Sunday, August 31, 2008

time in a bottle

It was very nice indeed to have the week off. My activities, in loose chronological order, were as follows:

First was the Marathon Sleeping, which was greatly needed.

Then came the Lolling About, which was also not to be missed.

After that was a a smidge of Self-Indulgence, followed by various and asundry Epicurean Delights.

Now I am dreading Week O' Work (having more or less cycled back to being a Marginally Functional Human Being During Daylight Hours).

Am also, somewhat randomly, contemplating
urban composting techniques, namely vermiculture/composting vs. Bokashi vs. the oxymoronic electronic composter.

The latter is shamelessly attractive in this Jetsons meets hippie love-child kind of way. (If you investigate the website, I will have you know I draw the line at composting Piper and Flip Flop's poo--at least as an indoor activity, although the Pet Friendly NatureMill assures me it is "ideal" for the waste products of "up to 2 large dogs, or 4 cats, rabbits, hamsters, snakes, ferrets, or other small animals," while cautioning me quite rightly, I think, that should equine poo-composting be for you, this is not the machine. I mean, thank goodness they made that clear. I'm also rather glad they added this helpful caveat: "Pet waste not recommended indoors."

I'm sorry. I can get down with worms hanging out under my kitchen sink happily and organically digesting yesterday's carrot tops--but I just can't see myself running home from a Piper-dog walk, all charged up about recycling his freshly-made turds.

Like, putting my dog's poo in a fancy, eco-friendly version of an compost-generating Easy Bake Oven is where I draw the line at crunchy granola, folks, sorry.

The vermiculture thing interests me from a "keep it fairly simple" perspective, and indeed, some of the information makes it seem like your average eight year old, with appropriate adult supervision, could keep one running. On the other hand--other websites I've perused in the last twelve hours makes me feel as if vermiculture is sort of composting's answer to gourmet baking--get one ingredient or variable out of wack, and you're doomed to micro-ecosystem failure. I mean, they have these Master Composters floating around, instructing people on the fine art of getting worms to do their stuff with your garbage. That's kind of hardcore and intimidating, in some ways. I mean, I'm new to this stuff, and I find out there's a league of Jedi Knight Mater Composters out there somewhere in Greater Seattle? Scary! And, I'm not sure I can be trusted, either, in my intermittently sleep deprived state, to keep up with the worm farm as I should.

The other option--Bokashi, basically works off the principal of pickling your waste--and has the added advantage that you can pickle not only fruits and veggies and paper, but alo meat and dairy products, a huge no-no in Old School Composting. It's got a self-contained, relatively small system, doesn't require the constant monitoring of a worm farm, and seems to keep the smell to a minimum. The drawback for someone living in an urban apartment or condo, is that one does not generally have a plot of land to then go and bury the results--which do not fully compost until that step is finished.

While I do have friends who would probably like the Bokashi almost-compost product, the problem is then getting it do them on a regular basis, as the system seems to cycle about every month or so.

And if my activities as of late (scouring the internet for interesting ways to help food rot!) aren't strange enough, I cooked this egg bake recipe this morning. I added potatos, a walla-walla onion and tomatos from Nancy's garden, and substituted sausage for bacon (and no, I don't have an alternate identity as a SAHM who cooks for her kids--I just happen to share my name with the owner of the blog.) It was spongy, and sort of like a poor man's quiche, but having never had the stuff before, I have no idea if I "did it right." I'm always vaguely suspicious of my cooking efforts, any way.

In fact, I'm very suspicious of just about anything I do these days that isn't involved with sleeping, or developing a plan to obtain still more sleep, as the neurons do not seem to be functioning optimally.

Be forewarned, folks, if I break out the crystals and a Dog Psychic in the next couple of weeks, please stage an intervention, STAT, okay?






Sunday, August 24, 2008

psycho killer. qu'est-ce que c'est?

I figured out my life is basically about two things lately: terror, and trying to get enough sleep to survive the terror for one more shift.

Terror = work. As documented elsewhere, work is really scary. And, as fun and smart as the people who I work with are, they are also extremely intimidating. It's like working with the Green Berets of nurses, or the Marines. These nurses are hardcore, and if you're new, you're likely to be fodder for a lot of disdain, both explicitly expressed and implied.

It's hard to go from feeling competent and secure in your job skills to feeling like you just stepped off the S.S. Clueless (or onto it, or something). Plus, did I mention the terror of crashing patients, and the chilling numbness that descends after each death? While it doesn't happen every shift, it's happened enough in the last sixth months that I've sort of stopped counting how many deaths I've witnessed at work. It gets depressing, and the fact that you start shutting down over other people's untimely demise is, I think, probably not particularly healthy.

Plus--I'm no fan of trauma, as a speciality. No pun in tended--but my heart longs to get back to cardiac nursing.

Working day shift, ever elusive, might help some of the brain freeze I'm experiencing as well. As the weeks wear on, my sleeping pattern gets more and more erratic, and my waking hours--daylight or nocturnal--are infused with a sense of exhaustion which precludes any meaningful functionality, intellectually, and sometimes, emotionally. I feel drained and slightly low-grade unwell, constantly.

Night shift is fucking with me, in other words.






Monday, August 11, 2008

double your fun

Last night at work we had nearly two simultaneous codes going on--both crashing trauma OR patients who didn't make it.

The code I worked was the result of a fairly young guy chasing after his dog across a street and getting smacked by a car. Dubious silver lining: the dog is fine. I sternly informed Piper this morning that if he runs out in traffic somehow, dog, you's on yo' own.

The patient's tragedy did, however, remind me to change Piper's address-of-record on his microchip, and city dog license. When I called the microchip company, however, they were trying to sell me on paying for the microchip service, and making it seem like I needed to, because their old service was obsolete.

Smelling a rat, I steadfastly probed and poked holes into this story, and flatly refused to pay fifteen bucks a year for services I don't need. I pointed out I had paid to microchip the dog back in 2003, and I wasn't about to pay again for random "services" that are basically covered by his Seattle dog license and basic, "free" microchip non-annual fee.

I mean, the whole point of the microchip is that if your dog is found, sans collar, by a vet's office or a shelter, they can wave their magic microchip wand, contact the pet service, who will then call you. And any way, if some non-magic-microchip-wand owning person finds your collarless dog, they'd probably bring it to a shelter any way, right?

The guy pointed out if the dog was wearing his collar, with the microchip tag on it, that if someone found him cum collar, and called the Home Again number, that the company "would not be able to release any contact information" to that person.

Personally, I'm not convinced I'd want my contact information to be released to a stranger who might then come over and kill me and my little dog, too.

Plus, in a time of economic downturn, people get a little incensed when forced to pay for mysterious 'services' that defeat the entire purpose of having bought or invested good money a thing in the first place.

It sort of feels like having to buy and install digital cable in order to get any t.v. reception at all, doesn't it? Or having to install that box-thing (I'm very high-tech, you know, with my electronics jargon) and then pay more money per month to get the high-definition to work on your high-definition capable t.v.?

(Incidentally, what was wrong with regular old t.v.? Maybe I'm getting blind in my old age, but I don't really see much of a difference between HD t.v. and non-HD t.v. images unless you have a trillion-dollar t.v. set, and if you had a trillion-dollars to spent on a friggin' television, you'd probably be out buying other planets for sale in the universe or actually running your little Evil Empire off of the backs of the rest of us working slobs, not watching On the Record with Greta Van Susteren and counting her chin hairs.)

Any way, this is not to say I don't love Piper and wouldn't spend the money on him if I thought it was necessary. I mean, obviously, I thought it was necessary to microchip him because I love him (except perhaps not enough to want to take a car vs. ped accident for him).

In conclusion: I'm not a heartless cheap-ass who wouldn't care if Piper got lost, I just don't think it's necessary for me to lose a dog and get ripped off, is all I'm saying.


Friday, August 08, 2008

blue's clues

I'm really sad today.

Mom visited for six fun-filled days (okay, some days were filled with multiple trips to home improvement stores and painting 8 hours a day) and left yesterday, which always leaves me feeling a little verklempt, especially since she lives on the opposite side of the continent, a fact she keeps pointing out all "hint hint, move back, my offspring" sort of way.

Plus, mousie was put to sleep today, and I am still rather ridiculously weepy about this, considering my entire repertoire of interactions with her over the span of her two years on the planet was chasing her out around and scooping her out of tank with a cardboard tube on Cage Cleaning Day, as she detested and feared being handled at all.

And, I don't think it helps I'm going back to work today. We moved to the Shiny Brand New Unit while I was off , feverishly comparing paint samples and swaths of fabric as if I'd entered some Designing With The Stars contest. This means while I got to escape the Yuck Factor of the merge, I now have to go in and try to find where they put the twomey syringes and 2X2 gauzes and stuff that's not likely to be where it was before, considering we're in a new building.

Since we merged with another unit, I'm also going to have to figure out More People, And Who They Are And Of What Use They Are To Me.

So, what little comfort zone I'd eked out on SICU has been ripped away, and I'm feeling very much wrong-footed and whiny about the whole thing, as in, "Why can't everything just stay the same for like five minutes, so I don't have to keep taking notes on where to find the staff bathroom or where we keep the linen cart, for Chrissake?!"

Plus, I still fear work, especially after a comfy stretch of days off, hanging out at home painting my apartment with mom and feeling all happy not to be at work being scared shitless by some crumping patient or other.

I also really haven't slept at all properly the entire week, and didn't get in any marathon sleeping ventures prior to this start of the work week (the weekend, for me) due to Mouse Crisis 2008. So, I'm tired and was tempted to call out and sleep, but then wussed out, as I felt it would be difficult to justify a call-out related to mouse grief later on in say, winter, when I'm hacking up a spare lung during a real illness.

Maybe it's better I have to go to work and be forced to interact with people today, however, since I'm kind of morose and depressed about having to put the mouse to sleep, etc.

Oh well. There's always time for sleep. Tomorrow.


mostly martha

There is tons new to tell you. Tons, I say.

But, this post will be brief and, as the title suggests, mostly about Martha, my late pet mousie.

She was blonde, svelte and a bit bitchy at times, and her two favorite subjects in life were food and nesting--so I named her after that Maven of Most Meticulous Homemaking, Evah, Martha Stewart. But, I called her Martha for short (and sometimes, perhaps uncharitably in light of her recent passing, "the Fat One").

She lived a good old life, eating roughly twice her body mass in cheerios and Life cereal per day, and creating all sorts of Interesting Nesting Textiles with various bits of kleenex and fluff. In fact, if she would have had opposable thumbs on her paws, and itty-bitty knitting needles, she would have probably out-home-afghaned even yours truly.

Unfortunately, due to some Moste Mysterious Mouse Malady, Miss Martha ended up turning her meticulous attention to detail upon herself, and was grooming herself into nonexistence.

Not a pretty thing to watch, so I chose to let her go quietly, into that great mouse house in the sky, with the aid of some very nice ladies down at the veterinarian's office (not to mention a happy overdose of anesthetic gas and a liberal dose of phenobarbital).

Goodbye Miss Martha, we will miss you and I will always think fondly of your determination to make a tuft of kleenex and a roll of cardboard tubing a proper mouse residence, not to mention your amazing ability to eat your entire weight worth of whatever oat-based cereal was on hand at the time.