool.

Pregnancy Dreams

My third observation of the month was the weirdness of the multiple pregnancy dreams I've been having. I looked it up on the dream encyclopedia and it assures me that it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm pregnant. In fact it gives this horrible description about changing views about something or new beginnings.... blah, whatever. The point is I've had weird pregnancy dreams. First, when I was still dreaming in third person (before I went back to writing in first person) I dreamt about a girl I knew down in Texas being pregnant with her first boy which I told her about and she responded by saying she couldn't have children anymore because she got her tubes tied. Well, okay. That's not a prophetic dream then. More recently I've been dreaming in first person. I haven't dreamed in first person since I was in high school. That was when I started writing all my stories in third person and my dreams followed that line of thinking. So, as some of you know, my newest story is written in first person and so I've begun dreaming in first person again. It took some getting used to.
So I had a dream a few weeks ago, probably closer to a month ago now, that I was pregnant. It was odd, but dreams usually are. It didn't feel like anything in the first dream. I just knew I was pregnant because my belly was all big and stuff. Then only a couple of weeks ago I had another pregnancy dream and this time I could actually feel something moving and it was all sorts of creepy. In the next chunk of dream I was no longer pregnant, but I also didn't have a baby so it was just strange overall.
So, what point am I trying to make with telling you all about my dreams? Well, I wasn't really, but after my friend told me she was pregnant I decided that was why I was having the dreams. I really am psychic. Sweet.

I'll post more randomness some other time. Thanks for reading.

Something New

Well after the overwhelming (yawn) demand for more chapters on my last story I decided to let that one go. Not forever, but for now.

So instead I was bored at work and skimming through my random files looking for one of my older works to look at and work on. I had a few potential ideas for some of the older works that I had started and never finished, but I wasn't really in the mood to dive into any of the old stuff. I needed to get away from the old and jump into something new. And i did.

Out of no where a world began to unfold in front of me and the more I wrote the more I realized that this world was far superior the the world I had created for Eartha and Garrick. In fact I had come to realize that this was Eartha and Garrick's world and I had accidentally plopped them in someone else's world. My mistake. But this new world had a story that was more pressing than Eartha and she was still on the back burner. Before I could explain her story and bring her into this better world I had to explain someone else's first.

So as the world and the new girl's story began to open up to me I found some familiar faces. Some friendly and some... well, soulless ones as well. A character who has gone through a whole re-working has come back and is worse than ever. He has a new name and a new look and I think he's pretty bad-ass in a whole, "I'm a complete bastard who wants to ruin your life." kind of way. I'm twenty-five pages into this new tale and he's already a murderer (which who's to say he wasn't before page twenty-five, but this is the first one the readers get to see).

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about this one. I think this idea is more straight forward and I think it will open up to a more suitable place for Eartha and Garrick to play out their stories. I'll keep you updated as it progresses, but I don't think there will be any chapter posting of this one. For those of you loyal enough to my writing... well, you know where to find me and my stories. For the rest of you.... why are you hear again?

Free Gas!

But not for you. Awww. Now that I've lost all the leeches who thought they were getting free gas I have a story (it's short I promise). So, let me start with a little back story. My mom and I have this new thing where we meet up every couple weeks and in a combined effort we make a dinner. She makes a dish and I make a dish and we hope the other one doesn't screw up somehow. Well, I have the main course tomorrow night and I'm lazy and haven't bought any of my groceries yet. I was planning on putting this task off even longer and getting it during my lunch break tomorrow, but I really hate doing any thing over my lunch break that doesn't consist of me being ultra lazy. So I drag myself away from my writing frenzy and go to the magnificent Hy-Vee down the street. It is an uneventful trip until I walking back out the door to my car.

A few slots down from my car I see a guy hovering near a car with flashers on and a cell phone to his ear. I think, "That sucks I should be nice and ask him if he needs help." Of course, if anyone know me like I know me I know that I'm not actually going to do this. I'm going to get in my car and think about how I should stop as I roll past his distress. I'm not a maliciously hateful person, but you always have that nagging voice in your head that says "he has a gun and if you try to help him he will shoot you and steal your car. Just roll on by and pretend you don't see him."

I have my car unlocked when a woman appears in front of me brandishing jumper cables that are already attached to her end. She's holding them out to me and even though there's only one thing she could possibly want I just stare at her kind of blankly. Where the hell did she come from anyway? So she asks the obvious and I, of course, pop the hood. This is something that takes absolutely no effort on my part so I don't mind being the good Samaritan for something that doesn't require any effort. I start my car and turn around and there stands flasher/cell phone guy. "Do you have any change I could borrow for gas?" I look down at my purse slung over my shoulder and then back up at him. I do this a couple times before finally admitting, "I don't carry cash." Now, of course, I look like a complete liar because it took me a second too long to answer. He walks away probably thinking, thanks for nothing.

By this time jumper cable lady is already done getting her car started and has detached herself from my car with a friendly wave. I slide the cap back on the dangerous part of my battery and slam the hood. Time for home. I see the guy still pacing by his car distressed. Well the least I can do is offer him a ride to the gas station since I looked like I just lied about not having cash. I circle the lot back to him and offer the ride. He explains how he has no cash for gas even if he gets to the station. I tell him I'll fill his little can so he can get home or wherever. His girlfriend comes out of the store at this point and rather pointedly says "Well hurry up." Nice. You're lucky you didn't ask me, bitch. I wouldn't have felt bad about saying no.

He climbs in and I drive quickly to the gas station. I can't put my music on because as much as I enjoy Wicked the Musical I don't think this guy was strictly the musical type of guy and I don't have any radio stations programed (why would I will an 80 GB iPod?). So, in all this silence I'm thinking of how this could blow up in my face. What if he snatches my iPod or my purse and runs? What if he punches me in the face and steals my car? This is why you don't take strangers to the gas station at 9:00 pm, moron.

We're back at the store and I am unharmed. Due to my silence the entire trip I'm pretty sure the guy was having similar thoughts run through his head. Why does she have the window rolled down and the AC on with no music? This girl is a serial killer and that's why she's not talking to me. She's going to run my ass into a telephone poll. This is why you don't ask for a ride to the gas station from a stranger at 9:00 pm, moron! We somehow both survived this traumatic good Samaritan story and I'm sure he won't run out of gas again any time soon.

I Give Up

I officially hate Nebraska Furniture Mart. Anyone planning on buying electronics with them? DON'T! It's not worth the stress. If this had been the first time I had problems with them I probably would just be annoyed, but at this point I'm pissed. It seems to me that they have an awful lot of space and yet don't carry anything in stock. How does that work?

Several months ago my iPod was lost to the world. (There's a blog about it somewhere if you really care to read about that unfortunate time) I did some price checking so I could get the best deal on a replacement without buying used merchandise (that could've been stolen and wiped clean like my iPod probably was). I went to one of my favorite stores of all time, Best Buy, and noted that the 80 GB were now the same price as the 30 I had before. So, I kept that in mind when I went to other places to check prices. I went to the Mart and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually cheaper than my beloved Best Buy. Sweet, I'll take one of those! Um, nope. None in stock. What are you talking about? There are, like, 60 boxes behind the glass. Those are all 160 GB iPods. Great. Well you guys kinda suck. Oh well back to good ol' Best Buy. Frustrating, but I guess everyone sells out of the popular items once in a while. Best Buy managed to several on hand.

**This also wasn't the first time they let me down. I didn't find anything worthwhile at the Mart when I was computer shopping the year before and the Sony camera I bought was actually cheaper at Best Buy. Needless to say I haven't had the best of luck with the Mart ever.**

So we fast forward to July 25th now. I had done my research once again and found the Nikon D80 camera to be considerably cheaper at the Mart than Best Buy so I had collected many gift cards for my birthday and was ready to purchase the camera. I went to pick it up and the complete moron that's in the camera department is just putzing around. I asked him for one of the Nikon D80 and he says "Oh, we've been out of those for a long time. Did you need it right away?" (try to picture someone who sounds stoned the whole time). I tell him that I had a family reunion the next day and he opens the cabinet and there's a D80 in there. So he says, "this is a D80 but it has the bigger lens on it and this one's, like, $1000." Then he starts pulling all the components out of the more expensive one to look at it. I wasn't willing to pay $200 more just for a fancier lens (otherwise I would have gone with the one at Best Buy). So I asked him when the cheaper ones were coming in and he tells me "we are getting another shipment on July 31st. there should be some on that" and then he ignores me for another five minutes while he puts all the pieces back in the box.

So, I went in on the 31st and a really helpful woman is in the department this time. She says they had a shipment that day, but that the only one on that shipment had been ordered by someone else weeks ago and there were no extra ones. If I wanted one she could order it and have it in by the 5th. The asshole from Friday didn't mention this, of course. Basically I was too pissed to yell on Friday and the woman from the 31st was both helpful and informative and it totally wasn't her fault that her co-worker is completely useless so I couldn't rant and rave at her. It's bought and paid for now and I should have gotten it this afternoon.

Then I get the update today that they won't have any D80s in until the end of the month and there is at least one person on the waiting list who has been on there since May (that's right f'ing MAY!). So, this nice helpful woman is basically working for a crap company that doesn't order anything right. That's unfortunate. So, I get a hold of my best pair of yelling lungs (Kristi's mom) and get her assistance against the assholes at the Mart. You see, working in retail for 5 years has taught me two things 1)You cannot get cash back for gift cards. They try to pawn off store credit for something else if you want to return an item. Obviously I don't want anything from this store ever again so this policy is not going to go in my favor. 2) If you give a loud enough complaint you can pretty much get whatever you want (I don't normally condone this, but this was seriously the last straw). After maybe an hour Cindy had gotten them to refund the gift cards in the form of a check that they had initially claimed they would send out and I would get it in a week. Nope, not good enough. She convinced them they most certainly did not want her to come down to the store and start another storm where other people could hear so they agreed to have a check ready to be picked up... by Nick.

I'm sorry, but your crappy company was going to make me wait for at least a month for a camera I'd already paid for when I could easily go pick up the same camera at any other store that sold the damn things today. I don't think so. I don't want anything from your store so you're going to reimburse me everything I gave you, in cash, so I never have to step foot in your crappy department again. In the end, the check is in Nick's hands and I will be getting a camera from someone who actually can give it to me or at lest send it to me the moment I give them money. I'm not waiting until you finally manage to figure out where to order them from which all the other stores seemed to manage to figure out some time ago.

At the end of the day I have no problems with the employees of the store (except the douche bag who was working the camera department on July 25th. He could totally be fired and I would have no issue with that). But the company itself can kiss my ass and never expect further business from (at least in your electronics departments) me. Maybe after a considerable chunk of time I will be willing to shop for furniture from them.... but I don't see this happening any time soon. Your prices may be cheaper, but you just don't seem to have any stock. I could sell a computer I don't have for hundreds of dollars less too, but I don't because I have integrity and I wouldn't lie to someone about something I don't have. NFM, you kinda suck.

Birthday Wishes

There have been a few small parties in honor of my birth over the past week, but I figured I'd save them up and put them in one blog. It's just easier that way.

So last Thursday was the first family event. My mother told me that we would be celebrating my birthday at the same time that we were having Jason's farewell party. He's gone back to Tucson. Jason was about to go and get me a gift when I arrived and I stopped him telling him that the things he got me from around the world were a good enough birthday gift for anyone (plus he will eventually be getting me cash for the camera that got stolen from him on his trip). My mom told me that she ordered my gift, but it wouldn't be delivered until the end of the month. I didn't actually want her to get me anything since she has all her medical crap to be worrying about so I didn't even tell her what I wanted. Matt showed up about mid-way through dinner and told me he would get me a gift on his next day off... I didn't know workaholics got days off. So I got a chocolate on chocolate cake which I got to take a big chunk of home. I ate that big chunk in one day for fear that it would go stale before I got to finish it. I'm such a cow.

On Saturday I had Nick's family to celebrate with which was nice. We went to Ruby Tuesdays which beat out my mom's meal just because my mom insists on putting massive amounts of onions in everything (no offense, mom, but you should really know better by now). Once again I had the overly generous crowd for this one and managed to collect ninety more dollars in GC's towards my camera. At this rate I won't have to pay for any part of the camera. I also got some fantastic jelly bellies and I got to see the always fantastic Miss. Margaret. After lunch Nick gave me my presents from him ("They're not wrapped, though."). So I now have a bag for my future camera, some perfume that I really enjoy, a t-shirt that says Natures Loser with the lazy panda bear...... and a crap ton of booze. Nick gave me a bottle of Absolute vodka a couple weeks ago to take to a party and told me it was supposed to be part of my b-day gift.... but then he got me another bottle that was twice the size of the first and gave it to me on my birthday. Lots of good booze for me.

Last night I went to karaoke and got another hundred dollars GC for my camera from Hutch because he apparently forgot that we only spend fifty dollars on birthdays. I told him not to expect the same treatment next week for his own birthday since I can't afford it. He also bought me a drink while we were there. He tried to buy me a second, but I paid him back and reminded him that he got me a hundred dollar gift card to Nebraska Furniture Mart. Insane people getting me these huge gifts!

Tonight I will be going to dinner with my cousins (Ashley and Jaime for sure. I don't know about anyone else coming as of yet). That will be fun and we are planning on going out Saturday night as well. So far its been a pretty good birthday and I have nothing to complain about. Also my manager came into the office today and she brought me a mini-chocolate cake with a smiley face on it and one of my co-workers bought bagels for the office yesterday so I'm just getting nice and fat for my birthday. It's pretty fantastic.

So, Once again thank you to everyone who has been helping me celebrate and for spending too much on your gifts to me (this is seriously rivaling Christmas at this point). I have thoroughly enjoyed my birthday this year. You are all great and thank you again. It's gonna be a good day.

First Birthday of the Year

Yesterday I celebrated my first birthday of the year (it won't be the last) and yes I know it's kind of early to be starting the whole birthday parade, but this was a joint party so it is somewhat excusable. I must say, so far so good on the birthday front. Right now everyone has honored my requests for GC's which is usually my biggest task. :) I have collected just under half of what I need for what I'm aiming for this year which would be the Nikon D80 camera that I mentioned in a previous blog. How kick ass is that? and also to those of you handing out the big denominations of GC's SHAME ON YOU! You people are spending far too much on my silly birthday! (So, thank you everyone. I love you all, even though I now think you are insane.)

It was a hectic weekend since it was a holiday weekend and I must saying having a party to close it out was just about the most pleasant way to go. I got crap-tons of food to feed my pasta baby, a tasty slice of ice cream cake, and about a two hour treat of Rock Band. It was a good party and hopefully the ones to follow in the next couple weeks can live up to my early expectations of this year. :) I'll keep you updated.

Thanks to everyone who was there to celebrate my expulsion from my mother's uterus.

Newsworthy

You just know its a slow news week when you see a clip about a unicorn. Yes, I'm serious. A deer with a single horn in the middle of his forehead was born recently and it was one of the top stories mention on the news just a few minutes ago. A f'ing unicorn!

That's all I had to say.

The First...

Don't know where I was going with this one, but I just found it among my other writtings and decided to post it here for anyone bored enough. It's not as bad as I remembered it, but I still have no clue where I was going with this one.

The first thing I remember was the sky, dark and clear. The moon was nowhere to be seen which meant it had already set or we were in the new moon phase. I couldn't really tell, but that somehow seemed important. To my right I could here the ocean swelling and receding, but the sand beneath me was dry and cool. I had no fear of the tide reaching this far up on the beach. The lids of my eyes scrapped up and down feeling like sandpaper until my eyes began to tear for moisture. How long had I been out here? I wiggled fingers and toes which were all bare and sand coated. Pain shot from all extremities inward pulling a gasp from deep in my chest. I clenched my fists and curled my toes until the pain finally subsided. Everything else was still aching, but at least I was able to move. When I was able to sit up and breathe normally I looked around to see if I could recognize my location. I couldn't, of course, but I did notice the boardwalk several feet to my left. I couldn't have been out here too long without someone noticing me. That was somewhat a relief.
The clothes I was wearing were unfamiliar and shredded. It looked like I had been mauled by a bear or some other wild animal, but there was no blood and I had no wounds bleeding or healing anywhere on my body. Whatever had destroyed my clothes apparently had no effect on me. I reached up to brush my hair back from my forehead and noticed for the first time that it was long, blonde and tangled to hell. Why did it shock me that I had blonde hair? That was the moment that the fear crept in. The more I tried to think about it the less I could actually recall about myself. I was sitting on some random beach in the middle of god knows what city or town and I had no idea who I was. There was nothing here that was going to give me any kind of a hint either. I didn't see a discarded purse that I could rifle through to gain more information about myself. What does one do? Where does one go when they have no idea....
I pushed the thoughts firmly to the back of my mind. I would just have to work with the knowledge I did have. It may be very little, but I wasn't completely helpless.

Rilo Kiley Concert

It was pretty damn fantastic. Me, Hutch and Liz went down to the Slowdown around 7 o'clock because the ticket said 8:00. Well that meant the doors opened at 8 which meant we had plenty of time to sit around and watch Hutch get wasted. Liz and I were pretty sure that Hutch wasted a good $80 on alcohol that night (alcoholic). It's a nice bar so no one minded that we were there so early. My only problem with that slip up was that I hadn't had time to eat before I left. You see, this was the day before my brother's birthday and I was somehow required to stop by his house (by my mother) to celebrate. Unfortunately it was one of those times where I just dropped a card off and hoped for the best. He wasn't getting home until after seven and I couldn't wait that long. This was when my mother decided to drop the cancer bomb on me which made me feel worse because I couldn't talk to her about it. I had a 20 minute drive home to change and get to Hutch's. So, this random tangent that I went off on had no point other than what I previously stated: I didn't eat and was starved for the rest of the evening.

There were two start up bands. The first was meh. Not bad, but not memorable and not what I was there for. The second band was much better and Hutch actually bought their CD because he liked them so much. Which brings me to my second tangent. The price of the merchandise was reasonable at this concert. A first in history (for me anyway)! A hoddie for $30? Unheard of! Not that I bought anything, but I'm just sticking my tongue out (figuratively) and the person who felt the need to comment on my last concert blog about how the band earns their money by selling merchandise and that's why its so expensive, mer. Well, it seems not all of them are quite as desperate to make money. I was actually tempted to purchase one of their awesome t-shirts, but at the end of the day I didn't want to carry it around with me all night or wait in line at the end of the night. Remember, I'm exceedingly lazy.

Then, finally, the reason we were at the Slowdown got on stage! As, I'm sure you all know by now, I did not take this or any other picture that night. I found these on Flickr because photobucket was shocking lacking in photos from the omaha concert. These pictures were from the show the previous night, but close enough. Every time they played a song I was pretty sure they had played all my favorites and I was satisfied.... and then they would play another song and that would be another one of my favorites. It was pretty fantastic except (and yes this will be the third tangent of the evening) the fact that I wore heals. Now, I had a reason for torturing my feet, I promise. I've been to concerts before and there's always some asshole that's 12 feet tall standing right in front of me and this time I was going to be prepared, damnit! So, it turned out to be entirely unnecessary because I took them off so the people behind me could see over my head and I just looked between bouncing heads in front of me to see the stage. I guess that's about all there is to say. With so little to complain about when it comes to the show and the venue I guess this will be a shorter than normal blog. Rock on, Rilo Kiley! You guys were awesome live.

The "C" Word

Hey, dirty mind!

Cancer.

Oh, that "C" word. Yes, just as dirty, just as disgusting and tearing through our world and our lives. Yuck, what a piece of shit of a disease. Not that any disease is buckets of fun, but cancer just seems to be the crappiest because it goes anywhere and everywhere and they can't do much about it.... yet. This time its my mom dealing with it (along with millions of others, but I don't know them so I can't write about them).

It started with an ugly-ass mole on a forehead and ended up in the neck with thyroid cancer. Gee, those two things don't seem to be related? They're not, but that's how it was found. My mom had a mole quickly making itself known by growing out of her forehead like a unicorn's horn. She went to a dermatologist to have it removed and low and behold it had those little nasty cancer cells swimming around and screwing things up. So the doctor's decided some more testing was necessary and they were going to do that by taking a larger chunk of skin from her head. At the same time they were going to take a node out of her neck and her thyroid. I'm not sure how that decision was reached, but I'm assuming they did some test (an ultrasound or MRI or something along those lines) and saw a growth on her thyroid.

All did not go according to plan during surgery. The growth they had seen on her thyroid had wrapped itself around her trachea and when they were cutting it away they nicked her trachea. Damn. That sucks. So, a procedure that was supposed to be in and out turning into an ICU visit. They kept her sedated through the night and she was completely baffled the next day when she discovered most of a day had passed without her knowledge. They also still had the tube down her throat when I showed up at one o'clock in the afternoon. She was awake, choking and the doctor was no where to be found. The ridiculously understanding and nice nurse Jesse informed me that normal a tech could take it out, but since they had nicked the trachea during surgery they were being overly cautious and they wanted an anesthesiologist, a cardiologist and her surgeon present just in case anything went wrong and they had to put the tube back it. I understood that, but what I didn't understand was why the doctor wasn't coming now that she was awake. Shockingly the anesthesiologist was the first to show up (way to go guy) and the cardiologist was quick to follow. Then, forty-five minutes later, her doctor finally decides to amble his way up to the ICU (and no he didn't have a good excuse like surgery for why it took him forty-five minutes). They finally got the tube out of her throat and nothing happened, which is, of course, a good thing.

Final results finally came back and we discovered that the skin from her forehead was fine. The cancer hadn't gone into her lymph nodes and it seems all the cancer had been removed. Now, she has a "L" shaped scar right on her forehead, which she joked about in the hospital claiming that she was now officially a "Loser". The thyroid, however, had more cancer. Completely different and separate from the cancer that had been on her forehead. The whole thyroid had been removed, but they are going to be doing radiation therapy on her anyway. She has to completely change her diet. Apparently with thyroid cancer she cannot have any iodine in her diet for them to do the therapy. That translates into no iodized salt and no dairy. Holy crap, how much does that suck? Do you realize that damn near everything has salt in it? and in most cases that's the plain old iodized salt that she can't have?

Needless to say we are all still in the freak out stage of this mess, but we are figuring it all out and keeping everyone calm, especially my mom. I'm going to get her a bread maker so she can make her own salt-free bread and the online cookbooks have so many salt-less recipes that I have assured my mom that cooking foods won't be a problem. She is preparing for the fact that she will no longer be on her thyroid meds and therefore will be exhausted all the time and the fact that the radiation is going to leave a nice burn to go along with her choke scar from surgery. I'm trying to keep it light for her so she doesn't get depressed on top of all the other crap she's dealing with. I've already decided that she is going to be just fine and that I won't let her or anyone else say any different. It's three months of hell, but its not a lifetime and that's what matters, right?

More Patient Tales

I thought this tale was best told via e-mail communications between my friend and I explaining what new annoyance I had at work today.

ME: So, I had a patient sitting out in the waiting room who was humming along (really loud) with the manwich jingle and then another commercial for Countryside Village came on and she started humming along with that one too. It was really obnoxious! I mean humming along at home or singing in your car is one thing, but that was bordering on me asking her to stop. This isn't karaoke or your living room. Stop being annoying please.

FRIEND: Manwich really? Wow! I would not blame you for saying something to her. More importantly though who actually knows the Manwich theme song!

ME: It's actually someone saying “Manwhich, Manwhich, I want Manwich” over and over again to a classical music tune. It's actually a pretty common tune. You'd probably know it if you heard it. But it was still annoying. Yeah, I can’t be that rude without getting fired, but I could see how it would get on someone's nerves to the point where they would blow up.

FRIEND: I guess if it was classical music it would make it that much harder to bare.

ME: Honestly, if this woman would have stopped when the commercial did I probably wouldn't have been so irritated with it, but she just kept humming through the next commercial until another one she knew came on :\

FRIEND: Was she senile?

ME: No. But she did get really excited when i took her back to her room. I said "we're going to have you here in room three" and she shoots her hands in the air and yells out "woo hoo! room three!" so she might just be on mass amounts of drugs.

FRIEND: Yes! Drugs! That is the only explanation for this! I never remember getting excited over which room the doctor put me in. I am going to do that next appointment!

ME: when they are walking you down the hall you should start muttering things like "come on room four, do i have a room four?" like Vegas roulette crazies.

FRIEND: I will do that while humming the Manwich theme song!

ME: have fun with that

FRIEND: You are my emergency contact so expect a phone call from my doctor committing me.

Okay, so is it just me or was this really an amusing tale?

A Year Later

It's almost a year since I began this blog. Go me.

That out of the way, now, what's the most obnoxious song you've ever had stuck in your head? I've pretty much always got something stuck in my head and I get a kick out of getting songs stuck in other people's heads. Unfortunately, only songs that people know usually get stuck in their head so my little game doesn't always work. Today my song is "Joanna" from Sweeny Todd. I have the CD on my iPod and that song played on Monday morning. It's been in my head since then. By far this is not the worst thing to happen to me. Since its the version from the movie its Johnny Depp's voice in my head and who would really complain about that?

So, what I've determined from this terrible game is that the worst song to torture people with is the Menard's jingle. "You save big money... you save big money.... when you shop Menard's!" If you're singing it now, plan to be singing it for the rest of the evening. A close second would have to be The Carpenters..... well all of their music is pretty terrible for getting stuck in your head, but specifically "Close to You" was in my head for about two weeks shortly after seeing Mirrormask (a Neil Gaiman movie). And for anyone who has seen "Cannibal the Musical" I'm sure you already have the tune of "It's a Schpedoinkle Day" running through your brain.

And surprisingly none of these songs were "the worst" song for me. When I was about fourteen years old I was introduced to the my favorite musical of all time, The Phantom of the Opera. After that I determined that Andrew Lloyd Webber's music must all be as great at the Phantom (this is not true, by the way, but I was 14. What can you do?) So I bought up all these musicals that had Andrew Lloyd Webber's name plastered somewhere on it. I asked my mother "So, what's Cats about?" and she told me that it didn't really have a story line. It was just a bunch of random songs. I, of course, scoffed at her and told her that it was impossible for a musical not to have a story line and walked away from her. I quickly found out that my mother wasn't lying. Cats is T.S. Elliot's poems put to music and there really is no point to the whole damn thing. But I was paid back for being mean to my mother about not knowing anything about musicals. The worst song I've ever had stuck in my head was "Jellical Cats" for almost an entire month. I now hate Cats with a passion and sometimes wish for the death of a certain composer who wrote that crappy catchy music.

I fully accept that this blog had no point except to hopefully get some crappy song stuck in my readers' heads. I just wanted to write about something since its been a year and I'm not posting my story up here anymore. I don't know where this blog will go in the next year, but feel free to try to get a craptastic song stuck in my head at some point.

Feeling Schizophrenic

I actually spelled that right on the first try which means I'm awesome and failing spelling in second grade didn't actually hold me back.

I am a monkey in the middle. Something entirely of my own doing, unfortunately. I got close to two people who no longer want to be close to each other. There I am between the two. For the most part they aren't making me choose a side, which is good because I don't intend to (Sorry guys, I love you both). There are obvious downfalls to not picking a side like being lied to and having to lie myself -- or withhold information if you want to pretty up the words. There are upsides to being in the middle too. I get to hear two sides of the story where most other people form their opinions based entirely on only half of a story. They enjoy their ignorance and pretend like the other party is 100% evil and their side is 100% perfect. The problem is there's no way that could ever be true. It's just easier to believe. Everyone has problems and everyone has relationship issues and everyone has their own version of "what really happened." What's making me feel so insane at this point is that the stories don't seem to match up very well. One person tells me events that happened that seem vital to the story and the other person tells me other things that person number one never mentioned. Then the parts that are about the same event seem vastly different depending on who you hear it from. Both sound perfectly rational when I talk to them and they sound like they are being honest, but obviously there is something missing otherwise the two stories would sound a little more similar.

Then there is the third party. The truly evil one. The one who instigates and makes a troubled relationship even worse. Granted, I haven't had the pleasure of hearing this person's version of events, but honestly if I were to tell the story from my stand point you wouldn't want to here The Evil One's version of events anyway. It would only be accurate and worthwhile if this person said "I'm a complete f*ck up and I should have stayed a million miles away." And even if those words had been uttered I would still want to slit this person's throat. There is no version that this person could portray that would put them in a good light. Yikes.

So I have all these conflicting stories and my own skewed opinions on the whole event. I have people calling me to find out details when they haven't been part of this story from the beginning and just now (now that its falling apart) want to jump in a attempt to be useful. In then end my head seems to be stretched to the furthest points and on the verge of cracking open. I want to cry for some, scream at others, kill one, and tell the other f*ck off. I'm feeling a range of emotions to go along with all those wants and at the end of the day I just want to pretend like this isn't happening. And its not even happening to me! I'm just a bystander! Innocent -- well kind of in this story.

I hope my head stays the way it is (ie not cracked or exploding) and I hope I didn't hurt any one else's head with this rant (that probably makes no sense to people on the outside).

One More for the Road

"It wasn't until later, when I was washing the blood off my hands, I even knew they were dead."

That quote has been stuck in my head and its a good quote and may it now get stuck in your head. I have two blogs for you today and they will both go in one entry because I don't like posting two separate blogs in the same day. Nothing against those of you who do, I just find it easier to keep it in one blog. The first one is: Why I Hate Dogs and the second one is: Farewell, My Friend. Neither are fictional storied created by me so if you are one of the people skipping my blogs when they are stories you can keep on reading.

Why I Hate Dogs

Okay, so I don't hate dogs. Maybe I should re-title it to: Why Cat's are still better, but it's too late so we're sticking with Why I Hate Dogs.

This weekend I was forced (by major guilt trip) into house-sitting for my mother despite the fact that I think she has the most obnoxious pets on earth. That may be an exaggeration, but they are the most annoying pets I've ever had to deal with (with the exception of Tiffany, but that's totally Hutch's fault not the dog's). Back to my story.... so I'm house-sitting this weekend and my mother has two cats and a very annoying dog that I have to take care of. Because dogs are too stupid to be trained to go in a litter box I have to be over at my mother's house a minimum of three times a day to let the beast out to do its duty. This also means that I have to sit outside and watch the beast because otherwise it will run out into the yard and come right back to the door without peeing.... yes this dog is that stupid. On top of having to escort the dog to the grass to pee I noticed that she wasn't eating anything for the first day. I'm assuming she was partly depressed over the fact that the people who actually like her had left her care up to me. Eventually she did eat.... Half of the bowl in one sitting after starving herself for a day.... and promptly threw up in the living room. That included half of the rawhide which she had apparently swallowed in one piece. So, yum, who doesn't like cleaning up puke at 10 pm? Finally, on my last night of dog watch I spent the night. I had to be to work at 8 am and I was not going to get up an hour earlier just to escort the dog to her pee location again so I just stayed there. Unfortunately this meant I had a dog trying to spoon me all night. Not only did the beast take up half the bed she took to barking and growling in her sleep. I considered kicking her to make her stop, but I'm pretty sure that would have resulted in me being bitten in the ass so I suffered with a maximum of two hours sleep and smelling like dog in the morning.

And what annoying things did the cats do while I was there? One meowed a lot, the other hide the entire time and they got litter on the bathroom floor next to their litter box. Gee, which one sounds like the better pet to you?

Farewell, My Friend

My camera is gone. Forever. I didn't have it for very long and its sad to see it go, but it did its job well while it was around.

On the up note, I will be purchasing a new camera shortly after my birthday this year. For interested parties I will be taking birthday donations to the camera fund. Sweet. I will be getting a digital SLR this time. Even sweeeeeter. I figure if I'm not getting my bad boy back I might as well upgrade to something way cooler. Look at how cool this camera is! So, even though it would have been far more convenient to have my old Sony back in a couple of months I will be more than happy to upgrade. I know I probably don't need something so extensive since most of my photo taking is stuff that could easily be taken with the Kodak I helped purchase for my roommate (that she never uses I might add) for her birthday, but hey, I like taking good pictures and now that I've had one good camera I can't seem to go back to mediocre. So, even though I don't think anyone who reads my blog are people who actually get me birthday gifts, know that I only want gift cards to Best Buy (it's just easier that way). So anyone interested in the full tale of where my Sony went head on over to my Myspace blog where I can freely unravel the whole tale because that one is slightly more private :)

Two short blogs in one fabulous entry. I hope my stream of consciousness didn't hurt any one's brains.

Randomness III

Okay, so I lied. Apparently I will be making up for last month's lack of blogging and I will be putting up a few more blogs than normal. Not by any design of course, just because I have more to talk about than normal and very little to do while at work. So there it is.
I went up to Vermilion for St. Patrick's Day and realized something completely horrible. Downloading Joni Mitchell's entire discography was probably not the smartest thing I've done to my poor iPod. I'm the type of person that likes a random mix of my music at all times. I don't really listen to one artist for a significant period of time and nothing else. Since random in iPod land isn't really all that random I tend to stick with alphabetical order by song title. This gives me the most random order you can get from the iPod -- unless you've downloaded someone's discography who has been around since the 60s. Then its a really bad idea to have in alphabetical. After hearing 8 different versions of "Case of You" I got pissed off because I thought my iPod was repeating one song. Nope. Have about 12 live albums or greatest hits albums makes it that you have the same song repeated multiple times. I guess it's time to edit my iPod list and possibly delete some of the repeats.
My dad called not too long ago -- well that's not true. I called him. For his birthday. Anyway, he asked me two somewhat strange questions that I now feel the need to mention in blogland. First, he asked me about "that Delilah song" (Plain White T's for those of you who didn't turn on your radio for about two months at the end of last year/beginning of this year). I tell him it's by the Plain White T's and that I used to like it until I heard it four times in one day on the same radio station -- and since I rarely listen to the radio that means they played it about twenty other times that same day and I just didn't hear it. He mentions that he really likes the song and that he's wondering whether he would like their other music too. I casually reply that I'll look some of their music up on-line to see if he would like anything else they've done. I've come to the conclusion that he would, in fact, not like a single other song off that entire album. I'll burn him that song with some Joni Mitchell and call it a day.
The other odd thing he asked me about was (and I quote) "what's this yoga stuff all about?". Apparently, dad has been living in a cave for the past decade. I tell him the basics of yoga, blah blah, its an ancient practice that works on a person's strength, flexibility, and balance and helps with breathing and meditation techniques (and I'm basing this off of what my yoga instructor says not any actual research done on my part). I ask him why he wants to know and he mentions that there is a class at the Y and he was wondering if it would be good for him. I tell him its good for everyone, but that doesn't mean he's going to like it. So I tell him that I will give him a video that I started out on so he can try it before he pays for a class that he won't go to.
I forgot my nine year old sister's birthday. I'm special. I called her two days later and she didn't seem too pissed about it. I told her I'd give her a birthday gift when she gave me cookies. Yes, I'm holding her birthday present hostage until I get my GS cookies. Totally appropriate. Did I mention that I haven't actually gotten the gift yet and that they will be coming into town shortly to deliver cookies so it's more my unwillingness to pay for shipping when I know they will be up here than the fact that I'm actually holding a gift hostage.
The doctor has been out of the office for a little over two weeks now and I'm already dreading their return. Not because of the work, but because before they left our nurse was kind of being a great big bitch to me. I don't know if that is going to be the same when the return or if vacation time relaxed them and they were just stressed out about packing and flying and whatnot. Either way I'm hoping for the best, but kind of expecting the worst. Oh well, we will see next week.
Have a good day :P