Weekend Recovery

The meaning of the title is two-fold… I would much rather be detailing how the events of the weekend provided some much needed recovery. However, the events and the occurrences of the weekend from which I need to recover predominate my thoughts and occupy waaaaaay too much of my time and energy at this moment and also will necessitate a repetition of the same pattern for several days to come…

I would love to elaborate and give the details of my co-workers’ exploits and actions that are the reason I need recovery, but it simply pisses me off too fucking much to even begin the thought processes necessary to merge the actions of the three nurses who created this cluster-fuck on Saturday night into a single time-line. Let me sum it up by saying two things, when I even begin to think about it, the screaming headache returns in an instant. No, that is not exaggeration for the sake of literary license. That is a fact of truth. The second thing, I am awaiting the written report from the on duty physician and charge nurse from the local hospital’s Emergency Department that is being sent to the investigative unit of the county board of mental retardation in which they label my staff as “incompetent.”

Finally, it will be documented correctly on paper for everyone to see. Hallelujah!! Amen!! Thank you Jesus!!

As I have been prohibited by my superiors from using the “i” word in any of my written reports, corrective actions, retraining documents, I am overjoyed at the impending prospect of being able to see it in black and white and out there in plain sight for the people who need to see it to see it. This is a banner day in my quest to be able to finally make a sweeping change in who works on my shift, and more importantly, who is charged with taking care of my clients. More accurately phrased in my reality, who is entitled to be able to take care of my clients.

The other part of the title refers to how I spent my Saturday. All day Saturday after working all night on Friday. I had seen a memo posted that for the 25^th Anniversary Open House next month, the clients from our supported living division had decided to make a quilt to celebrate. Implements of construction, fabric, embellishments in hand, I headed to the corporate office for a day of block-making.

By the time 3pm rolled around, I was exhausted, fulfilled, and amazed. I had made several new friends, had finally gotten to put faces to names with some of our supported living staff, and was in awe of the creations that the clients had made. It was such a very cool thing to me to be able to see how they had incorporated the various “bits of stuff” into expressing their vision. It was truly the stuff that art is made of.

For now…. I’m off to re-write policy & procedure…..

Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts Film Festival - Introduction

Yeah, I'm a bit tardy in getting this posted.... so what else is new... lmao

Of Chaos, Ghosts, and Miscellaneous Mayhem

I'm calling myself getting ready for work...

Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV is providing the background soundtrack. Google it for the reviews and opinions of Trent's decision to release the album independently via various download/torrent sites. After you have perused the particulars, download it and listen. I was sorely tempted to order the $75 Deluxe (or wtf-ever it was called) package. In the end, I opted for the $10 two CD package & the instant access mp3 download link. Though the pricier package satiated my Halo collection fetish more completely, the package I purchased was more suited to the impending changes in lifestyle. ...have laptop & DVD RWs, mp3 player & micro SD cards, digital camera, brown babies, pointy sticks & drop spindle... will travel...

I have been absent from this log for so long. I'm not sure where to begin with the "catch up." It isn't that I have not wanted to write. Existence simply got in the way of living for a while.

Work remains overwhelming at points. I could do with some Xanax a couple of times a week. However, I know that my physician's response to that request will be that I don't need to be working that job if it requires medication of that type in order to be able to do it.

Amanda was on the losing end of an auto accident involving a city bus a couple of weeks back. Only one of the five kiddos was in the van with her, fortunately. Unfortunately, he sustained a skull fracture and four tears in his colon which necessitated emergency abdominal surgery. Not one of the eight airbags deployed in the total of three collisions in this accident. You purchase a $40K kid kart with all these safety features for one reason. This is not looking good for General Motors.

I have continued to be relegated to the sidelines as a "study widow." Final exams finished this week. One week of respite to commence. I don't have as much comp time as I would like to have had, having used some of it with watching kiddos while my daughter was encamped at the hospital.

Winter seemed to have taken its final, dying gasp last weekend with the dumping twenty inches of snow in about 14 hours beginning in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The wind continued blowing too much on Saturday afternoon to make any attempt at moving the volumes of white stuff more than an exercise in futility.

I had run about for 12 hours Friday night in the blowing and ever deepening white stuff. When I went to warm my car Saturday morning for the drive home, I fell in the parking lot on my way to the car and wrenched my back on the left side.

In the Sunday afternoon calm, the shovelling began in earnest, and I wrenched my back on the right side. At least I was equally matched though quite in pain.

The temperatures climbed to near 50 on Monday and have remained there nearly all week. Most of the mountains of white stuff have disappeared with only a few scattered and dirty piles remaining.

I have been working more on the creative things.

Spring cleaning arrives this week.

An early jaunt in to work is at hand.

The fractal is Madness from Dream Tree Studio www.dreamtreestudio.com

Ciao.

~sigh~

I spent my day off doing pretty much nothing. I wanted to get into work at some point and review and fax some labs. I left Brian a voice mail around 3pm that I'd just come in early tomorrow and do it as I was pretty much depressed today.

The day started off pretty well. Had coffee with the daughter and drama with the grands. I'm knitting on the teal chenille sweater and sipping coffee while the five of them fuss over Nintendo DS games, who gets to drink the last of the apple juice, who should be sitting where at the table to eat their cereal... the usual stuff that goes on from wake up until lights out (and sometimes beyond lights out) at my daughter's house.

I came home and began to wind the skeins of vintage cotton/viscose yarn into hanks in order to wash it. It's beautiful yarn. White with a multicolored wrap of blues and pinks and purples and oranges and just a bit of a slub. It's somewhere between a fingering weight and a DK weight. I have 18 skeins of it and can't wait to use it. I'm not sure what to make with it yet, but it will surely be beautiful.

I was in the middle of bribing the cat with a piece of cotton yarn and some cat nip and trying to wind the first hank when a friend IM'd. We hadn't talked in a very long time. He's a great guy. I need to get back to Seattle just so I have an excuse to pop up to BC and visit him. lol

I was telling him that I'm only working part time now and am concentrating on my art. He replied that it was about time because I do beautiful stuff. (blushing) Finally, things are falling into place. I've found a great media outlet. I'm working on the web site. I have space available to me for the Gallery Hop... for free!! Space is so coveted there, and I land an "in" for free! How awesome is that?! Yesterday, after seeing one of the summer sweaters I had done, our Program Director at work asked me to please consider putting some consignment work in the new art studio that we're opening. Again, space for free. And, I don't have a problem with the consignment because the money that the gallery takes goes to the residents for Christmas and birthday presents and day trips and clothing and medical supplies and equipment that insurance doesn't pay for.

I told my friend that I was a little behind right now in getting things done because my dad just died recently. I had just got my web domain the day before my dad went into the hospital.

I told him that it really sucked because I was finally going to be able to do what I have been wanting to do for so long with my art and my dad isn't here to see it happen. That's when the reality of the fact that my dad is dead hit me.

So, I've been crying off and on today, in between winding and washing hanks of yarn, crocheting a button for and attaching the strap on Carol's tote. It's finished, now. Joni's poncho still needs trimmed and sewn together. I won some yarn auctions on eBay. I found a light pink bamboo yarn that will be perfect for Yama's sweater. I'm still looking for the yarn I want to make Martha's sweater with.

Brian wants me to do fabric panels for his kitchen, in addition to the cornice board and the pillows for the living room. I also came up with a really neat idea for his sliding glass doors in order to get rid of those horrendous vertical blinds. I ran the idea by him yesterday and he loved it.

My fellow nurses also were made privy to my plastic bag obsession. Jane thought my ideas were very cool but asked what would even make me think of doing some of the things that I'm thinking of doing with the plastic grocery bags. I shrugged and told her that's just the way my mind seems to work. The strapping tapes from the boxes had her a bit lost though. lol However, they all thought that the use of the natural fiber and renewable source yarns and recycled yarns was a very cool thing. They have always sort of teased me about being the walking medical dictionary, but I am pretty sure that they had no idea that this "other" side of me existed. Sure, I wear my Docs and my Pendletons to work. My hair was down to my butt before I got it cut off and donated it two years ago. So, they sort of had an idea of who I really am away from work, but I don't think they had any clue that it was as dominant a part of my being as it really is. I guess they didn't realize that my Halloween costume was stuff from my closet and my makeup bag! lol

I didn't tell them about the "Linus blankets" for the orphanages in China or about the fact that a lot of the wool yarns that I buy on eBay aren't for my work but are for charity projects. Or that I'm getting ready to sit down and do a bunch of sweaters for the red sweater anti-war art project. Or that I've ruined many a crochet hook crocheting with wire. lol I guess I'll just send them to my website when it's up the first part of next month.

For now, I'm off to wind some more yarn into hanks and think about new uses for tyvek and corks from wine bottles.

Inspiration

"It's just a 'thing,' as useless as a view from your window." - Maria Oldring

Isn't that just a great quote?

I surfed Maria's gallery and site this morning. By the time I was done surfing and had decided to use that quote, I was able to get the quote up correctly, but not go back to the site and get her name. Received a nasty-gram from Yahoo GeoCities that this site was temporarily unavailable because its data transfer limit had been exceeded. grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

It's ok though, I hate Yahell more than they hate me! LOL I do not, however, hold the record for depth of loathing and disdain of Yahoo. I believe that record is held by my friend, Al, a Mac user. It would seem that Yahoo is a most seriously Mac un-friendly realm; perhaps the most unfriendly save for Microsoft itself.

Maria is a bead artist and teacher. She lives in Moscow. I'll have to put a permalink up to her site once I am able to access it again. (I popped over there via an external link, so I don't have the addy in my browser, and for some reason, when I try and access the addy from the browsing history, I get the root directory.) Have I mentioned that Yahell and I hate each other?

~This public service rant has ceased, and we now return you to our regularly scheduled drivel.~

(I have learned that this site will not allow me to use code symbols to designate segues. Oh well.)

Isn't that just a superb quote, though? What is the value of a view from a window? What is the value of the perspective with which we view external things and events?

Just some things to ponder.