Tuesday, December 18, 2007

A gem...

Yesterday, I was poked, prodded, bled, stuck and processed.
I thought the hiring was tough at the last hospital I worked at.
Here, I had to give multiple forms of ID, proof I had actually graduated from an accredited college, and then sign my life away.
Then, after a physical, paper work and three nice people telling me "welcome" to the Hospital, I went to the basement.
Phlebotomy, the drawing of blood, has never bothered me. I do not like pain, but the stick of a needle is necessary, so I have never minded it. But to put it in the basement does not help the idea of bloodletting.
When I reveal to people that I am new to the area, they keep asking: "What do you think of New York?"
I have never been overly diplomatic, and I am told I have all the tact of black on white ( or white on black, what ever). But I am careful in my answer.
So the wonderful phlebotomist, a young, grey haired woman named L asked me what I thought of New Yorkers.
She was taking three large vials of my blood for titer tests or some such.
What I have found, I have stated before in previous posts.
She agreed with my findings and we talked a bit more.
She told me that people here do not look up or down but usually straight ahead. At this, she held up her gloved hands and put them around her eyes like goggles. She then confided that she takes her kids out into the yard, has them all lie on their backs and stare up at the sky. Her tone and word choices made me think that this is not all that common of an experience out this way.
How can you live in the Pacific NW and not look up at mountains, eagles, seagulls, crows, racing clouds, vintage airplanes, jet airliners whisking people off to adventures in a rumbling roar...
My comment to her, after making my usual disclaimer that I was not being offensive (look I am not intentionally offensive, just tactless and blunt) that New York, so far, did not appear to be a place for enlightened people.
I am not talking sitting cross legged at the top of a mountain as an aesthetic. I mean some one who has at least discerned that there is more to life than one foot in front of the other-keep-up-with-the-Joneses scurry through the maze rat lab.
She readily agreed.
I found her to be a jewel. A jewel is usually found among common dirt, gravel, rock and sediment. I found that to be an appropriate analogy here.
I am not calling the people that are in the rat maze dirt, not in the slightest. But I have moved my freaking cheese thousands of miles and started new with K and the animals. I am certainly not going to look only ahead, keeping up with the Joneses. I am going to look up down left right and side ways to find gems, jewels.

I signed up to take my license exam in January. I am so tired of taking the practice tests and seeing what I have forgotten and what they have changed in the last decade or so since I graduated.

Be well, my friends.
More when I take breaks and have a moment.

C

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Random Thoughts, again


A wiener in the snow!

The Golden One sitting on snow. OK, I know, she is weird.
Profile.
One short legged boy really wants to go inside.

A wink and a nod. She loves the snow!

More soon. As always.

C
More snow today that turned into a type of sleet. Interesting.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Oh the Weather Outside...

It is a great thing, learning the climate of a new zip code.
It is cold, not rising above 42 degrees for over a week.
It rains, it gets cold, the sun rises, the sun sets, damn early at that.
Leaves are every where. They were amazingly beautiful on the trees. Colors, the likes I have never seen wiggled in the wind, flew off limbs and carpeted the ground.
Now, it is a brown carpet of leaves. They get slick when the rain freezes. They harbor ticks, from what I have been told. Who cares, it is still great fun to kick through them and not have slugs on your socks.
I know the rest of the country is getting pounded hard. The NW got hammered, California got flooded, the mid west is iced out.

C got hired, per diem at the same hospital K works at. Now for the FSBPT license exam.
Christmas is approaching at a break-neck speed.
I hope you all can stay sane and put on the brakes a little bit. There is no reason to fly through a joyus time. Buck the trend, screw the machine and sit at home making great memories with family. Shun the mall, shop on-line in your pajamas and sipping hot coco.

More to come, as always.

C

Monday, December 3, 2007

Baby it is Colder out

I woke at about 7:30. There is a window, with the white lattice on the inside, that looks easterly. The sky was overcast and a bright grey. I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed. Staying up too late gets worse as the years roll along. I squared myself away and looked at the three lumps in the bed. K and the dachs were asleep and snuggled so well, I chose not to disturb them. the Golden Child was awake and wanted to go out.
Looking out that same window. It has a poor paint job that put small, unkempt paint streaks on the glass.
It is snowing.
I love snow. It goes way back to my child hood.
Puppette led me out to my coat and shoes.
I pulled on the thick fleece wind cutter and then crinkle swished the windbreaker rain shell over the top of that. A base ball cap went on my sleep tousled head and I slipped into cold Merrel mocs.
No sounds from the three lumps in slumber land so Puppette and I walked out on to the deck. Piles of leaves we have not bothered to sweep off the deck were crisp in the cold morning and it was so still. We walked... OK I walked, Puppette fairly gambolled into the front yard where the more energetic of us whirled and jumped and slid and rolled int he snow. I have more dignity than that.
I stood as still as the morning and closed my eyes. I wanted to smell the snow, smell the frozen leaves.
It was quiet enough, still enough,to hear the ice crystals of the very dry snow landing on the frozen leaves. It hit the dry leaves that have not let go of their trees for what ever reason.
Opening my eyes, snow, sticking and staying was all around me.

I spent 18 years in cold snowy winters, 18 years in wet, cold rarely snowy winters.
Now it is 3000 miles away but almost the same latitude as my boy hood home. It smells different. Not as clean, but with the musk of decaying wet leaves, wood smoke from over there, some where.

Puppette hit one patch and slid, losing all 4 feet and came to an undignified heap stop five feet farther uphill. She did not care, she shook off and ran even faster.
Where does one lose that devil may care attitude? When do you stop doing something not wanting to look foolish. Puppette could have cared less... she just wanted to run, play, be alive.
I found myself wishing for Dancer or Rudolph, the sled I grew up with. I know one of them is with my brother, his kids will ride them keeping them alive as they were for us, thrilled with the screams of a child, candle wax on the runners.

I wished for more snow and a sled. We do, after all, live on a big, long hill.
All day there was snow on the ground.
It rained hard and warmed up so the snow went away.
But it is early yet.
There will be more where that came from.
Next time, maybe I'll be the one who slides 5 feet uphill and stands up, shakes it off and runs some more.

C